Zach Calzada: The Hero Behind the Aggies’ Top-Ranked Upset
Zach Calzada. There’s a good chance you won’t forget that name for the rest of the college football season. If you’re a Texas A&M fan, there’s a good chance you won’t forget that name ever. Neither will the city of Sugar Hill, Georgia.
Yes, three-star quarterback Zach Calzada played his high school ball in Georgia at Lanier. He wasn’t eye-popping by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a solid prospect who fit the backup role with the Aggies.
Calzada got his first start as a junior with the Longhorns in 2017. His average season produced average results; Lanier went 6-5 and lost in the first round of the playoffs behind Calzada’s 1,706 yards passing and 15 TDs. The team as a whole was overshadowed in their own city that year, as North Gwinnett claimed their first ever state championship. As a result, Calzada and the Longhorns went largely unnoticed. That is, until Lehigh offered Calzada a scholarship in early 2018.
By May, Calzada had received over 30 scholarship offers, including one from the Aggies. A strong summer propelled Calzada up the ranks even more, as Georgia joined the offer club as well. However, Zach chose Texas A&M over the Bulldogs just six days after his unofficial visit to College Station.
Lanier was poised for a strong 2018 campaign with Calzada at the helm and RB Taj Barnes as his complement. They didn’t disappoint. The Longhorns reached the state semifinals and lost to Lee County, but Calzada improved from 2017. He passed for 1,723 yards and only threw five interceptions as opposed to the 11 the year prior. These still weren’t impressive totals, and Calzada’s play definitely did not indicate he would be the quarterback to eventually upset No. 1 Alabama.
Fast-forward to 2021, and Calzada is thrust into the starting role after Texas A&M QB Haynes King fractured his leg against Colorado early in the season. With extremely high expectations for a top-10 Aggies team, Calzada faltered, and Texas A&M fell to Arkansas and Mississippi State in back-to-back weeks. Beating top-ranked Alabama surely seemed out of the picture.
41-38. Just like that, it was over. A back-and-forth, high-scoring affair went the Aggies’ way, and the kid from Sugar Hill, Georgia, became the hero.
Shockingly, Zach Calzada had the best night of his career, including the 25 games he started as a Longhorn. His 285 yards was a personal best, and it came at a time when the Aggies desperately needed it. It still seems stunning that a quarterback with a 5-4 TD-to-INT ratio and a 53.9% completion rate could defeat the best team in the nation. But he did it.
The redshirt sophomore from Lanier didn’t need the stats to show he was great. He needed to be clutch, and he proved it on a national stage.
Written by: Dhruv Mohan
