On June 5, 2021, I took Christopher Vizzina to Clemson for a summer football camp.
CV was a rising junior quarterback at Briarwood Christian, and we already knew he had ability. He had the size, arm talent, athleticism, and temperament you look for at the position, but at that stage of the process, potential is still mostly that—potential. Summer camps are where players begin turning projections into evaluations, often while competing alongside dozens of other quarterbacks trying to do exactly the same thing.
CV had a great morning workout.
Good enough, as it turned out, that he was one of only a handful of quarterbacks who threw in both the morning and afternoon sessions. That was significant by itself. More repetitions meant more opportunities to be evaluated, particularly with Clemson's coaches watching closely.
Then the afternoon took an unexpected turn.
Arch Manning showed up.
Even then, the Manning name carried its own gravitational pull. Arch was already becoming one of the most discussed recruits in the country, and when he walked into the Clemson facility, there wasn't much mystery about who had arrived.
Eventually the quarterbacks moved into one-on-one work against defensive backs. CV and Arch ended up throwing in the same rotation, with another quarterback between them.
And something interesting began to happen.
A crowd gathered.
The Clemson coaches gathered.
Dabo Swinney was watching.
And CV and Arch started putting on a show.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I was creating a record of the afternoon because I was texting a group of friends back home as the drill unfolded. Reading those messages now is almost like finding an old play-by-play sheet.
“Both are 3 for 3 so far in last drill.”
A few minutes later:
“Both 4 for 4.”
A beautiful throw was dropped. Both moved to 4-for-5.
CV went to 6-for-7, then 6-for-8 with two drops, then 7-for-9.
One of my friends texted:
“Dabo watching all this part.”
He was.
So were the other Clemson coaches.
What had begun as another camp drill was becoming something different. There was energy around it now. Coaches were congratulating both quarterbacks after throws, and the crowd was responding to the competition.
At one point, Dabo called for a double move.
CV hit it for a touchdown.
My sophisticated scouting report to the group back home:
“Dabo just called a dbl move that CV hit for TD — everyone wooped lol.”
The numbers kept accumulating.
CV: 9-of-11.
Then 9-of-12 after his first bad throw.
Arch: 7-of-12.
CV hit a speed-out to go 10-of-13.
There was even a third quarterback caught between the two of them in the rotation. Since I didn't know his name and had noticed him wearing a distinctive wide-brimmed hat, my texts simply referred to him as “Brim Hat.” After he threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown, my entire report consisted of:
“BRIM HAT pick 6.”
We eventually discovered his name when he handed out a recruiting card: Aliam Appler from Dutch Fork High School.
But the real drama remained the two quarterbacks on either side of him.
Arch had a bad throw and went to 7-of-13.
Then came one of my favorite texts of the afternoon:
“CV hits pearl in perfect rhythm 11-14.”
Arch moved to 8-of-14.
CV missed badly: 11-of-15.
Arch answered with a deep touchdown: 9-of-15.
“ARCH bomb for TD.”
Arch completed another to move to 10-of-16.
CV finished his sequence 12-of-16.
Then the bell sounded.
My final text:
“And the Bell sounds — what a show!”
____________
Five years later, that afternoon looks very different to me.
Not because the throws have changed, or because my unofficial statistics suddenly carry some great historical importance. They don't.
What has changed is that now we know what happened next.
Arch Manning went on to become one of the most closely followed recruits in the country and eventually landed at Texas.
CV's recruitment took off as well. Clemson offered him, he committed, and eventually he returned to the very place where that memorable afternoon had unfolded.
But his story didn't immediately produce the glamorous ending we sometimes expect in recruiting.
He had to wait.
For three seasons, CV worked behind Cade Klubnik. In an era of college football when the transfer portal offers quarterbacks an increasingly easy escape from waiting, he stayed. He developed. He competed. He kept working.
And now, on Saturday night, September 5, 2026, Christopher Vizzina will walk into Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge as the starting quarterback for Clemson against LSU.
Arch Manning is now the starting quarterback at Texas.
Both made it.
And that is what makes those old text messages so fascinating to me.
There is an almost irresistible temptation, when looking backward, to impose the future upon the past. Once we know how something turned out, we begin remembering it as though the ending were somehow inevitable.
It wasn't.
On June 5, 2021, there were no guarantees.
There were no college depth charts. No starting jobs. No certainty about where either quarterback would eventually play. CV didn't even have a Clemson offer yet.
There were simply two very talented high-school quarterbacks standing a few yards apart at a summer camp, competing in front of a growing crowd.
One of them happened to carry the most recognizable last name in football.
The other was the kid I had driven up from Briarwood.
And he belonged.
That's probably what I remember most clearly.
CV didn't seem overwhelmed by the moment or distracted by the attention surrounding Arch. If anything, the competition appeared to sharpen him. He simply kept stepping into the rotation and throwing.
Completion. Next rep. Touchdown. Next rep. Bad throw. Forget it.
Next rep.
There is something wonderfully honest about competition before anyone knows the ending. Reputation matters less once the ball is snapped. Recruiting rankings can't complete a deep out. A famous last name can't read the coverage for you. Eventually somebody blows the whistle, a defensive back lines up across from a receiver, and the quarterback has to take the snap and make the throw.
That afternoon, both of them did.
Five years later, they are doing it on a much larger stage.
Saturday night, when CV takes his first snap as Clemson's starting quarterback in Death Valley, Louisiana, I suspect my mind will drift for just a moment to another summer afternoon in another Clemson facility.
Turns out, it was just beginning.
1 comment:
We will be rooting for CV!!
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