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FB/LB Zach Boren (Official Thread)

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Published: 8/24/2012
OSU's Boren excited for new role
BY DAVID BRIGGS
BLADE SPORTS WRITER

COLUMBUS -- Zach Boren first noticed the advantage of his new lean frame this spring not on the football field but when the elevators on campus no longer seemed so tempting.

"I'd walk up three flights of stairs to class and think, 'Wow, that was a lot easier than it was at 265 pounds,'" Boren said.

Turns out, a lot is easier now for Ohio State's 245-pound senior fullback, who hopes less heft means more touches in the spread offense of first-year coach Urban Meyer.

For three years, Boren was a classic up-the-gut bruiser as the Buckeyes' starting lead blocker. His bone-clattering hits helped produce glory for others but got no ink in the box score. He had one career carry for 2 yards.

But along with the I formation, Boren's archetype became a casualty of the more open style. He needed to be just as comfortable taking a handoff or pulling outside to block on a jet sweep as he was knocking heads inside.

"I don't need to be leading [isolation plays] 40 times and taking out a dude and cracking my helmet and facemask," he said. "Our offense isn't in that era anymore. We don't need me being at that weight."

A player who initially didn't strike Meyer as an ideal hybrid fit at fullback spent the offseason willing himself into one. Boren shed the excess weight and rediscovered the speed and acceleration from his days as a high school running back in Pickerington.

Boren will still hit but also run (and catch), assuming an expanded role for which Meyer believes he is ready.

"[He] wasn't when he was 260 pounds and doesn't move real well," Meyer said. "He's an athlete, but I didn't know that. I wanted to evaluate him during the spring, and I did. He's a guy that will touch the ball."

For Boren, one of five senior captains, it is the latest transformation in his career.

Boren came to college as a linebacker like his father, Mike, a Columbus native who became the sixth all-time leading tackler at Michigan. But OSU coaches ask him to switch to fullback the summer before his freshman year. He told them that was "perfectly fine." As a player who lived to hit and possessed the vision of a tailback, the position suited him.

"I kind of brought the linebacker attitude to fullback," Boren said. "I was just going to go out and hit someone. I knew who I was hitting and I kind of treated it as a running back.

"I think that's why I've been successful at fullback. I can see the open holes, see the cutback lanes. I prided myself on leading the running back to the right area."

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http://www.toledoblade.com/Ohio-State/2012/08/24/OSU-s-Boren-excited-for-new-role.html
 
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Boren bringing Buckeyes with him as leader
By Andrew Holleran
[email protected]
Updated: Thursday, August 30, 2012

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Andrew Holleran / Photo editor

OSU senior fullback and captain Zach Boren addressed media and answers questions during Big Ten Media Days Aug. 26 in Chicago.

Zach Boren has been training for this upcoming football season since he was a kid.

Since he was 4 years old to be exact.

The Ohio State senior fullback comes from a family of athletes. His parents, Mike and Hope Boren, played football and ran track, respectively, at Michigan in the early 1980s. His older brother, Justin, is an offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens ? as well as a former Buckeye ? and his younger brother, Jacoby Boren, is a freshman offensive lineman at OSU.

Everything the Pickerington, Ohio, native, and his brothers did growing up was a competition.

So, when OSU coach Urban Meyer came to Zach Boren last winter and explained to the fullback what he wanted from him in terms of intensity and leadership, he was ready.

?The way my parents raised me, it was kind of easy,? Zach Boren said of his transition from being a three-year veteran to becoming a senior leader.

That competitive drive ? the one Meyer said helps make Zach Boren ?the best fullback in the country? ? has been instilled in the 6-foot-1, 240-pounder from the first time he began playing football.

Zach Boren started tackle football at 4 years old, the same year Justin Boren, who was 7, started. Every practice after stretching, the two would take a lap around a nearby baseball field to get warmed up. And any time Zach Boren tried to beat his older brother back to the field, he hit the ground.

?Every time I would try to pass him, he would just throw me down in the dirt,? Zach Boren said. ?When I was four and he was seven, we were competing on who would become first in a lap around the field before practice.?

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http://www.thelantern.com/sports/boren-bringing-buckeyes-with-him-as-leader-1.2888988#.UD9RF6OaKSo
 
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Can't believe no one has posted here yet. It was awesome to see Boren getting touches (and a TD) today. As someone who grew up watching the Nebraska triple option, I have a special affinity for seeing big FBs running the ball.
 
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Boren's patience, hard work pays off
Published: Sunday, September 02, 2012
By JOHN KAMPF
[email protected]

COLUMBUS ? For three years, Zach Boren plowed the road.

On Saturday, for the first time in his collegiate career, the four-year starter for the Ohio State football team got to be the one to carry the ball into the end zone.

The 6-foot-1, 245-pound senior from nearby Pickerington has made a name for himself as the blocking back who opened massive holes for a slew of Ohio State running backs.

But when OSU backup quarterback Kenny Guiton turned and handed it to Boren for a fourth-quarter touchdown during Saturday?s 56-10 win over visiting Miami, Ohio, it was Boren?s first rushing touchdown of his collegiate career.

It came on his third career carry and second carry of the game.

?No,? said OSU coach Urban Meyer, jaw drooped in disbelief that Boren had carried the ball so few times in his career.

But it was true.

Through his first three years at Ohio State, the only carry Boren registered was a two-yard gain against Michigan in 2010. He didn?t carry the ball in either his freshman year or his junior year.

He entered Saturday?s game with 20 career catches for 151 yards. And he did score a receiving touchdown as a freshman.

But when he crashed into the end zone to give OSU a 49-10 lead, it was his first rushing touchdown since scoring 16 times as a high school senior in Pickerington.

?It was exciting I guess,? Boren said, not showing much elation after the game for his individual accomplishment. ?They told me about the third quarter they were going to try to get me some carries, so I knew it was coming. And I just waited on it.?

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http://morningjournal.com/articles/...504412a0c63fa728546179.txt?viewmode=fullstory
 
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Competitiveness began at home for OSU?s Boren
Posted: Friday, September 14, 2012
By Jim Naveau

COLUMBUS ? Since the day Urban Meyer became Ohio State?s football coach, he has emphasized competition.

Maybe the most visible of his one-on-one competitions was his circle drill, where one player tries to push another out of a small circle on the ground. When he sent his top two quarterbacks, Braxton Miller and Kenny Guiton into the circle before the spring game, it became an instant must-see video on the internet.

But if any player needed to hone his competitiveness less than OSU fullback Zach Boren, it might take a long time to find him.

Growing up between older brother Justin, an offensive lineman on the Baltimore Ravens practice squad, and younger brother Jacoby, a freshman offensive lineman at Ohio State, he learned about competitiveness at a young age.

Take this story from his first year of organized football, for example.

?My first year of tackle football, my dad started me at age 4, believe it or not, and Justin was playing at age 7. After stretching we used to have to run a lap around the baseball field and back and Justin would throw me down to the ground because I wasn?t going to beat him on a lap,? Zach Boren said.

?Obviously, I was much smaller than him so I could run faster.

Every time I tried to pass him he would just throw me down in the dirt. We were always competing.?
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http://www.limaohio.com/sports/local/article_12eac0ea-feb1-11e1-9c6f-0019bb30f31a.html
 
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