Six added to practice roster on Tuesday

Nick Arbuckle, it appears, is woefully unprepared. Not as a player. The new Calgary Stampeders quarterback has all the tools head coach Dave Dickenson is looking to see.

But he may have underestimated what a Canadian fall/winter feels like.

“It’s my first time in Canada,” Arbuckle said after joining the club’s practice roster on Tuesday.

“It’s a little bit different than Georgia was, that’s for sure. “I don’t even own a jacket.” That may have changed by the end of the day.

But, despite a biting breeze during Tuesday’s workout, Arbuckle was all smiles after throwing a few balls.

He was among six players — all internationals — added by the Stamps on Tuesday as CFL practice rosters expanded from 10 to 15 players.

Also joining the practice roster are receiver Devonte Robinson, defensive back Joel Ross and defensive linemen Perez Ford, Josh Francis and Jason Neill.

Of course, none of the new additions will be in the lineup when the Stamps visit the Hamilton TigerCats on Saturday (2 p.m., TSN/ News Talk 770).

But they’ll get a chance to compete for reps down the road.

The six-foot-one, 215-pound Arbuckle, who spent time with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, initially got the Stamps’ attention at an offseason camp in Florida.

“I went to the IMG camp in Florida,” Arbuckle said. “They had been talking to me before and invited me out there. That was my first opportunity to be with the coaches.

“(The Stamps) wanted me to come up for training camp in May but the Steelers signed me on draft day. So because I was part of their OTAs, I wasn’t able to come here.”

Joining a new team with a new playbook in a foreign league twothirds of the way through a season sounds like an arduous task.

“It’s a fun challenge because I’ve always loved the mental aspect of the game,” the 22-year-old said. “It’s why I chose to play quarterback when I was younger.

“I like the thinking and the X’s and O’s that goes behind it.”

It can take a while for an American quarterback to get comfortable with the Canadian game and all its quirks.

“With the Canadian game being a little different than the NFL game, with the extra guy on the field and the motions, there’s a lot of new schematics and concepts.

“In American football, I’ve been doing the same stuff from high school all the way to the Steelers.

“Here, this is the first time actually seeing the new coverages so it’s fun to learn. It’s something I don’t mind losing sleep over late at night.”

But, not knowing a whole bunch about the CFL, Arbuckle started to study once he received the invite to the IMG camp.

Which wasn’t a big deal for the cerebral pivot. Arbuckle played two seasons at Georgia State and was named an all-conference player as well as student athlete of the year.

“I kinda got a feel for what the offence did at IMG,” said Arbuckle, who set a Sun Belt record with 4,368 passing yards in 2015.

“But we were going mostly off of cards, so we weren’t given a playbook to learn.

“The terminology of the offence is what I started to pick up when I got the playbook (on Monday night).”