Nick Falkenberg runs the ball during a 42-13 win against Pemberton on September 12. (Staff photo by Samantha Sciarrotta.)
When Nick Falkenberg was in seventh grade, he signed up for football for the first time.
He wanted to play quarterback in Pop Warner. But there was an older player ahead of him, so he played tight end and defensive end.
In eighth grade, he quarterbacked the Lawrence Lightning to the Pop Warner championship game before losing to Trenton in “a crazy game.”
From that point on, Falkenberg has never been anywhere else but under center. Considering how he has progressed, now as a high school senior, that’s how it should be.
“I always wanted to be a quarterback because you get the ball every time and you’re in control and you’re the leader and all that stuff,” Falkenberg said. “In eighth grade I got my shot. We went to the championship game but I knew I needed work.
“Near the end of the season (Lawrence High head coach Rob) Radice came to one of my games and said ‘You could be the future for us if you keep it up.’ That made me feel great.”
The future has arrived, as Falkenberg is now a senior in his third year as a starting quarterback and firmly in control of a Cardinals team with high hopes.
As a sophomore, Falkenberg was basically asked to manage the offense but showed his potential in a loss to Hopewell when he was 10 of 17 for 149 yards and a touchdown.
Last year he completed close to 50 percent of his passes for over 1,100 yards and 13 touchdowns, leading Lawrence to a 5-5 record, its best mark in four years.
This season, he came out of the gate on fire, completing 14 of 17 for 260 yards and two touchdowns in a 42-13 opening-day win over Pemberton.
“He’s just a super kid,” Radice said. “Each year he gets progressively better. He’s dedicated himself to getting better throwing the ball.
“He’s a three-year starter and you ask any sophomore quarterback to start, I don’t care who they are, they’re gonna have growing pains. As a junior he really improved. As a senior he really put his time in over the past year to get even better.”
Falkenberg first worked with Hopewell Valley assistant Matt Bastardi, who runs a quarterback camp. Since last March, he got tutelage from Lawrence graduate and former NFL quarterback Scott Brunner.
Radice has a tight connection with the Brunner family, as Scott’s brother Todd was the coach’s best man.
“Any time I get a really good quarterback I send him to Scott,” the coach said. “He worked with Nick all last March and once a week from March on. Nick would go there and bring some receivers.
“I thought Nick was inconsistent throwing on the run last year and Scott settled his seat down. It wasn’t so much mechanical changes as much as foot and leg corrections and overall quarterback improvement mentally.”
Radice also wanted his quarterback to work on more intermediate routes rather than just going deep.
“He gets the ball downfield beautifully, his arm strength is good, but one of the things I asked Scott to work on were the under routes, the crossing routes, whatever it takes to throw with more consistency.
“He threw them last year but his completion percentage isn’t what we wanted him to be. Last year he was around 50 percent, one of our goals is to get them around 60. He completed 14 of 17 against Pemberton with one drop. You’re not gonna get a lot of high school quarterbacks doing that every game but he threw with the consistency we’re looking for.”
Asked how Brunner helped him, Falkenberg didn’t leave much to the imagination.
“If I could say everything, I’d say everything,” he said with a laugh. “He was an absolutely great coach, a great mentor for me. I’m so glad coach Radice introduced me to him and I got to work with him.”
And he learned exactly what Radice wanted him to learn.
“The biggest thing was poise and footwork,” Falkenberg said. “He really pounded that in my head, that really helped me a lot. We did a lot of drop work and throwing on the run.”
At 6-2, 200 pounds, Falkenberg can run the 40 in 4.6, but Radice said, “I try to protect him from running unless he’s running to get out of trouble.”
As Radice noted, Falkenberg has developed his skills through some growing pains.
As a freshman, he had a breakneck schedule and actually went 14-2 as a starting quarterback. Nick started on the freshman team that went 7-2 playing on Fridays, and also started on the JV team that went 7-0 on Mondays. The ninth-grader played two games in four days throughout the season.
“I always wanted to play both games, no matter how beat up I was,” he said. “It was fun.”
Upon making varsity as a sophomore, Falkenberg only had to prepare for one game a week, but he was dealing with a new level of speed and strength.
“There was always ups downs that year,” Falkenberg recalled. “At the beginning of the season we had an offensive change, after the first two games another offensive change was made. It was tough for me, we were a running offense and didn’t pass as much but it was good to get acclimated. I’m happy he gave me the opportunity to learn the game.
“I definitely learned the speed of the game, I learned varsity speed is a lot greater than JV and freshman. That was the big thing. There were a lot of times Radice helped me with throwing picks. I’ll get fired up when I’d throw a pick and he would calm me down.”
Since then, Falkenberg has evolved into a quiet lead-by-example guy who stands for no nonsense on the field. In that respect, he reminds the coach of his former great quarterbacks, Brett Brackett and Anthony Russ.
“I’ve been blessed as a coach to have two all-state quarterbacks with Brett and Anthony,” Radice said. “I thought Nick was like one of those guys. I used to call him Anthony the first two years by mistake. Then he came over my house to look at film and my wife called him Anthony. I said ‘Claire, you’re killing me. I finally got it right and now you’re calling him that!’”
“He called me Brett once, too,” Falkenberg said with a laugh. “But he knows my name now. When he compares you to guys like Russ, it blows your mind. It’s a big boost for your confidence and your motivation.”
Falkenberg is one of seven football players who were on Lawrence’s Central Jersey Group III basketball champions last year, and he feels that camaraderie has carried over to the gridiron.
“It really brought us closer,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be the same team, it just helps when you do something like that on one team, it carries over to the next.”
Falkenberg, who has a 3.5 GPA and has garnered the recruiting interest of Penn and Lafayette, is smart enough to know that no matter how good he is, he needs his teammates. Radice likes his offensive line this year and the QB is aided by a running attack that includes Semei Mitchell, Cameren Kitchen and David Kowal.
“They’re three great ones,” Falkenberg said. “They can set up the play action pass and they’re also great receivers.”
And with an experienced hand orchestrating it all, it could be a season worth watching at Lawrence.
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