Syracuse Sub-plot

Syracuse head football coach Doug Marrone announced yesterday that the Orangemen will be lead at QB against your Golden Gophers on September 5th by Greg Paulus.

Last year at this time Paulus was a point guard for a little basketball program in North Carolina that you may have heard of called Duke. He started 100 games for the Blue Devils over four years and averaged 8.6 points and 3.4 assists/game. He ranks 6th all-time in Duke history for 3-pt field goal percentage, with 39.8%.

But let's focus on football....

Paulus was the Gatorade National High School Football player of the Year in 2004, and was Gatorade's National High School Athlete of the Year (for all sports) in 2005. He was a 4-time all-state player in New York and averaged 3 touchdowns/game and threw for over 12,000 yards in his high school career. Paulus was offered football scholarships at Miami and Notre Dame before choosing to pursue basketball. He also considered entering the NFL draft this past spring and actually worked out for the Packers in anticipation of doing so, but decided to go for his master's degree instead.

The guy's resume reads something like Bo Jackson's (except he was also a good student at Duke and is now going for his master's at Syracuse), and after just a week of football practice he has already beat out last year's Orangemen starter Cam Dantley, and sophomore Ryan Nassib, who was expected to start for Syracuse this season.

This becomes a no-win situation for the Gophers. If they beat Syracuse and beat up Paulus, the response will be "of course they did, the guy hasn't played competitive football in 4 years." And if he picks them apart... yikes.