As Clemson hosted its annual Elite Junior Day this weekend, there was only one quarterback prospect on campus.
By now we know that it was Briarwood Christain (Birmingham, Ala.) four-star Christopher Vizzina, who has emerged as one of Clemson’s top targets in the 2023 recruiting class. It’s why he was on campus this weekend.
Vizzina was blown away by his latest visit to The Valley and detailed his experience in an exclusive interview with The Clemson Insider Sunday evening.
“It was awesome, I got to do so much stuff,” he said. “The one thing is, most of these places I’ve gone to, obviously, they tell me everything I want to hear, but Clemson really showed me the actual university. I don’t really get to see the actual campuses at these other schools. If I go to the university, I want to see what it looks like. That was a pretty memorable part of it.”
On Sunday morning, Clemson director of recruiting Jordan Sorrells, and offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter took Vizzina to the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business School.
“The business school was amazing,” Vizzina said. “It was really cool. I’ve honestly never been in any college classes or anything like that. That was my first time. It was brand new, so I know it’s top-notch and everything like that.”
Vizzina also spent a lot of one-on-one time with Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney. He went to his house and the two played basketball for a couple of years. Swinney also walked with Vizzina and his family through the facilities during his tour.
“That was pretty special because he actually spent actual time with me,” Vizzina said. “Not many head coaches will really walk around and talk with you that much.”
Vizzina got to see all the coaches that have been recruiting him, but this weekend allowed for him to get closer with Streeter.
Streeter sat him down and showed him plays, like how Clemson’s offense will relate to an NFL offense. Some people have told Vizzina that the Clemson offense won’t prepare him for the NFL, so he asked Streeter to show him some ways that it would prepare him for the NFL. The Tigers’ offensive coordinator obliged and came up with some videos to show him.
This visit “absolutely” exceeded Vizzina’s expectations. What he was looking for out of this visit was getting to spend time with the coaches and actually learning about the university.
“Which, they did a really great job of,” he said. “I got to see everything I wanted to see and they answered all my questions I had. It was very successful. They had it really well planned out.”
For Vizzina, it was a lot of fun to see all of the top recruits in the class of 2023 on Clemson’s campus. There weren’t that many players there, to begin with, so Vizzina was able to look around and put names to faces of some high-character prospects.
According to Vizzina, every time he sees Swinney, Clemson’s head coach reminds him that he’s one of two kids in the whole world that has a Clemson offer. By that he means quarterback prospects as the Tigers have only offered two juniors, Vizizna included. They also don’t offer sophomores or freshmen.
The other, of course, is Isidore Newman (New Orleans, LA.) 2023 five-star quarterback Arch Manning, who was not on campus this weekend. Vizzina and Manning competed at the Dabo Swinney Camp this past summer and while he was already on Clemson’s radar, he showed he could compete at a high level.
Nearly seven months later, he’s one of the most highly-touted quarterback prospects in the country.
“He made that known too when he was giving his speech too,” Vizzina said. “He was going through who they were going to take, like how many people he wants to take in the 2023 class. He was like, ‘There’s only one quarterback here today, so I think that should speak a lot of things to everybody.’”
Swinney gave him a nice little shout-out during a speech that lasted over two hours, which, according to Vizzina, laid out the program.
“They’ve told me I’m their guy,” Vizzina added. “I’ve known that since they offered me. That’s what they told me. I mean, honestly, it feels really good to know how much a Clemson offer means.”
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