I'm pretty sure we are all in agreement that German was one of the greatest American High school distance talents of all time. He ran 8:34 as a high schooler for pete's sake. I expected future 5Ks under 13 and the like. I expected one of the deepest athlets of all time, with spectacular PRs from the 1500m-to the half marathon. I still believe that he has a chance to do all that, but will he? SO, why is he struggling so much? I think only German really knows that.
the way I see it, one of two things will happen
1. German will return to past form and shatter some more records, make serious runs at olympic games, and contend for numerous championships from NCAA on up.
2. German wil continue to do poorly, and eventually fade away into the background, get some random job, and not be competitive at anything serious in the future.
Personally, I think #1 is more likely. I agree, he had the talent to contend for top 3 at NCCAXC this past fall, so based off that his placing around 10th wasn't great, but 8th or 9th or whatever wasn't the worst he could've done. German just needs a good long period of training under his belt, stay focused, get his head in the right place. His confidence is probaly hurting alot right now, believe me, if your confidence takes hits like this over and over again, and you aren't anywhere you expected to be, it hurts you alot.