Colts playcaller Parks Frazier is 30. Obsessive preparation set him up for success

Parks Frazier’s coaching journey can be summed up by all-consuming preparation.

At Samford University, as an unpaid defensive quality-control assistant in 2015, Frazier spent March nights with close friend and fellow coach Spencer Phillips, redoing recruiting boards and playbook-drawing templates so they were easier for the coaching staff to use months later in the fall. They worked so late that sometimes they slept in the office.

When Frazier became Frank Reich’s assistant to the head coach in 2018, he regularly sought advice from Phillips, then in a similar role with the Eagles helping then-coach Doug Pederson. The calls would come at midnight or 1 a.m., with Frazier still in the office.

“Would you do this for Doug? Did it make it easier for him? How could I do this for Frank? How can I do this for the quarterbacks?”

“He’s the kind of person that if there’s 100 stones to turn over,” said Phillips, “he’s going to turn them (all) over twice to make sure that he got everything.”

That mindset has been part of his quick ascension, helping lead to success in an unprecedented situation.

Frazier, the Colts‘ pass-game specialist and assistant quarterbacks coach, guided Indianapolis‘ offense to one of its best performances of the season in Sunday’s 25-20 victory over the Raiders, just days after being tabbed as playcaller for the rest of the season by interim coach Jeff Saturday.

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At just 30 years old, and in his play-calling debut at any level, Frazier’s game plan helped a struggling unit to its most balanced showing of the season. For the first time in 2022, Indianapolis had over 200 yards passing and rushing. The team also averaged seven yards per play, a season high.

While the entire offensive coaching staff stepped up in a tumultuous week, which saw Reich fired, Frazier brought it together in a morale-boosting victory for the franchise.

“He called a fantastic football game,” Saturday said postgame. “Understood what the needs of the team were at the moment … When you think about the plays that were there to be made, they were there to be made. That’s all you can do from a coaching perspective: put it in the players’ hands, allow them to execute and those guys executed really, really well.”

Why Saturday chose him? It’s worth noting that Colts quarterbacks coach Scott Milanovich turned down first dibs. But Frazier is the longest-tenured staffer on the offensive side of the ball, climbing from Reich’s assistant (2018-19) to offensive quality-control assistant (2020), assistant quarterbacks coach (2021) and adding pass-game specialist to his role this season. He’s experienced despite his youth.

Frazier’s knowledge of the Colts’ offense is second to none.

“I’m never going to say that I have all the answers because I don’t think anybody has all the answers and this is what I told the guys — ‘I’m going to work my tail off, though, to find them.'” Frazier said last week. “That’s all that I can do, is say I’m going to give you my best. That’s what I bring to the table.”

What he also brings is future head-coach material, according to those who know Frazier best.

One of the first things they point to? His smarts.

He has a degree in computer science from Murray State, where he quarterbacked for three seasons (2012-14). He’s “brilliant,” Phillips said, at understanding systems.

Buster Faulker, currently an offensive quality-control coach at Georgia, calls Frazier the “smartest human being I’ve ever been around.” Frazier was his right-hand man in their time together at Middle Tennessee State and Arkansas State. Faulkner was an offensive coordinator at both schools; Frazier was a defensive quality control assistant at MTSU, an offensive graduate assistant-quarterbacks at Arkansas State. But Faulkner bounced ideas off Frazier, fresh out of college at the time. He always looked to be on the “cutting edge,” Faulkner said.

At MTSU in 2015, ahead of a game against Marshall, Frazier proposed a play — a vertical switch concept with two tight ends — to Faulkner. The Blue Raiders ran it and scored a touchdown.

Early in Frazier’s tenure with the Colts, Faulkner saw Indianapolis use a similar play to score a touchdown with tight end Jack Doyle.

Faulkner asked him about it.

“He said, ‘yeah, I actually used our install tape from Middle Tennessee and showed (the Colts) how we did it,'” Faulkner recalled. “I thought that was pretty cool.

“He’s the smartest guy in the room, but doesn’t act like it.”

Beyond his Xs and Os knowledge, Frazier is also praised for his likeability. He’s loyal. He’s calm by nature, even in the chaos intertwined with football. He doesn’t raise his voice or cuss very often, but still gets his message across effectively.

“His ability to relate to people, for his age at any setting and do things the right way and come across the right way, is something you don’t see very often at such a young age,” Faulkner said. “He can relay a message to any audience and I think that’s a very important thing in coaching. He can dumb it down. He can speak to anybody.”

Being brought up in football, Frazier likens his coaching mindset to the “next man up” mentality pounded into players. He’s prided himself on being ready even when it’s not his time.

As Reich’s assistant, his approach was, ‘if I’m the head coach, what would I do?’ As the assistant quarterbacks coach, he watched Milanovich and former offensive coordinator Marcus Brady thinking, ‘what would I do if I was in their position?’ Observing Reich as a play caller, he thought, ‘How do I want to do it?’

Approaching the game that way, Frazier said, is part of growth.

“Obviously, you don’t get that experience of doing it,” Frazier said last week,” but when you take the approach of ‘how would I do it?’ and you put yourself in that position, it gives you the ability to be ready.”

Opportunity has met preparation.

Ben Arthur is the AFC South reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.