Zach
Frazier.
Zach
Frazier.
West Virginia· 6'3"· 313 lb
"A four-time state wrestling champion who broke his leg on the last play of his college career, still the most pro-ready center in the class, and Pittsburgh got him at fifty-one."Pre-draft read
Frazier is a compact, low-slung center who plays with a wrestler's base and hands that never leave the frame. He fires off the snap with short, choppy steps on inside zone, gets his facemask across the play-side shoulder and torques the shade off the track before the back declares. His snap-to-punch timing is the best in the class — he is squared and engaged before a nose tackle can cross his face.
In protection he is a phone-booth technician rather than a mover: he sinks his hips, roots the anchor against bull rush and resets his hands without panic. The signature is command. He sorts twists, declares the mike and passes off loopers on time, which is why West Virginia handed him the front from the pivot for three years.
Balanced pro-style run game built on inside zone and duo, where the center is asked to win leverage on doubles and run the protection calls.
Year 1: immediate starting center and interior line caller. Ceiling: decade-long anchor and captain of a physical run-first front.
A wide-zone offense that asks the center to reach a shaded nose to the play side on every snap and climb on long tracks in space.
His value is command and leverage, not movement — build the run game downhill and let him work in a phone booth.
Film Room: Zach Frazier Vs Texas: All Pass Pro
Every pass-protection rep against Texas — anchor, hand resets and stunt pickup.
Zack Frazier (West Virginia IOL) Film Study | 2024 NFL Draft
Full pre-draft film study of his leverage, run blocking and scheme versatility.
Zach Frazier NFL Draft highlights
Career highlight reel from his three seasons starting at center for West Virginia.
Frazier is the rare center who was already a finished product in college. A four-time state heavyweight wrestling champion, he brings mat leverage to the pivot: knee bend, grip strength and a base that does not get moved. He is a technician first, a scheme-diverse blocker who fits gap, duo and inside zone equally, and a captain who ran protection calls for three different offensive coordinators.
The production is in the tape and the honors, not a box score. Three-time team captain, All-Big 12 in three straight seasons, first-team in 2022 and 2023 and an All-American in 2021 and 2023, he played 47 games and was the constant on a line that changed around him. The flags are athletic, not technical: average range on reach blocks and second-level tracks in space, and short arms that let long rushers get into his chest first. He also finished his career on a broken leg suffered on the final play of his last home game, which cost him on-field testing at the Combine.
The board split on the class's top center between Graham Barton, Jackson Powers-Johnson and Frazier, and the injury plus the lack of testing numbers pushed him to 51. Pittsburgh, rebuilding an interior it had botched for years, took the safest, toughest, most plug-and-play option on the board.
- 01
Anchor
Wrestling base and elite grip strength let him stone bull rush from a dead stop; nose tackles do not walk him into the quarterback's lap.
- 02
Hand timing
Snap-to-punch is instant and accurate; he is fitted inside the framework before the defender can establish a two-hand bench.
- 03
Leverage
Natural knee bend and a low pad level let him win the leverage battle against bigger interior players on down blocks and doubles.
- 04
Football IQ
Three-time captain who made the line calls, identified the mike and sorted stunts and late pressure without help from the quarterback.
- 05
Scheme versatility
Equally comfortable on inside zone reach tracks, duo doubles and gap-scheme down blocks, with the toughness to finish every rep.
- 01
Range in space
Average athlete on wide reach blocks and screen tracks; asking him to cut off a shaded nose to the play side is a coin flip.
- 02
Length
Short arms mean long rushers can get into his chest first, and he has to win the reset rather than the initial punch.
- 03
Recovery speed
Once beaten laterally he lacks the burst to redirect and catch up, so quick interior rushers can cross his face.
- 04
Injury exit
Broke his leg on the final play of his college career and could not test athletically, leaving teams without a clean athletic baseline.
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | West Virginia | 10 |
| 2021 | West Virginia | 13 |
| 2022 | West Virginia | 12 |
| 2023 | West Virginia | 12 |
| Career | — | 47 |
Offensive linemen have no box-score production; games played only. 2023 ended early after a broken leg suffered on the final play of the regular-season home finale. Season games sum to the 47 career total. Honors: All-Big 12 second team 2021, first team 2022 and 2023; All-American 2021 and 2023; three-time team captain; William V. Campbell Trophy finalist 2023.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Plug-and-play technician who starts from week one and gives a franchise a stable, intelligent pivot for years.
Undersized wrestler-tough center who ran the protection for a decade; Frazier shares the leverage and the command, not the elite range.
Reliable, tough interior starter whose lack of athletic range caps him as good rather than great.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Frazier walked into the Pittsburgh lineup and never left it. He won the starting center job out of camp as a rookie, started 15 games in 2024, and was named to the PFWA All-Rookie Team along with the Steelers' Joe Greene Great Performance Award as the team's top rookie — immediate validation for a pick made on toughness and technique. He played all 17 games in 2025, working through a triceps issue late in the year, and remains the anchor of an interior that had been the franchise's weakest link for the better part of a decade.
In hindsight this is the kind of pick that never makes a highlight reel and quietly wins a general manager his extension. The medical and the missing testing numbers scared teams into passing on the most pro-ready lineman in the class, and Pittsburgh got a decade-long starter at 51. The ceiling questions were fair — he is not going to be a road-grader in space — but the floor was always a starting NFL center, and he hit it in week one.
Data note: Offensive linemen have no box-score production; games played only. 2023 ended early after a broken leg suffered on the final play of the regular-season home finale. Season games sum to the 47 career total. Honors: All-Big 12 second team 2021, first team 2022 and 2023; All-American 2021 and 2023; three-time team captain; William V. Campbell Trophy finalist 2023.