BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Clemson’s five-star quarterback commit did it again.
Christopher Vizzina accounted for more than 300 total yards and four total touchdowns in Briarwood Christain School’s 36-29 victory over Chilton County (Clanton, Ala.) on Friday.
“It was similar to last week, but we didn’t really want that,” Vizzina told The Clemson Insider in an exclusive interview following Friday night’s game. “We started off really slow offensively, picked it up. Defense, same thing. After halftime, we really settled down — decided that we were actually gonna win it. That’s how it went. I’m proud of our team. I’m proud of everybody. It took a lot of guts to pull that out.”
That it did.
And for the second consecutive week, Vizzina led Briarwood to another come-from-behind victory. The Lions trailed 14-0 after the first quarter and then trailed 29-28 with one minute and 21 seconds remaining.
The moment never proved to be too big for Vizzina.
He stayed calm, cool and collected, just as he did the week before.
“I would just say it being my senior year,” Vizzina said when asked where that poise comes from. “I’ve been through a lot of different games, a lot of different situations. It doesn’t get more chaotic than that. After doing that a couple of times, it’s like man, I’ve done this before, we can do this.”
It started at halftime. Tied at 14, Vizzina told his team that it was a similar situation to last week and that they could go out for the next 24 minutes and win it right here and there. The game was for the taking.
“We were playing hard before the end of the first half,” he said. “It kind of carried over and we punched them in the mouth in the second half.”
Vizzina finished Friday’s contest 13-of-27 passing for 223 yards with two touchdown passes and two interceptions, while also rushing 13 times for 110 yards and two more scores on the ground.
His ability to tuck the ball and run on some designed plays was the difference.
“I kind of go into (the game) expecting to run a lot,” Vizzina said. “I love doing that too. I like to throw first, obviously, it’s my favorite thing to do, but I like to run too.”
He’ll surely be hearing from his future head coach, Dabo Swinney, just as he did last week. Last Saturday morning, he woke up to a text from Swinney, who had sent him the video of his walk-off touchdown against Spain Park.
Swinney was showing off Vizzina to all his Birmingham folks, but with Briarwood set to take on Pelham High School — Swinney’s alma-mater next Friday — we’ll see if that same sentiment remains.
“We’re texting all the time, always talking to Coach Swinney,” Vizzina said. “That’s one thing that I could say and all the rest of the commits is just because we’re committed doesn’t mean they stop recruiting us. They would recruit us, I would say even harder. They recruit us because we fit them and they fit us. They still recruit us super hard and I don’t see anybody decommitting.”
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