By John Kekis
Associated PressSYRACUSE, N.Y. ó If Duke’s Greg Paulus is looking for the ideal situation for his suddenly resurgent interest in quarterbacking a college football team, one that courted him when he was a two-sport high school star would seem the perfect fit ó his hometown Syracuse Orange.
Paulus, who already has worked out for the Green Bay Packers and visited with Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, is expected to make a visit to Syracuse within the next few days.
Orange head coach Doug Marrone has declined to comment, citing NCAA rules.
“We’re very well aware of the situation,” Marrone said.
Paulus has exhausted his basketball eligibility at Duke, but he still has one season left to play another sport. So the record-setting high school signal-caller is weighing one last shot at a football career.
“You look into if you have a chance to compete and play, then what is the situation there?” Paulus said. “The opportunity to do that and to have that chance is exciting. I’ve got to do my homework. Is this a good situation? Is there a chance to do what I want to do?”
Paulus would appear to have a legitimate chance at Syracuse, a proud program that’s fallen on hard times. Hired in December to resurrect the team he once played for ó Syracuse has gone 10-37 over the past four seasons ó Marrone already has moved Andrew Robinson, a former starter at quarterback, to tight end and demoted Cam Dantley, last year’s starter, to backup behind redshirt freshman Ryan Nassib, who has never thrown a college pass.
Paulus certainly has credentials for at least a look. In high school at Christian Brothers Academy, located less than a mile from Marrone’s office, Paulus was one of the nation’s top prep quarterbacks.
“Can he come back and play? Yeah,” Christian Brothers head coach Joe Casamento said Thursday. “Do I know if he’s going to win the job someplace? No. But I know this. If he doesn’t win it, he’ll put a lot of pressure on whoever’s in front of him to be great because he’s a competitor.”
In high school, Paulus received scholarship offers to play football at Miami and Notre Dame and received a basketball offer from Syracuse before choosing to play basketball at Duke. For most of the past four years, his only flirtation with football came when he threw the ball around with his younger brother, Mike, a quarterback at North Carolina.
Having been away from the game for so long has raised doubts about whether Paulus, at 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, can succeed at the Division I level, especially for a team like Syracuse, which has struggled to build a solid offensive line.
“This is not Class A football. You’re talking a high level of competition,” said Greg Boltus, a coach at Christian Brothers when Paulus played there. “He’s smart and tough, and he’ll go out there and compete, but is he going to have the physical tools four years later? That’s the question.
“I hope it works out for him,” said Boltus, whose son, Jason, became a record-setting quarterback at Division III Hartwick College and is expected to be selected in the NFL draft. “But the game is nothing like high school.”
Casamento warns not to underestimate his former star.
“You know what? It’s a lot easier for all these people who have never played Division I anything to sit there and say, ‘He can’t do anything.’ But they don’t know because they’ve never done it,” Casamento said. “This kid was a Division I basketball player on the point at Duke as a freshman. And it’s about working and trying and committing. Here’s the thing I would tell those people: He’s not afraid to try.”
Since Paulus did not redshirt and will complete his degree at Duke in four years, he can go to graduate school elsewhere and compete immediately if granted a special waiver from the NCAA.