If you judge Christopher Vizzina’s first outing of the season by the box score, you aren’t necessarily doing the five-star quarterback justice.
He went 15-of-25 for 97 yards with no interceptions in a 48-0 loss and while it might’ve not been the start to the season that the Clemson commit wanted, his head coach didn’t see it like that.
“They had a smothering defense,” Briarwood Christian School head coach Matthew Forester told The Clemson Insider in a phone interview Tuesday. “They did a really good job of locking down our receivers. The few holes that were there, he found. The few times he had in the pocket, he sat in the pocket and he found the opening. He was accurate. We had three or four dropped balls on the night. I mean, he was very accurate, it’s just receivers dropped balls…He did a good job. He did his part distributing the ball, making the right reads and there was growth in it.”
Keep in mind, that Vizzina was one of three players on offense that had played meaningful minutes the season before. Clay-Chalkville came into last Friday’s matchup as the reigning 6A state champs with top junior prospects like four-star cornerback Jaylen Mwbake, four-star wide receiver Mario Craver, four-star offensive JacQwan McCroy and four-star quarterback Kamari McClellan.
“We just had to grow as a team,” Forester said. “It’s what we needed to do. We played a really hard team because we want to have a long run in the playoffs. We’re gonna improve and get better. We’ll be fine later on. We just ran into a really good team on Friday night.”
Forester said that not only will his team be fine, but so will Vizzina. According to his head coach, the big-time quarterback prospect had a good attitude after the game.
“The big thing is, around here we got the long-term goals in mind for this season — it’s the state championship. It’s playing in the playoffs,” Forester said. “The idea that we’ll go in and we’ll come back. We’ll get back to work. We’ll get better. We’ll improve. But, at the same time, you’re a leader on the team, and he does a good job because he’s not self-focused, he’s a team-focused person. It’s encouraging, it’s lifting up, it’s continuing to push the guys to be the best that they can be. We got to get players to rise to his level, to play at his level. And they will and he’ll be part of a process that helps that by being a good leader.”
If Friday night’s game was any indication, then Forester may be on to something. Briarwood won its first game of the season over Spain Park thanks to Vizzina’s heroics. Down 21-17 with under a minute remaining, the senior quarterback led the Lions down the field for a game-winning drive.
His last-second eight-yard touchdown pass sealed a 23-21 win.
“He hates losing like all of us do, but at the same time,” Forester continued, “he knows we’re gonna get better and it’s gonna be a special season.”
Vizzina finished with 358 total yards from scrimmage. He scored three total touchdowns, going 22-of-32 passing with 260 passing yards and another 98 yards on the ground.
With that said, did Forester have any goals for the five-star quarterback before he heads off to Clemson in January?
“I think always your goal is you come in and you’re finally a senior — it’s finally where the leadership squarely falls on your shoulders,” he said. “Being a quarterback, it’s a little bit different, but now, you’re the quarterback that’s started for four years. You’re the guy. He and his fellow seniors are just developing in leadership. I mean, all of them are gonna use this for the rest of their lives, learning to be the person that everybody looks to. And while he might’ve had that earlier in his career than most, it’s finally there’s nobody else to look to.
“And then for him, it’s not just understanding the offense, it’s total mastery of the offense. Like getting down and understanding every part…it’s feeling comfortable in the entire offense. Those are just the mental aspects, where it’s leadership, it’s mastery of the playbook. He knows it incredibly well, but it’s even the fine-tuning, even the stuff we’re adding. We want to continue to grow in that because we could all learn more. His game’s really good.”
From this point last season, Forester said that the biggest difference in Vizzina is that he’s gotten bigger, stronger and faster. His arm has even more zip and more pop on it.
It’s the natural maturation of a high school kid that’s 17 years old and entering his senior season.
“He’s still growing. He’s still developing,” Forester said. “He’s continued to work hard in the offseason at being a quarterback. He’s fine-tuned his mechanics — he’s worked hard on those. He’s gotten into a really good spot where mechanically he’s doing a great job. Those are the small things that he works on when nobody else is around. He’s constantly trying to fix those and tweak and improve his mechanics, which he’s done. It’s just fun to watch somebody whose 6-4, 210-pounds play quarterback and can run.”
Vizzina, who started ever since he was a freshman at Briarwood, is the only quarterback that Forester has had. The Lions’ offense has grown around him. Each year he’s grown, they’ve added things to the offense and tweaked some things to fit Vizzina’s skill set.
“It’s a really neat experience to say that this offense, really in a lot of ways, is custom-made for him, because when I started, we started from the ground up,” Forester said. “We started from what he was good at and we kept evolving, finding out what those strengths are, growing those strengths. It’s been a really neat process to walk through because our offense has been built around him…For us, it’s been a really neat experience. We’ve added stuff — it’s because of his talent that we’re adding it because it works with his skill set. It’s been an enjoyable experience.”
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