CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) — Freshman Tait Reynolds replaced an injured Christopher Vizzina at quarterback and threw for 178 yards and led five scoring drives as Clemson defeated Georgia Southern 22-7 on Saturday night following a two-hour lightning delay.
T.J. Moore had seven catches for 103 yards and a touchdown and Nolan Hauser was 5 for 5 on field goal attempts for Clemson (1-1), which rebounded from a 51-10 thrashing at the hands of No. 11 LSU last week.
That loss, combined with a seventh place finish in the ACC last year, left fans and former players frustrated with the Tigers' sharp falloff under longtime head coach Dabo Swinney. Clemson's win likely did little to inspire much confidence in new coordinator Chad Morris' offense.
The Tigers (1-1), who were outgained by nearly 500 yards by LSU, finished with 345 yards but were 2 of 13 on third down conversions and managed just one touchdown on five trips inside the red zone against the Sun Belt Conference foe.
Max Johnson, a North Carolina transfer, finished 27-of-47 passing for 244 yards and a touchdown for Georgia Southern (1-1).

#last

Clemson did not find many answers offensively Saturday night, but the Tigers found enough to escape Memorial Stadium with their first victory of the season.
Freshman quarterback Tait Reynolds was forced into action after Christopher Vizzina suffered a left arm injury, while kicker Nolan Hauser provided most of Clemson's scoring in a 22-7 victory over Georgia Southern.
Hauser tied his career high by connecting on five field goals, hitting from 20, 34, 38, 50 and 49 yards. He improved to 6-for-6 this season and matched the five field goals he made against Florida State in 2024.
Reynolds settled in after replacing Vizzina, completing 16 of 27 passes for 178 yards while adding 36 rushing yards. He was especially effective before halftime, going 12-for-17 for 160 yards.
One of his biggest plays came on third-and-20 late in the second quarter when he found Tyler Brown for 20 yards. Reynolds then scrambled 16 yards to help set up a Hauser field goal that sent Clemson into halftime leading 16-7.

#yards #hauser #five

To say that Clemson's offense was terrible against LSU on Saturday night would be a massive understatement.
Clemson couldn't get anything going against LSU's defense, resulting in a 51-10 loss. Quarterback Christopher Vizzina was especially rough, completing only 10 passes for 83 yards, no touchdowns, and one interception.
Fellow Clemson quarterback Tait Reynolds also got some playing time, completing four passes for 22 yards.
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After the game, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was asked if Vizzina would start against Georgia Southern next Saturday. He confirmed that he doesn't know.

#four #christopher #fellow

CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) — Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said Christopher Vizzina will start at quarterback against No. 11 LSU in Saturday night's season opener.
Vizzina's job security beyond Week 1 is uncertain, and will largely depend on how he performs on the road in what is considered a tough environment.
Swinney is also high on true freshman quarterback Tait Reynolds, a two-sport star who played at Queen Creek High in Arizona.
While Swinney said Vizzina has "earned the job" with his consistency in practice, he's not ready to anoint him the starter for the regular season or "give him a lifetime contract."
"He's got to go win some games, and play well," Swinney said Tuesday.

#swinney #vizzina #christopher #saturday

Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney has named Christopher Vizzina his starting quarterback for the Tigers' opener at LSU.
"He's earned that," Swinney said during a press conference on Sept. 1.
"It's been a lot of fun," Swinney said of the quarterback battle. "They've had a very detailed process on how they've gone through it. Every practice, every rep, every throw, everything has been graded to the ninth degree, and (Vizzina) is just a little ahead. He's not a mile ahead, but he's ahead, and practice matters."
Vizzina was the top backup for Cade Klubnik the last two seasons, but with Klubnik now in the NFL, the door opened for the senior to win the job.
While Vizzina was the likely starter heading into the summer, he was competing against freshman Tait Reynolds. Swinney said "there was a time" when he thought Reynolds would win the job, but that Vizzina separated himself during fall camp.

#ahead #clemson

The days of Clemson dominating the ACC Championship appear to be over.
From 2015 to 2022, the Tigers won seven of eight ACC **** les during the peak of Dabo Swinney's dynasty at CU. But with the transfer portal upending the college football landscape and the ACC ending divisions at the start of the 2023 season, the conference **** le has opened up. The league has had a different winner each of the last three seasons, and last year's champion was its most shocking. Duke won its first ACC **** le in the conference-championship era after finishing the 2025 regular season at 7-5 and winning the five-way tiebreaker for second place.
This season should be a lot different for the ACC. For starters, the conference redid its tiebreaker policy in the event of another logjam. On the field, the conference seems to be a one-horse race. According to FanDuel, the Hurricanes are the odds-on favorite to win the ACC at -150, the highest odds to win a P4 conference (Texas Tech is -105 to win the Big 12). However, a second tier has plenty of firepower and is looking to upset Miami. Louisville and SMU, each ranked in the AP Preseason top 25, are tied for second to win the ACC at +750. Although SMU returns starting QB Kevin Jennings, both teams must replace a majority of starters from their nine-win seasons in 2025, but they should be two of the more high-powered offenses in college football this season.
Behind SMU and UL, Clemson sits at +1600 after finally utilizing the portal in the offseason. However, they are starting a quarterback with only one collegiate start under his belt, Christopher Vizzina, who backed up Cade Klubnik for the last three years.
If Miami did not win the ACC this season, it would be a shock. After going to the national championship last year, Mario Cristobal did an excellent job blending his lineup, full of returning starters and high-value transfers.

#season #championship #starters #clemson

SPARTANBURG, SC(WSPA)-Chris Vizzina met with the media for the first time this preseason following Tuesday's Clemson practice as he tries to nail down the starting quarterback job.
Vizzina was declared to have 'the pole position' by head coach Dabo Swinney entering preseason practice. He's battled Tait Reynolds for the starting job as Swinney has yet to declare a starter at the poisition.
The Tigers open the season at LSU Saturday September 5th.
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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS.

#wspa #Media #practice #head

The ACC was once the conference of quarterbacks boasting Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, Brad Kaaya, Ryan Finley, Daniel Jones, and Mitchell Trubisky as starters all at the same time (2016). This year looks like a potential down year for ACC QBs.
The Tigers will likely start Christopher Vizzina who has just one career start and didn't get many opportunities to play last season other than a mostly impressive start against SMU. What QBs will he square off against? Now we countdown the toughest QBs he'll go head-to-head against during ACC play. In this article we focus on #8 to #5 .
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8. Billy Edwards Jr. (North Carolina)
A true college football journeyman, Edwards began his career at Wake Forest in 2021. After redshirting, he transferred to Maryland where he waited behind Tualia Tagovailoa for two seasons. He broke through at the end of 2023 when Tualia opted out of the bowl game and Edwards started and won the bowl MVP. Edwards entered 2024 as the starting QB and began the season well throwing 11 TDs and just 2 INTs as the team went 3-2.

#head

Christopher Vizzina has waited three years for an opportunity to become Clemson football's starting quarterback. As fall camp gets underway, the senior is closer than ever to getting his shot.
Dabo Swinney confirmed Thursday that Vizzina remains ahead of freshman Tait Reynolds in the race to replace Cade Klubnik, who was selected by the New York Jets in the fourth round of the NFL draft.
"Again, he's got the pole position, but he's still gotta finish the race," Swinney said.
"He's gotta go finish the race, but he's got a lead into the second half here, so we'll see what happens."
Vizzina hasn't played much during his Clemson career, but he has spent those years developing behind Klubnik rather than looking elsewhere for an easier path to playing time. Swinney believes that approach has helped Vizzina earn credibility inside the Tigers' locker room.

#race #klubnik #finish #christopher

Clemson obviously had a disappointing season last year, but to their credit, they made major adjustments. This included multiple ****** istant coaching changes, a bevy of major portal acquisitions, and much more successful investment in high school recruiting.
To start the 2026 season, they'll be facing a program that experienced even more change this offseason with LSU bringing in Lane Kiffin as head coach and Charlie Weiss Jr. as offensive coordinator. A huge transfer haul joins them. These two programs will clash in Baton Rouge to start the season. What does Clemson need to nail down before they get there?
1. Do they have a QB they trust?
After electing not to get Christopher Vizzina game experience in the Pinstripe Bowl, it felt like Clemson would look to the transfer portal for their 2026 starting QB. That wasn't the case though as Clemson largely eschewed the portal on offense (other than running back Chris Johnson Jr.). Here's what Coach Swinney said at ACC Media Days on the QB situation.
"We made a decision that we weren't going to go get some shiny object at quarterback… If it doesn't work out, we're going to get raked over the coals for that. You've got to make decisions you believe in… There's a reason why we had confidence in the decision we made. That's because we're there every day. CV has earned the opportunity to go be the starting quarterback at Clemson based on everything we've observed. Now, if we didn't think he was good enough and he hadn't demonstrated the things he can control we might have made a different decision. The other thing is we knew who was coming in and we believed in him (Tait Reynolds) and Brock [Bradley]." – Coach Swinney

#decision #start

I recently posted a series of videos on my YouTube channel (please jump there and subscribe) about the biggest X-factor players for Clemson's 2026 football season. Kobe McCloud and Amare Adams were the two biggest for the defense. On offense the biggest X-factor was quite obvious — Christopher Vizzina.
Vizzina was a blue-chip recruit out of Alabama who came to Clemson and waited behind Cade Klubnik. Entering his fourth year in the program, he has only attempted 105 collegiate passes. In an era where starting QBs hit the field quickly (e.g., Julian Sayin [OSU], Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele [Cal]) or gain playing time at a smaller program and transfer in with experience (e.g., Byrum Brown [AU], Anthony Colandrea (UN], Colton Joseph [UW]) it almost feels weird to turn the reigns over to the QB understudy. Reminder – This is actually normal. What everyone else is doing is what's new and different. Here's what Coach Swinney said about it:
"There's a reason why we had confidence in the decision we made. That's because we're there every day. CV has earned the opportunity to go be the starting quarterback at Clemson based on everything we've observed."
Unfortunately, they've observed it, but we have not. After a relatively positive performance in a spot start vs. SMU, Vizzina only attempted 15 more passes the rest of the year. They all came against Furman. That was it! We didn't even get an appearance in a cold and dreary Pinstripe Bowl to spark some confidence in him taking the reins for 2026.
What little we've seen from Vizzina outside of that SMU start has not been pretty. He's mostly struggled in Clemson Spring Games. He also struggled in his brief appearance against Boston College, throwing an interception shortly after Klubnik went down with injury. His late season opportunity against Furman yielded just 3.5 yards per pass attempt. His start vs. SMU likely gives us our best data though, so that's what I dive into in the film session below.

#clemson #factor

National expectations for Clemson football aren’t nearly as low as some might have expected after last season.
Despite finishing 7-6 in 2025 and missing out on the ACC ***** le race, the Tigers begin the offseason just outside the top 25 in Athlon Sports’ preseason rankings. Clemson was slotted at No. 27 in Athlon’s full ranking of all 138 FBS programs, signaling that the publication believes Dabo Swinney’s team has the pieces to bounce back in 2026.
A big reason for that optimism is the offense. Christopher Vizzina is expected to take over at quarterback, while Chad Morris returns to Clemson to oversee the offense. The Tigers also return a talented group of receivers, giving the new quarterback an experienced supporting cast. Defensively, Sammy Brown and Will Heldt are among the key returning contributors, and Clemson addressed several needs through the transfer portal, particularly in the secondary.
The Tigers won’t have an easy path back into the national spotlight. Their season opens with a road trip to LSU, which Athlon ranked No. 10, before Clemson hosts No. 7 Miami in one of the marquee ACC matchups of the season. Rival South Carolina sits just one spot behind the Tigers at No. 28, setting up another intriguing regular-season finale.
Athlon’s top five features Ohio State at No. 1, followed by Georgia, Texas, Notre Dame and defending national champion Indiana. Miami is the ACC’s highest-ranked team, while SMU (No. 22) and Louisville (No. 23) also earned spots inside the top 25.