Clemson entered Saturday night at LSU with Christopher Vizzina as its starting quarterback.
It enters Week 2 with the position looking considerably less settled.
Vizzina and freshman Tait Reynolds both played in Clemson's 51-10 loss to LSU, and Dabo Swinney isn't saying publicly how the Tigers will move forward as Georgia Southern arrives this weekend.
“We'll handle it. We'll keep that in-house and get back to work,” Swinney said during his Sunday teleconference. “Chad's got a great feel on that.”
Vizzina started and completed 10-of-16 passes for 83 yards with an interception. He rushed five times for four yards. Reynolds completed 4-of-6 passes for 22 yards and finished with minus-nine rushing yards on five attempts.
It wasn’t great regardless.
However, for Vizzina, his interception proved to be one of the most costly plays of the night, giving LSU a huge shot of momentum.
With Clemson trailing 10-3 late in the first quarter, LSU’s Jordan Ross dropped into coverage; Vizzina didn’t see him and tossed the ball right into his breadbasket. The talented defensive end rumbled 30 yards for a touchdown. From that point forward, the Bayou Bengals hammered Clemson.
Chad Morris’ offense produced only 145 total yards. Clemson rushed for 40 yards and allowed four sacks as LSU consistently kept the Tigers behind schedule.
After reviewing the film, Swinney pointed to issues beyond the quarterback.
“We did not protect the quarterback well. Didn't play great up front,” Swinney said. “Had some alignment miscues at running back that we got to fix.”
Still, Swinney's comments made it clear Clemson's quarterback evaluation didn't end when Vizzina earned the starting job for LSU.
“Both of them did some good things, did some bad things,” Swinney said. “But as I said going into it, we needed to go play to kind of go from there, from a competition standpoint.
“So that's kind of where we are.”
What that means for Saturday remains behind closed doors.
“Chad and Tajh [Boyd] have got a great feel for how we wanna approach that this week,” Swinney said, “and we'll keep going from there.”
— Swanny
