Greg Paulus Aims Low, Joins Syracuse

Greg Paulus will take the low road to attempt a reboot of his athletic career and play football at Syracuse. After four years at Duke, Paulus will join the Newhouse School of Public Communications and attempt to break into the starting lineup for the Orangemen.

Paulus obviously did his research carefully. Syracuse is beginning what might gently be called a rebuilding process under new coach Doug Marrone as possibly the worst BCS conference team in the nation. Expectations could not be lower, and redshirt freshman Ryan Nassib represents the most serious competition for snaps under center. Of all the schools Paulus was considering, Syracuse has both the lowest expectations and the shortest path to real, live playing time. (Also, if the Paulus experiment is a bust, Marrone still has three years of eligibility left for Nassib.)

Paulus also understands his timing. If he can actually still play football (and he was a phenomenal high school QB,) he's made his announcement in the middle of the college football's dead season. Paulus at least has his name out there, and has created buzz out of a big literal heap of nothing. If Syracuse completed The Quest for Toronto, it would represent a huge accomplishment, and likely boost the extremely slim chances of Paulus doing anything professionally. (You're not thinking about it this way, but Paulus and someone working to slip his name in the public eye certainly is, and if the cavalcade I heard on the conference call is any indication, it's working.)

If nothing else, he should excel at drawing roughing the passer penalties. If he gets two a game, that would already equal 15 percent of Syracuse's first down production for 2008. As bad as the Orangemen have been, it's as promising an offensive plan as they've had in a while.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.