Zachary Thomas "Zach" Zwinak is an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offense ...

who played for the

Penn State Nittany Lions The Penn State Nittany Lions are the athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University, except for the women's basketball team, known as the Penn State Lady Lions basketball, Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot ...

from 2010 to 2014. After playing sparingly in his first two seasons, he had a breakout year in 2012.

Early years

The son of B.J. Zwinak and Diane Thomas, Zwinak attended

Linganore High School Linganore High School is an American high school in Frederick County, Maryland. It serves the eastern portion of Frederick County. The school's mascot is the Lancer and its colors are red and black. History Linganore High School Junior-Senior H ...

Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in, and the county seat of, Frederick County, Maryland, United States. Frederick's population was 78,171 people as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Maryland, second-largest ...

. He was named all-state after rushing for 1,447 yards as a junior. As a senior, he rushed for 2,109 yards on 164 carries and scored 25 touchdowns.

Recruiting

Zwinak was sought after by numerous FBS schools and was the number two ranked fullback by Rivals and number one ranked fullback by Scout.com. It was Penn State defensive line coach Larry Johnson who was the primary recruiter for Zwinak. Zwinak's other offers included Boston College, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

College career

2010-2011

Zwinak tore his

anterior cruciate ligament The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of a pair of cruciate ligaments (the other being the posterior cruciate ligament) in the human knee. The two ligaments are called "cruciform" ligaments, as they are arranged in a crossed formation. In ...

(ACL) in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

, his freshman season. He did not appear in any games. He saw the field in two games during his sophomore season. He rushed for a total of seven yards on a three carries.

2012

Coming into his junior year, Zwinak was expected to compete to backup fullback Michael Zordich. After Bill Belton and Derek Day, the two running backs above Zwinak on the depth chart, were hurt early in the year, Zwinak had an opportunity to start at tailback against Temple on September 22. He rushed 18 times for 94 yards. After that, Zwinak held on to the starting tailback spot due to both his success and the ineffectiveness of Belton. On September 29, Zwinak had his first 100+ yard rushing performance as well as his first two career touchdowns against

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. The following week against Northwestern, Zwinak again ran for over 100 yards putting up 121 with another touchdown. In Penn State's final game of the season on November 24, 2012, Zwinak had one of the best games of his season by totaling 36 rushes, 179 yards, a touchdown, and a two-point conversion. On November 27, 2012, it was announced that despite not playing for the first few games of the season, Zwinak earned honorable mention all-conference accolades from the media.

2013

A returning 1000-yard rusher, Zwinak ended up being part of a three-man platoon at running back along with Bill Belton and Akeel Lynch, though he got the majority of the goal line carries – by the fourth game of the season, he had rushed for 8 touchdowns – two more than the 2012 season – and 297 yards. His left guard, Miles Dieffenbach, commented, "Yeah, (Zwinak is) a load to handle so we're pretty confident that he's going to push it in there."

2014

Zwinak had a disappointing end to his career at Penn State. During his final season he rushed only 40 times for 112 total yards and scored 3 touchdowns. Despite being one of the leading rushers during the 2013 campaign, Zwinak took a back seat to Bill Belton and Akeel Lynch in new coach James Franklin's offense. Zwinak suffered a season-ending injury on the opening kickoff of the Ohio State game, the seventh game of the season.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zwinak, Zach 1992 births Living people Players of American football from Alexandria, Virginia American football running backs Penn State Nittany Lions football players