Prior to Briarwood Christian (Ala.) four-star quarterback Christopher Vizzina verbally pledging to Clemson Tuesday, The Clemson Insider spoke with his head coach Matthew Forester.
Vizzina will be the third player that Forester sends to play for Clemson coach Dabo Swinney. Redshirt sophomore offensive lineman Trent Howard played under Forester at Briarwood, as did senior safety Carson Donnelly. Forester didn’t take over as head coach until 2018, but he spent the previous eight years as the program’s defensive coordinator.
“I’m incredibly excited for him,” Forester said regarding Vizzina’s commitment to Clemson. “I think what Coach Swinney’s built is incredibly special and for him to be a quarterback that gets to go and play there is an incredibly high honor. I think he’s earned that and I think that they got faith in him that he can succeed and do well. I’m just ecstatic to watch what unfolds after he finishes his senior year of high school.”
Vizzina wanted to commit to Clemson after his unofficial visit for spring practice on Monday, April 4. Though, he didn’t feel like it would be fair to his coaches at Briarwood for him to do so.
“We have a great relationship,” Forester said. “I think we’ve pro and conned this thing, and talked a lot about it throughout the year. It wasn’t a one-time conversation we had. I think one of the things Christopher’s always said and I appreciate it, is he wanted to make sure he told his high school coaches first before he talked to anybody. He wasn’t going to commit on campus without talking to us.
“He’s been all over the country. He’s got to see so many incredible football programs and we’ve talked a lot about that. We’ve done a lot of this discussion and I think he knew that he had narrowed it down. I think he made a great choice. He didn’t have a bad choice in front of him, but I think he made a choice that’s right for him and I’m incredibly excited for him.”
Forester agrees with the assessment that Clemson is a good fit for Vizzina and Vizzina is a good fit for Clemson.
“I had the pleasure this spring and just watching spring ball and just listening in their meetings and what Coach Swinney and his coaches say,” Forester said. “It’s what we preach at Briarwood. It’s how (Vizzina) was raised by his parents. I think he’s going from one program that has helped elevate him and he’s gonna go to another program that’s gonna continue to elevate him, not only as the best player but as the best person he can be.”
Tempo has been a focal point for Clemson’s offense this spring, as offensive coordinator, Brandon Streeter works on adding his own twist to a system that’s being tweaked rather than overhauled.
“It’s something that we already incorporate,” he said when asked about Vizzina’s comfortability running tempo. “We try and do a great job of just controlling the game from an offensive perspective, so we want to control the flow of the game. We do that in certain times more so than others. There’s some gameplans where you gotta slow it down, get your defense off the field, and then there’s other games where we go as fast as we can. I think it’s something he’s comfortable with. I think he’ll get more comfortable with it as he goes to the next level. That’s something that I’m excited to see. I think a lot of what they do is very similar to what we do, so I think it’s a good fit for him.”
Vizzina has gone up against some of the best competition in the country playing his high school games in the state of Alabama and he’s done so since he was 14-years-old.
“It’s pretty remarkable the fact that he won 20 high school football games before he could drive home by himself during his freshman and sophomore year,” Forester said. “He’s been in big-time games against No. 1 teams in the state, where he’s won the games, he’s played in just this big-time environment in the state of Alabama. I don’t really feel like there will be a moment that will be too big for him. It’s a part of his makeup and his character. I expect nothing less when he goes to the next level.”
Tuesday will be a full-circle moment for Vizzina, which his head coach believes has been a very cool thing to see it through.
Forester knew that Clemson checked all the boxes for him from the get-go. Vizzina wanted to go somewhere that was gonna develop him as a whole person, that was going to prepare him for the next level and that was going to be in the national championship hunt year in and year out.
“I think you’re about to spend the next four years of your life away from your home and you want to know the people that you’re gonna be working with,” Forester said, ” The great consistency that Clemson has demonstrated just in their coaches and while this is a time of change, it’s elevating from within, it’s people that are familiar with the program. Ultimately, it’s about relationships and the fact that they had those long-standing relationships, I think was a really key thing because you can’t fake this kind of stuff. I think they did a great job of being genuine, being upfront, being honest with him, and those things helped in this whole process.
There were other schools that Vizzina was really, really interested in, but he always kept coming back to Clemson, a school that checked every single one of his boxes.
“I think it’s really neat,” Forester said. “The fact that he got to go there, he got to compete against the nation’s top quarterbacks (Arch Manning) in the ’23 class at Clemson last June and now it’s kind of full circle. In a lot of ways, it’s full circle because they’re the first ones that called me during quarantine about a skinny freshman and now it’s actually coming to fruition. At the same time during his first week of camp, he goes to Clemson and he has just an amazing camp and they showed great interest in him from that point on.
“I think it’s been really neat how it’s all worked together. The lord’s been gracious to him, to put him in the right situation. You can just see the lord’s hand at work in all of these things.”
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