CLEMSON — When Chris Denson came into the Furman game in Clemson’s last home game last fall, the fans were amazed at what they saw.

The freshman quarterback looked like Clemson great Woodrow Dantzler. An electric dual-threat quarterback from Plant City, Fla., who instantly breathed life into a Clemson offense that was not playing well at the time.

Denson entered the game in the fourth quarter, and on his second carry he broke off a 50-yard run — Clemson’s longest of the season. Two plays later, he threw his first career touchdown on a 4-yard pass to tight end Logan Brooking.

He continued to shine on Clemson’s next drive, adding the first rushing touchdown of his career with a 10-yard run. Overall, Denson rushed six times for a team-high 106 yards and completed all four of his passes for 22 yards, while accounting for his two total touchdowns.

It was a “Wow!” performance.

But that was in November when he was the third-team quarterback and had nothing to lose. These days, Denson is battling Christopher Vizzina for the Tigers’ starting job, and head coach Dabo Swinney is anxious to see if his young quarterback takes the next step in his progression.

“You just can’t be an athlete back there. You just can’t be in there running around,” Swinney said. “His next step…okay now you are with the ones and the twos. It is throwing on time with those types of throws. The precision and all of that for him. He has not really had that opportunity, yet.

“They will all get those opportunities this spring.”

Besides Denson and Vizzina, the Tigers will have three other quarterbacks vying for the same opportunities this spring in Trent Pearman, Tait Reynolds and Brock Bradley.

“I think we have a very dynamic, athletic group. It is a really good room,” Swinney said. “We have five guys that I believe can play quarterback at this level. We have five. We have not always had that.”

Swinney joked that the overall depth of this year’s quarterback room is better than the 2018 National Championship team, which featured 2021 No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence.

The Tigers started that year with Lawrence and ACC Champion Kelly Bryant fighting for the starting job. But after Lawrence won the job following a Week 4 performance at Georgia Tech, Kelly quit the team, leaving them with just Lawrence and Chase Brice as the only scholarship quarterbacks on the roster.

Swinney joked about how they had to make wide receiver Hunter Renfrow the third string quarterback and punter Will Spiers the fourth string guy.

That does not seem to be the case this year, at least not at the moment.

“This room, it is going to be really competitive. These are all confident guys that have similar skill sets in some ways and very different in some ways,” Swinney said.

Clemson will conclude spring drills through the end of March.