In a late victory over Baylor on Nov. 25, 2023, West Virginia center Zach Frazier suffered a leg injury that would unfortunately end his career as a Mountaineer and make him unable to play in their Bowl Game.
While on the “In The Gun” podcast with Jed Drenning, Ray Frazier, Owen Schmitt and Wes Uhler, Frazier detailed what he felt and remembered from that play.
“I didn’t hear the snap or anything, but I felt like my foot was kind of turned,” Frazier said.”And I just kind of had a lot of pain in that side of the leg.”
At the time of his injury, WVU was driving down the field in a two-minute drill, attempting to secure the win against the Bears.
“Two-minute, you know right when the play’s over I have to run to the ball, I have to be the first one to the ball,” Frazier said.
Mountaineer fans may remember Frazier helping carry wide receiver Hudson Clement to a first down on that very play, before hobbling off the field.
“I started screaming, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to run another play. I knew I had to get off the field too because we didn’t have any timeouts and even then it’s still a two-minute situation, so you don’t want to get that 10-second run-off. I just kind of rolled over and didn’t want to put any weight on that leg because it wasn’t feeling great,” Frazier said. “I was just like screaming and like bear-crawling off the field. And then, the ref was like yelling at me to get down, so then I kind of like hurried up a little bit and got off the field.”
West Virginia would go on to beat Baylor 34-31 after a Jahiem White 29-yard receiving touchdown with 23 seconds left.
“Once I got off the field, you know the trainers came up to me and our team doctors came up to me. I kind of like threw my helmet off and layed on the ground and he started to work on me. He was like ‘Where does it hurt’, I was like ‘Everywhere’, I don’t know where it hurts, I don’t know what happened,” Frazier said.
Frazier has since attended the Senior Bowl, where he was unable to participate in contact drills, but did snap and take some interviews. In an interview with the PewterReport Frazier said he is hopeful to be able to run and participate at the NFL combine, which he was recently officially invited to as well as pro-day.
Frazier the 6-foot-3, 310-pound product of Fairmont, landed at No. 37 on NFL Draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah’s top 50: 2024 NFL Draft prospect rankings 1.0. The four-time WVSSAC wrestling state champion is projected to be selected around the second to third round of the 2024 NFL Draft in late April.
