German has ups and downs on first day of practice
By Marcus Nelson
By now most of you know that JUCO transfer quarterback Melvin German took the practice field on Wednesday as a member of the Florida Atlantic Owls.
That shouldn't have been too much of a shock since my man Chuck King has been saying for a while that German would indeed make it to Boca Raton.
No doubt that more fans are surprised that German hadn't been named the starter or that had he had not won the Nobel Peace prize by the end of the first practice.
German had some good plays and had some bad plays in his first practice and, while he certainly is one of the most talented players to bring his services to FAU, he is human and is going to face a stiff learning curve.
“Our implementation schedule is such that he should keep up with our install,” said FAU coach Carl Pelini. "He handled the install today OK, but his head will start to swim about Day 5 or 6 as we start getting more and more in. He'll get frustrated – I've seen it over and over again and then it will ease up for him. Every new QB goes through those stages. Hopefully, after Day 10, 11 12 he'll start to be more comfortable with the offense."
FAU offensive coordinator Brian Wright, who may have to devise a gameplan for German sooner rather than later, also was seeing German live and in person for the first time.
“He's trying to learn the whole offense in a short amount of time and that's very difficult for him to do that," Wright said. "He had to sit back and evaluate and then we'd thrown him in to get a few live reps and get him some live action. He did OK, but it's too early to tell.”
German's maturation and learning of the offense will be the top story to watch in camp, but FAU's receivers think he will learn quickly.
“It's early so you expect him to be shaky, but he'll be ready to compete,” said Owls wide receiver William Dukes. “I've got my timing down with the other quarterbacks, but I'm pretty sure after a while I'll get it down with him too."