Vizzina leads, but the QB battle isn't over
Christopher Vizzina has Dabo Swinney's trust at quarterback, but freshman Tait Reynolds has made it a real fight heading into a rematch with LSU in the building that opened last season's slide.
Vizzina has the job, and Reynolds won't stop knocking
Dabo Swinney has said all camp that Christopher Vizzina is his starting quarterback, and nothing at practice has changed that. Vizzina has one career start, coming off relief duty last season against SMU, where he threw for 317 yards and three touchdowns on 29-of-42 passing in a 35-24 loss, per ESPN. That performance was enough for Swinney to hand him the keys over the offseason, but it never closed the door on anyone else.
True freshman Tait Reynolds has made sure of that. Reynolds turned heads with a strong spring, and ESPN reports Swinney is framing the competition in blunt terms — it's Vizzina's job to lose and Reynolds' chance to take. Swinney has said he'd have no qualms running a true freshman out as the starter in Death Valley if Reynolds proves to be the better quarterback in fall camp, which tells you how live this battle still is three days out from Baton Rouge.
Last season ended on a four-game streak, then a bowl loss
Clemson closed last season with a four-game winning streak, beating Florida State 24-10, edging Louisville 20-19 on the road, blasting Furman 45-10 and handling rival South Carolina 28-14. All of it built momentum into a bowl trip against Penn State on December 27, and none of it carried over — Penn State beat the Tigers 22-10 to send Clemson into the offseason at 7-6, the second-worst finish of the Swinney era.
It's a reminder of how far this program felt from itself a year ago. Clemson opened last season ranked No. 4 and lost 17-10 to LSU in Baton Rouge, per Roundtable.io, a defeat that set the tone for a season that never fully recovered. This year's Tigers get the exact same opponent, in the exact same building, to open the year — and Swinney has made sure nobody in the building has forgotten it.
Clemson is unranked for the first time since 2011
For the first time since 2011, Clemson is unranked in the preseason AP Top 25 — notable given the Tigers had finished ranked in 14 of the previous 15 seasons, per Brett McMurphy and CFBONFOX. The ACC's own media poll wasn't much kinder: Clemson checked in fourth behind Miami, SMU and Louisville, drawing just seven first-place votes to Miami's 165.
Swinney has leaned into it rather than fight it. "We're just a bunch of nobodies," he told reporters this month, per Yahoo Sports. "We'll see if anybody becomes somebody as we play some games." At ACC Media Days he put it even more plainly: "This year, ain't none of y'all going to pick us." It's the same message wrapped around the quarterback battle and the LSU rematch alike — everybody outside the building has already made up its mind, and Swinney wants his team playing angry about it.
A rematch in Death Valley opens the redemption tour
Clemson gets Baton Rouge on September 5 at LSU, the same building where last year's 17-10 loss kicked off the slide to 7-6. LSU is breaking in Lane Kiffin as head coach and enters at 0-0 after finishing last season with a 35-38 loss at Houston, so neither program walks into Tiger Stadium with much recent film on the other's new-look roster. Swinney sounded almost eager about it: "This is going to be a great team that we got to open with, and it ain't going to be easy, and I love it," he said this week, per Roundtable.io, before adding the catch — "we will have to play, not perfect, but not far from it."
The line opened with LSU favored by 9.5 and the total set at 51.5, a middling number that suggests neither side is fully trusted yet. Clemson is an underdog for the second straight year against this exact opponent, in the exact same venue, which is about as clean a measuring stick as a season opener gets.