Chandler Zavala's Journey to Becoming an NFL Starter

Get to know the story of the Carolina Panthers Week 1 starting right guard.

Chandler Zavala wasn't always on the NFL's radar and in fact, he was overlooked coming out of high school. Nobody knew about him. He held zero Division I offers, yet this 17-year-old kid dominated his one year of high school football at Forest Park in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Fortunately for Jason Woodman, the head coach at Fairmont State, a Division II school in West Virginia, stumbled upon him and that's where Zavala's journey to the NFL began.

The Division II recruiting process is much different than you'd expect. It really doesn't ramp up until the very end of a recruit's high school career because they are trying their damnedest to get that D-I offer and if an FCS school gets in the mix, it still trumps most D-II programs and what they can offer a kid.

For Zavala, Fairmont State was really the only option for him coming out of high school. Woodman and his staff just couldn't believe that this kid flew under the radar.

"The funny thing was my recruiting coach at the time had went to his school to look at a receiver. We were sitting as a staff watching recruits and watching this receiver on film and I’ll never forget, I said, ‘Jeff, who is the guy playing tackle?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him. I just went to see the receiver.’ And I’m like well, we need to find out who the tackle is. I mean, I’m sitting here watching a big, tall, athletic guy moving his feet like crazy on film and I’m like, we’ve got to figure out who that kid is. So we called the high school coach back and he told us it’s Chandler. But he said he’s only played a year of high school football and he didn’t really know a whole lot about the kid. I said, ‘Shoot, for us, in our situation, that’s kind of what we’re looking for.’ We’ve got to find diamonds in the rough. We’ve got to go get the kids that are missed by other schools. We got him up on campus and he was everything we thought he was physically. We put him through a little workout and he was able to move his feet and everything and more. We got lucky with him.”

Zavala had every intention of remaining at Fairmont State, but when COVID arrived, the program knew it was likely going to have its season canceled. Woodman and his staff wanted to do what was best for Zavala so they called around trying to get a Power Five school to give him an opportunity. NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, a native of West Virginia, flipped on the tape, liked what he saw, and recommended that they bring him in. 

Zavala missed the final seven games of the 2021 season with a back injury but bounced back in a big way as a senior and was named a member of the All-ACC First Team.

"He's physical. He's smart. He's tough. He's everything that we want on the offensive line," said Panthers General Manager Scott Fitterer. "Scouts like him, (offensive line) Coach (James) Campen, (assistant offensive line) Coach (Robert) Kugler like him, they have strong conviction on him. He's a guy that everybody wanted here. We just had to figure out the value. And then when we took him, guys from across the league were like, wow, like that's a great pick. You could tell he was someone everyone's trying to keep under the radar, but he was a guy people knew about."

Unfortunately, Zavala wasn't able to really hit the ground running in Carolina as he missed some time back in the spring with a pectoral strain. He also missed the start of training camp, so head coach Frank Reich decided to hold off on naming a starter at right guard until he returned. He played in the team's final two preseason games and did enough to earn that job.

"Chandler's done a great job," said Panthers starting center Bradley Bozeman. "He's just continued to work, continue to do the things he's good at. Minimize his weaknesses and excel on his strengths. He's done a great job of that, especially through the two preseason games. This week of prep will be big and get his first true start in the NFL. I'm excited for him and I'm ready to see him go out there and ball.

"He's got really good strength, really good feet. He has good awareness, a good football IQ, the whole gambit," continued Bozeman. "That's why he was drafted so high. The guy plays hard, he does the right things, and he's always in the right place."

Shortly after Reich named him the starter on Wednesday morning, I asked Zavala about what that moment was like for him being told that he had earned the job. Unfortunately, he was unaware of it but smiled ear-to-ear upon hearing what Frank relayed to reporters. 

Accidentally broke the news to Chandler Zavala that he will be starting Week 1. Head coach Frank Reich revealed he had won the job this morning.

His reaction: pic.twitter.com/aRMvJ0MqFX

— Schuyler Callihan (@Callihan_) September 6, 2023

"I'm very blessed and thankful for it. It's going to be very fun. Just for them to trust me and put me out there on the field, I'm very thankful."

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