Nick Arbuckle was born to be ...
An offensive lineman?
It’s difficult to imagine Georgia State’s senior signal caller playing anywhere but under center, but Nick Arbuckle’s football career actually began in the trenches.
“I started playing football in the first grade, and I was always a really big kid, so I played offensive line and defensive line,” Arbuckle recalled. “When I got to the seventh grade, I decided I didn’t want to be 300 pounds. My brothers and my cousin were all high school quarterbacks, so I talked to my brother and had him teach me how to play quarterback.”
Arbuckle, who would now be a bit undersized for the line at 6-1 and 215 pounds, and the Panthers (1-2, 1-0 Sun Belt) host Liberty in Saturday's Homecoming game at 3:30 p.m. at the Georgia Dome.
His career at the new position evolved slowly. In fact, the quarterback who has thrown for more than 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in his first 15 games in a Panther uniform never even started for St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura, Calif.
“I wasn’t very good my first year,” Arbuckle admitted. “I got better my second year, and in high school I got a lot better, but I never got the opportunity to start. My first start at quarterback wasn’t until junior college. My senior year of high school, I was the starting tight end and the backup quarterback.”
Arbuckle’s experience playing tight end did have a role in his development as a quarterback.
“It helped me see the game from a different angle, and I learned all of the blocking schemes and different defensive fronts. I learned how double-teams worked and when certain run plays would work and when they wouldn’t work.”
Still, it’s hard to earn a college scholarship if you don’t start.
“I sent out a bunch of e-mails to junior colleges, and when I went to camps and combines, I went as a quarterback," Arbuckle said. "I was able to win MVP at a lot of the camps and seven-on-seven tournaments, so that gave me enough to put on my resume. And my high school team was good enough that I was able to play some quarterback in the fourth quarter.”
That was enough for nearby Pierce College to give Arbuckle a chance.
“Pierce College was close to my home and luckily they wanted to take me. I won the starting quarterback job there about three weeks into my first season.”
In two years at Pierce, Arbuckle passed for nearly 7,000 yards and 73 touchdowns. As he was being recruited by FBS programs, he built a connection with the Georgia State coaching staff, particularly quarterbacks coach Luke Huard, that drew him across the country to Atlanta.
“He is one of the main reason why I decided to come here,” Arbuckle said.
“Coach Huard has done a great job of changing a lot of the things that I do, fundamentally, to help me become a better quarterback. If you compare film from the first spring I was here to the games now, fundamentally I look like two different quarterbacks - different footwork, different arm motion, different posture back there in the pocket.
“In high school, I was fortunate enough to be with a phenomenal coach [Todd Therrien] in a great system where I learned a lot about football and schemes and reading defenses. Mentally, my game was there, and Coach Huard really helped me bring along the fundamentals and the physical aspect.”
After his playing days are over, Arbuckle hopes to have the same influence on young players coming after him.
“I want to play football for as long as I can but whenever my journey ends with football I’m going to hang up the cleats and pick up a clipboard and become a high school coach in California," he said. "When I’m done playing, I will try to become a graduate assistant so I can get my Master’s degree in sports administration in order to become an athletic director and a football coach.”
