Three years of waiting, one start to show for it
Dabo Swinney confirmed on Tuesday that Christopher Vizzina will start at quarterback for Clemson on Saturday at No. 11 LSU. The fourth-year junior has appeared in 14 games across his Clemson career and started exactly one of them.
That single start came against SMU last season, and it was a good one: 29 completions on 42 attempts for 317 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions. The rest of his career amounts to mop-up work. His full college ledger reads 64-of-105 for 596 yards, four scores and one interception, which means more than half his career passing yardage arrived in that one afternoon.
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The margin was thin
Vizzina spent three seasons behind Cade Klubnik, who left for the NFL after 2025 and has since won the New York Jets’ backup job behind Geno Smith. He entered fall camp as the favourite and held off true freshman Tait Reynolds, though Swinney was careful not to oversell the gap.
“CV is just a little ahead,” Swinney said. “He’s not a mile ahead, but he’s ahead.”
Reynolds will “likely” play in Baton Rouge, according to his coach, and Swinney pushed back on the idea that the freshman is being kept around for a wildcat package or a handful of designed runs. “Both guys can run the Clemson offense and both will be ready to play,” he said. Read that as a two-quarterback week rather than a settled depth chart.
The number Clemson is trying to bury
Clemson finished 7-6 in 2025. To find a worse season you have to go back to 2010, Swinney’s second full year in charge, when the Tigers went 6-7. Sixteen seasons of building a programme, and last year was the closest it has come to unravelling.
The schedule offers no soft landing. LSU is ranked 11th, the game is on the road, and Lane Kiffin will be coaching his first game for the Tigers. Two teams open with unfamiliar figures in charge of the offence, and one of them is asking a quarterback with one career start to solve Death Valley on a Saturday night.
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