Photo by: Caleb Saunders
True Freshman Frazier Making An Instant Impact For Mountaineer Offense
November 10, 2020 07:29 PM | Football, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Darius Stills remembers watching freshman Zach Frazier throwing up 315 pounds on the bench press like it was nothing … in high school!
Just about everyone living down in Fairmont has a Zach Frazier story to tell, like how he used to toss middle-school kids around on the football field like it was nobody's business. Or how he pancaked this one kid in a high school football game, flat-backed somebody on the wrestling mat or some other amazing feat of brute strength.
To say Zach Frazier is advanced for his age is about like saying West Virginia has hills.
More to the point, what he's doing this year as a true freshman starting offensive lineman is unprecedented in the modern history of West Virginia University football. As someone who has spent years studying WVU sports, I'm not sure it's ever been done before.
Bruce Bosley and Sam Huff played in 1952 when freshmen were allowed to suit up for the varsity then because of a shortage of players due to the Korean War, but neither started.
Greasy Neale stole Shinnston's Joe Stydahar from Pitt and hid him in a fraternity house for his freshman year before Neale could play him as a sophomore in 1933.
Stydahar and Bosley were considered the two most advanced linemen to ever play at West Virginia, which kind of gives you an idea of the direction this could go.
For those of you who don't do history, Stydahar is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and Bosley is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Is Zach Frazier the next Bruce Bosley or Joe Stydahar? No.
Could he be? Maybe.
Coming at this from another angle, would Zach Frazier be starting this year if West Virginia had a bunch of grizzled, fifth-year seniors on the offensive line?
Probably not.
So there is a little bit of both to consider when you look at what Frazier is being asked to do this season. Still, to perform the way he has so far is beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
"The first snap in a game he played here he pancaked one of the other players easily, and I knew from that moment he was going to be a great player here. Watch out for Zach. He has a chance to go to the next level, for sure," Stills predicted earlier today.
Neal Brown probably just choked on his turkey sandwich reading that, if he already didn't a few paragraphs above.
While we can afford to take a peek into the future, Brown gets paid to deal with the present. And the present for Zach Frazier has been pretty impressive, but by no means flawless - which is certainly to be expected from a freshman, sophomore, or even a junior offensive lineman because it is so physically and mentally demanding.
There is probably no position in sports more difficult for a young player to master than offensive line.
So, when Zach was named the emergency starting center in West Virginia's season-opening game against Eastern Kentucky eyebrows went up.
More eyebrows were raised when Frazier made that great block on the goal line to spring Leddie Brown for his game-winning touchdown against Baylor in double-overtime.
Frazier's sixth game of his young Mountaineer career, a 37-10 win over Kansas State, was good enough for him to be awarded offensive lineman of the game by the coaching staff.
This is what Brown had to say about Frazier's K-State performance during his weekly Tuesday news conference, "(Frazier) played center and guard in the game, played every snap, and was the most productive and highest-percentage-graded offensive lineman in the game."
He didn't add anything to it nor did anyone ask him to elaborate during his 20-minute video conference.
People who know a lot more about college football than I do tell me what Frazier is doing as a true freshman is almost beyond comprehension.
We got an opportunity to watch Zach do his first press conference earlier today, and he looked like a typical 18-year-old doing this for the first time … nervous and somewhat unsure of his answers.
All of the questions he got were softballs, teed up waist-high like how much different are the guys he is going up against now compared to when he played at Fairmont Senior High last fall?
His answer was pretty much what you'd expect him to say when you consider the grown men he's now blocking compared to the kids Buckhannon-Upshur, North Marion and Lincoln High put out there against him last fall.
"Bigger, stronger, faster … all of the above," he said, smiling.
It was the same deal when he was asked about those 300-plus-pound Texas monsters he had to deal with last Saturday in Austin.
"They were tall and very big," he said. "It was definitely different."
But Frazier did a fine job handling the media, just as he's done a fine job handling what's been thrown at him so far this year.
He's got a great support system with a father, Ray Frazier, who once played college football at Fairmont State.
Zach admits that's been extremely helpful.
"My dad has helped me a lot," he explained. "He's kind of always worked with me since I was in pee-wee football. He taught me the fundamentals and everything I needed to know and just understanding football, he helped me out a lot.
"I feel like I have a lot better understanding than most people because of my dad," he added.
Frazier is getting Ph.D.-level coursework on the football field right now as a true freshman.
He's one of the guys around whom Neal Brown is building his young Mountaineer football program. That "climb" Brown is always preaching is starting right now on the shoulders of Zach Frazier and redshirt freshman left tackle Brandon Yates.
These two young guys are fighting like crazy and holding their own each week.
"When you are building a program, offensive line is the hardest position to recruit," Brown explained recently. "I think we are two years away, depth-wise, from where we want to be.
"I do think, overall, we are much improved, but we don't have somebody who is playing at the level of (Colton) McKivitz last year."
Keep in mind, McKivitz is now a member of the San Francisco 49ers. He was probably West Virginia's most advanced offensive lineman starting as a redshirt freshman in 2015 – that is until Zach Frazier showed up.
But Colton wasn't putting up 315 pounds on the bench press the way Zach once did as a high school freshman, either!
So stay tuned.
Just about everyone living down in Fairmont has a Zach Frazier story to tell, like how he used to toss middle-school kids around on the football field like it was nobody's business. Or how he pancaked this one kid in a high school football game, flat-backed somebody on the wrestling mat or some other amazing feat of brute strength.
To say Zach Frazier is advanced for his age is about like saying West Virginia has hills.
More to the point, what he's doing this year as a true freshman starting offensive lineman is unprecedented in the modern history of West Virginia University football. As someone who has spent years studying WVU sports, I'm not sure it's ever been done before.
Bruce Bosley and Sam Huff played in 1952 when freshmen were allowed to suit up for the varsity then because of a shortage of players due to the Korean War, but neither started.
Greasy Neale stole Shinnston's Joe Stydahar from Pitt and hid him in a fraternity house for his freshman year before Neale could play him as a sophomore in 1933.
Stydahar and Bosley were considered the two most advanced linemen to ever play at West Virginia, which kind of gives you an idea of the direction this could go.
For those of you who don't do history, Stydahar is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and Bosley is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Is Zach Frazier the next Bruce Bosley or Joe Stydahar? No.
Could he be? Maybe.
Coming at this from another angle, would Zach Frazier be starting this year if West Virginia had a bunch of grizzled, fifth-year seniors on the offensive line?
Probably not.
So there is a little bit of both to consider when you look at what Frazier is being asked to do this season. Still, to perform the way he has so far is beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
"The first snap in a game he played here he pancaked one of the other players easily, and I knew from that moment he was going to be a great player here. Watch out for Zach. He has a chance to go to the next level, for sure," Stills predicted earlier today.
Neal Brown probably just choked on his turkey sandwich reading that, if he already didn't a few paragraphs above.
While we can afford to take a peek into the future, Brown gets paid to deal with the present. And the present for Zach Frazier has been pretty impressive, but by no means flawless - which is certainly to be expected from a freshman, sophomore, or even a junior offensive lineman because it is so physically and mentally demanding.
There is probably no position in sports more difficult for a young player to master than offensive line.
So, when Zach was named the emergency starting center in West Virginia's season-opening game against Eastern Kentucky eyebrows went up.
More eyebrows were raised when Frazier made that great block on the goal line to spring Leddie Brown for his game-winning touchdown against Baylor in double-overtime.
Frazier's sixth game of his young Mountaineer career, a 37-10 win over Kansas State, was good enough for him to be awarded offensive lineman of the game by the coaching staff.
This is what Brown had to say about Frazier's K-State performance during his weekly Tuesday news conference, "(Frazier) played center and guard in the game, played every snap, and was the most productive and highest-percentage-graded offensive lineman in the game."
He didn't add anything to it nor did anyone ask him to elaborate during his 20-minute video conference.
People who know a lot more about college football than I do tell me what Frazier is doing as a true freshman is almost beyond comprehension.
We got an opportunity to watch Zach do his first press conference earlier today, and he looked like a typical 18-year-old doing this for the first time … nervous and somewhat unsure of his answers.
All of the questions he got were softballs, teed up waist-high like how much different are the guys he is going up against now compared to when he played at Fairmont Senior High last fall?
His answer was pretty much what you'd expect him to say when you consider the grown men he's now blocking compared to the kids Buckhannon-Upshur, North Marion and Lincoln High put out there against him last fall.
"Bigger, stronger, faster … all of the above," he said, smiling.
It was the same deal when he was asked about those 300-plus-pound Texas monsters he had to deal with last Saturday in Austin.
"They were tall and very big," he said. "It was definitely different."
But Frazier did a fine job handling the media, just as he's done a fine job handling what's been thrown at him so far this year.
He's got a great support system with a father, Ray Frazier, who once played college football at Fairmont State.
Zach admits that's been extremely helpful.
"My dad has helped me a lot," he explained. "He's kind of always worked with me since I was in pee-wee football. He taught me the fundamentals and everything I needed to know and just understanding football, he helped me out a lot.
"I feel like I have a lot better understanding than most people because of my dad," he added.
Frazier is getting Ph.D.-level coursework on the football field right now as a true freshman.
He's one of the guys around whom Neal Brown is building his young Mountaineer football program. That "climb" Brown is always preaching is starting right now on the shoulders of Zach Frazier and redshirt freshman left tackle Brandon Yates.
These two young guys are fighting like crazy and holding their own each week.
"When you are building a program, offensive line is the hardest position to recruit," Brown explained recently. "I think we are two years away, depth-wise, from where we want to be.
"I do think, overall, we are much improved, but we don't have somebody who is playing at the level of (Colton) McKivitz last year."
Keep in mind, McKivitz is now a member of the San Francisco 49ers. He was probably West Virginia's most advanced offensive lineman starting as a redshirt freshman in 2015 – that is until Zach Frazier showed up.
But Colton wasn't putting up 315 pounds on the bench press the way Zach once did as a high school freshman, either!
So stay tuned.
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