Zachary Thomas "Zach" Zwinak is an

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

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 handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. The ...

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 Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot is the Nittany Lion. The interc ...

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 ...

Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in and the county seat of Frederick County, Maryland. It is part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area, Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. Frederick has long been an important crossroads, located at the inter ...

. 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

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schools and was the number two ranked fullback by Rivals and number one ranked fullback by

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. 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 also called "cruciform" ligaments, as they are arranged in a crossed formation ...

(ACL) in

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, 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 William Earl Belton II (born February 2, 1993) is a former American football running back for Penn State Nittany Lions. He was an all-state quarterback at Winslow Township High School. Early years Belton was born in 1993 in Sicklerville, New Jer ...

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 state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

. 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

and

Akeel Lynch Akeel Joh-Vonnie Lynch (born May 14, 1994) is a retired American football running back who last played for the Nevada Wolf Pack football team. He grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with divorced parents, but at age seven, his father was murder ...

, 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

and

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 Sportspeople from Alexandria, Virginia American football running backs Penn State Nittany Lions football players