Zach Shackelford

Classroom

Zach Shackelford will graduate in December 2019. In his career, he has earned the UT Academic Provost Award (4.0) in Spring 2018, and Fall 2018 Academic All Big 12 First Team honors, fall 2017 Academic All-Big 12 Second Team honors, a Spring 2017 Academic All-Big 12 selection, and a place on the 2016-17 Academic All-Big 12 Rookie Team. He is a five-time member of the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll (Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019).

Character

Head Coach Tom Herman on Shackelford: “He is a tremendous leader, and you look no further than his family. His father is a chaplain in the military, so he’s a very disciplined young man. He and [quarterback] Sam Ehlinger are probably our two most vocal leaders offensively. We’re proud to have him. We think he is as good a center as there is in the country. He’s brilliant when it comes to making the calls. The center is kind of the quarterback of the offensive line, and he’s really the glue that holds that group together.”

Community

Shackelford has frequently spoken at high schools both in Texas and in Ohio and is a repeated visitor to Dell Children’s Medical Center. He was part of a group that visited a children’s hospital in Houston while at the Texas Bowl and also adopted a street by campus and helped clean it. He’s also handed out Chick-Fil-A food to the homeless, picked up trash at the Boys and Girls Club, volunteered time at the Boys and Girls Club, served at the YMCA to help run activities, volunteered at Travis Country Juvenile Detention Center, helped mulch around a campus fountain and helped rebuild an elementary school playground.

Competition

A member of the 2019 Rimington Trophy watch list, Shackelford earned preseason All-Big 12 and second-team preseason All-America (Phil Steele and Athlon Sports) honors prior to the season. Also a member of the Rimington Trophy watch list in 2018, he earned first-team All-Big 12 honors by the Associated Press and second-team All-Big 12 honors by the coaches following his junior season. In 2016, the FWAA Freshman All-America selection blocked for 2016 Doak Walker Award winner D’Onta Foreman who was the second player in Texas history to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season.