Meet Butler High School’s cerebral QB. Zach Lawrence is planning a breakout junior year
Butler High School is known for its prolific quarterback legacy. In the past decade, Butler has produced stars such as Memphis’ Riley Ferguson and Jackson State’s Christian LeMay, a former high school All-American.
Its next star product appears to be Zach Lawrence, a 6-foot-3, 203-pound junior with a cannon of an arm and a football IQ rarely seen in players so young.
“He’s such a smart kid, I mean, that’s the beginning of it,” Butler head coach Brian Hales said. “Mentally the kid’s just so advanced. He allows us to do so many different things. Then when you add the physical ability, too, it just takes him to a different level.”
With current offers from Minnesota, James Madison, East Carolina, Boston College and Charlotte, word of Lawrence’s talent is slowly beginning to make its way around the college football world.
Last season, in his first year as a varsity starter, he threw for 2,557 yards with a 63.2% completion rate, collecting 32 touchdowns and giving up nine interceptions in Butler’s 10-3 campaign.
There comes pressure when the expectation each week is to perform to the level that would please a college scout, but Lawrence is more comfortable now with one full season under his belt.
“That pressure is not really there anymore,” Lawrence said. “I’m coming back and I’m ready to go. There’s no pressure from anybody here, it’s all put on myself.”
He attributes his in-game intelligence simply to watching as much film as he possibly can in order to help him predict certain defensive tendencies in preparation for upcoming games. He’ll often bring his notes to Hales so they can compare, because they each may see things the other doesn’t.
This careful attention to detail when assessing their own game film and film of opponents is what makes the difference when it comes to making in-game adjustments. For Lawrence, it’s about understanding his opponent as best as he can so Butler can catch them by surprise.
“We do stuff that maybe they don’t expect,” Lawrence said. “We’re really making them play their hand first and once they do that, we figure out what they do. Especially coming out of halftime, we know exactly what they’re going to do, exactly what we’re going to do.”
This year during those halftime talks, it will be Lawrence’s job to rally his teammates. One of the messages he hopes to convey is keeping focus narrowed in on winning each week individually rather than only focusing on the season as a whole.
Even when he isn’t giving his teammates encouragement, he’s making them better players on the field. Wide receiver Dequadre Currence said Lawrence has been making his job easier since they were freshmen, relying on their chemistry to keep their relationship strong.
“Even if I’m not open, he’s going to find a way to throw me open and that’s what you’re supposed to love as a receiver,” Currence said. “Sometimes you’re not gonna get open, but if you have a great quarterback, he can put you in a position to make a play.
“What Zach does is, even when I’m not doing my job, he makes it look like I’m doing my job. He just makes me a better player overall.”
It’s not just Lawrence who is bringing loads of football intelligence to the table. He said this Butler team is the smartest team he’s ever played with. That’s due to him and his teammates holding each other accountable and to high standards.
High standards are what have helped Lawrence become so proficient at the helm. They’ve also helped earn him the attention of several college programs seeking his talents at the Division I level.
“Ask 6-year-old me, I’d have never thought I would be starting in high school, much less have a college offer, much less have a Big Ten college offer,” Lawrence said. “That’s not a position I thought I would have been in. But it feels great. It feels like I’ve done everything I was supposed to do and now I’m just trying to get better.”
Lawrence also said he models a lot of his quarterback play after New York Jet star Aaron Rodgers and UNC’s Drake Maye. With Maye, Lawrence watches his fakes and tries to emulate what he does in the pocket, whereas with Rodgers he admires the mechanics.
One thing he’s working on this offseason is his speed, as he’s trying to add more of a ground element to his game. He’s also reinforcing his knowledge of plays, with an advanced recall Hales said is a big reason why Lawrence is so easy to work with.
Hales has seen his fair share of talented quarterbacks in his time at Butler, and he says Lawrence’s ceiling can be as high or as low as he desires.
“It’s as high as he wants it to be,” Hales said. “As long as he keeps working the way he is, studying the way he is, attacking the weight room the way he does, he could do whatever he wants in this game.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
