After Saturday’s 27-16 win over Troy at Death Valley, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney explained why backup quarterback Christopher Vizzina came into the game in the first half.

Vizzina replaced starter Cade Klubnik and entered the contest for a quarterback power play late in the first quarter.

“We wanted to get him in the game early in a critical situation,” Swinney said during his postgame press conference. “That was really kind of what we wanted to do with him.”

With Clemson trailing 7-0, Vizzina came in on third-and-2 from the Troy 22-yard line and was stopped for no gain on a run to the left side with less than a minute left in the first quarter.

After a Troy timeout, the Tigers went for it on fourth-and-2. Clemson running back Adam Randall picked up the first down with a 7-yard run, but fumbled, and it was recovered and returned 53 yards to the Tigers’ 32-yard line by the Trojans. That led to a field goal that put Troy up 10-0 early in the second quarter.

“We just missed the block there,” Swinney said of Vizzina’s run. “And then the next play, we got the first down and we fumbled it.”

Saturday marked the season debut for Vizzina, a redshirt sophomore. The 6-foot-4, 210-pounder entered this season having completed 19-of-34 passes for 190 yards and having rushed 13 times for 68 yards and a touchdown over 94 career snaps in nine games from 2023-24.

Before enrolling at Clemson in January 2023, Vizzina was ranked among the nation’s top prospects in the 2023 recruiting class. The high four-star had more than 30 offers, including from some of the best football programs in the country.

Vizzina passed for 7,220 yards and had 59 touchdown passes in his prep career in Alabama. He also scored 29 rushing touchdowns, giving him 88 combined touchdowns rushing and passing for his career.