Christopher Vizzina kept coming back to Clemson.
The four-star quarterback out of Briarwood Christian (Birmingham, Ala.) verbally pledged to Clemson on Tuesday afternoon over schools like Notre Dame, Ole Miss, Auburn, Ohio State and Georgia.
“It really came down to I went across the country, I went to so many different places and normally a guy from Alabama kind of stays South, doesn’t visit the North and I mean, I went everywhere,” Vizzina told The Clemson Insider in an exclusive interview. “And I just kept coming back to Clemson and I kept realizing there’s nowhere else like Clemson.
“I was sold on that. I’ve been building these relationships with the coaches forever now. I mean really a couple of years. It was really a no-brainer.”
Vizzina pretty much decided on Monday night, following a spring practice visit, that committing to Clemson was what he wanted to do. He was ready to commit on Monday and he was under the impression that Clemson coach Dabo Swinney thought he was going to also.
Walking out of the facility, Brandon Streeter walked Vizzina and his parents to his car. He really just wanted to tell his future offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach that he was coming to Clemson.
However, before Vizzina made any college decision, he knew that he needed to talk with his coaches at Briarwood first.
That’s why Vizzina silently made his way to Clemson for the team’s Orange & White Spring Game on Saturday, April 9, at Memorial Stadium and silently committed in the presence of Swinney and Streeter.
“I think they knew it was coming because it’s kind of rare for somebody to come back in less than a week, but Coach Swinney was really excited and Coach Streeter was too,” Vizzina said. “I think this is the longest they’ve waited on one quarterback. I’m not sure that’s 100% correct, but that’s what I’ve been hearing.
“I think they just really believe me and what I can do. I think they truly believe that I’m the top quarterback in the country and they stuck to that and they’ve just continued recruiting me really hard. At one point, I really thought about it and I was like, to be the only person that Clemson is recruiting at quarterback and really their only offer, I didn’t want anyone else to have a Clemson offer.”
Prior to Nov. 20 of last year, Isidore Newman School’s (New Orleans) five-star Arch Manning was the only quarterback in the class of 2023 to have a Clemson offer. While Manning visited for Clemson’s 30-20 win over Florida State less than a month before, mutual interest between the two sides had since waned and Vizzina quickly and not so quietly became Clemson’s main and only focus.
This is a full-circle moment for Vizzina, who went toe-to-toe with Manning in a “throw-off” in the final session of that day’s Swinney Camp. It was that moment when he realized he belonged and showed Clemson that he could be one of the top quarterbacks in his class.
“What’s gonna be pretty cool is my official visit (June 3-5) will be on the same date as that day at camp,” he said. “Since that day, just the things that have happened and the journey, I wasn’t really that known going into that, but now it’s the complete opposite. Just to see the relationships build off of that has been amazing.”
In the NIL era, what was it about Clemson that Vizzina couldn’t say no to?
“I feel like you hear all the top prospects talk about it, but it really, truly is the culture,” Vizzina said. “There’s no place that does it the same way. People can fake it and you can build the nicest facilities, at the end of the day, that stuff doesn’t really matter. I mean, you want to be happy where you’re at and I know I’m gonna be happy there. I understand their values and my values match their values. Like I said before, my faith is huge to me and I feel like I can really grow in my faith at Clemson with the people around me.
“I know Coach Swinney is gonna protect the culture and he’s only gonna bring in people that are gonna help each other grow and develop. Just the opportunity and that, just to grow and develop on and off the field with the best coaches in the country, I don’t feel like there’s anywhere else in the country that I can do that.”
Clemson has always been the leader in Vizzina’s recruitment, but that didn’t stop Notre Dame from making a major push. Vizzina feels like they kind of fell off, once they realized that he was getting close to Clemson, which happened to be around the same time that Ole Miss came in and coach Lane Kiffin started to recruit him really hard.
Ohio State and Georgia each made a push to land his commitment, but Vizzina felt like the relationships there was just built a little too late.
There was a really cool moment that happened when Vizzina committed to Clemson Saturday. When Vizzina was in sixth grade, his father somehow got Swinney to sign a football for him. Clemson’s head coach signed that same football once Vizzina told him his intentions.
“It meant the world to me because I never met him, but everybody in Alabama was talking about him all the time,” Vizzina said. “I never met him until the football camp this past summer. I took the football (Saturday) and he signed it for me again, but this time he wrote the date and it says, ‘Let’s go. All in for life.’ That meant a lot to me. That’s kind of a symbol of my journey, just being a normal fan as a kid, but I really worked hard and now I’m gonna be a Tiger.”
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