This Boise State assistant coach earned national recognition. Here’s why
Boise State had one of the best pass-rushing units in college football last season.
The Broncos recorded a nation-best 55 sacks en route to the College Football Playoff. Defensive end Ahmed Hassanein was taken in the NFL Draft and edge Jayden Virgin-Morgan earned All-Mountain West First Team honors, after they combined for 19.5 of those.
The players earned the plaudits, but behind them on the sideline was the coach helping make it tick. And now, that man has been acknowledged as one of the best young assistant coaches in the nation.
Boise State edge coach Jabril Frazier was named to 247Sports’ 30Under30 list on Monday. The 28-year-old has served as the edge coach since 2023, after a playing career at Boise State from 2015-18 and three years as a graduate assistant.
“I’m excited for that, but the list really means nothing to me,” Frazier said Tuesday. “I’m that type of guy, you know, I’ve got to get back in and get back to work, and I’m excited for what’s in store this year.”
Frazier’s path to this point has been far from easy.
In his first year on campus, he wasn’t allowed to practice or lift weights with teammates because he didn’t qualify academically. He went on to make 28 starts across four years for the Broncos, and joined the New York Jets’ training camp in 2019. A knee injury derailed his NFL dreams, leading him to end up back in his hometown of Los Angeles as a security guard for a halfway house owned by his father.
A former linebacker himself, Frazier started coaching and training outside linebackers as a side gig in Southern California. Before long, former Boise State coach Bryan Harsin offered him a position as a graduate assistant in 2020.
“I find it fascinating that I could come in every single day and make an impact on these young men,” Frazier said Monday. “Not just as football players, because that’s not what I’m in it for. I’m in it because they’re going to be husbands, fathers, real men in the world.”
Frazier was promoted to edge coach by Andy Avalos in 2023, when current head coach Spencer Danielson was the defensive coordinator. He credited Danielson as a significant influence.
Both Danielson and wide receivers coach Matt Miller are past members of the 30Under30 list, Danielson in 2018 and Miller in 2020.
Danielson was Frazier’s position coach during the latter’s playing days at Boise State, and Miller was a senior receiver at BSU when Frazier was a freshman.
“I think every coach in this building is a mentor to me,” Frazier said. “A lot of these coaches, they want to pour into young coaches. And that’s a beautiful thing about this building. … We’re constantly trying to help each other grow in this profession.”
It took some time for Frazier to grow, he said. As an upperclassman, he’d sometimes “hate” how often Danielson would push him to the limit, and the duo would butt heads when Danielson first arrived as a graduate assistant in 2017.
But Frazier soon came to see him as a “father figure.”
“As you get away from it, you sit back and you recognize, man, I needed that more than I needed a coach just going and patting me on my back,” Frazier said.
As a young coach not far removed from playing on The Blue, Coach Frazier has developed close connections with current Broncos. They sit in the same seats he occupied, and run up and down the same Albertsons Stadium bleachers he sweated over.
“I’ve been through some of the same things that they’ve been through. I never try to (be like), ‘Oh yeah, I’m older than you. I’m doing this,’” Frazier said.
“No, I tell these guys like I’m trying to get the best out of you. I’m trying to get you to where I’ve never been. And I know that everybody in that room has the capability of it.”
