Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney hopes to see competition at the quarterback position during spring practice.

Cade Klubnik remains the Tigers’ starter, and they have plenty of faith in the rising junior, but Swinney wants to see redshirt freshman Christopher Vizzina show continued growth this spring.

“This is a big spring. So yeah, I’d love to see some competition. Absolutely. You want to see everybody go out there and compete,” Swinney said Wednesday afternoon as Clemson kicked off spring practice.

“But the big thing is, is by the end of spring, man, it’s his job, CV (Vizzina), to prove to us that he can win for us, that he can compete with Cade, he can win games for Clemson. We need that from him.”

Vizzina, a former top-50 national prospect, enrolled at Clemson in January 2023 and played only nine snaps while redshirting last season.

As Swinney noted, Vizzina didn’t get many practice reps either behind Klubnik, Hunter Helms (who transferred to Rhode Island this offseason) and Paul Tyson (Clemson’s third-string QB last season who is now a student coach and emergency fourth-string QB).

“We signed him with the intention of redshirting him,” Swinney said of Vizzina. “That was part of what we sold him in the recruiting process – hey, we’re going to redshirt you, Cade’s going to be a junior, you’ll be a redshirt freshman. He was only 17 years old, so he kind of bought into that plan, and then he got some reps. You get into camp, we’re going to rep three quarterbacks – you’ve got Cade, you’ve got Helms, you’ve got Paul – you’re trying to get ready to play.

“So, he (Vizzina) didn’t get a lot of reps. He got mostly mental reps. That’s why I was really excited about what I was able to see in December. I was able to see him really show some development.”

Now, Vizzina will get the second-team reps this spring behind Klubnik, with redshirt sophomore Trent Pearman taking the third-team reps.

“We like our three guys,” Swinney said. “So, this is a big spring for CV because now he’s going to get all those two reps and he’s going to be able to put all that mental work that he got in the fall with the physical work, and hopefully we’ll like the result.”

Swinney made it clear that Klubnik is Clemson’s QB1 while saying the Tigers are excited about Vizzina, who threw for 7,220 yards and had 59 touchdown passes during his prep career in Alabama, to go with 29 rushing touchdowns.

Swinney says the Tigers need to see Vizzina take another step forward in spring practice.

“Right now going into it, we’re excited about him, but I need to see it,” Swinney said. “There’s no question about who our quarterback is or anything like that. We’re all in with Cade Klubnik. But I would love to see CV, by the end of spring, everybody go, ‘OK, yes sir, that’s what we recruited, that’s what we expected to see at this point.’ So, it’s on him to go do that.”

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