Pitarresi: SU's Paulus looks good

I was going to tell everyone how, after battling through a spectacular series of electrical storms and hydroplaning down the Thruway from Buffalo to Westmoreland last night, and then doing something similar if not quite so challenging or exciting this afternoon coming back from Syracuse University’s football media day, I planned to build an ark. I was going to include a list of which pairs of animals that I would take along with me as the 21st Century version of the Great Flood progressed, with whitetail deer, cottontail rabbits, ruffed grouse, smallmouth bass, and several species of trout heading things up.

 

Instead, I will tell you that Greg Paulus looks good in a football uniform. That is, he looks like a quarterback, which new SU coach Doug Marrone hopes he is.

 

Paulus, as every Central New York sports fan knows and a lot of people already are sick of hearing, is now, after four years of a mostly up and sometimes down career as a point guard for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, a graduate student at SU. That he might end being the starting quarterback is very interesting, if not all that surprising. The choices are Cameron Dantley, a rocket-armed and inconsistent former walk-on who had some great moments as a starter last season; Ryan Nassib, a sophomore who was named the starter during spring practice but has never taken a snap in a college game, and Paulus, who hasn’t played football since 2004 but was regarded as one of the top quarterback prospect in the nation when he was a senior at Syracuse CBA.

 

Can Paulus still play football? He said he is going to start finding out this week, after working out all summer with his teammates. I think he’ll find out he can. Much has been made of his being away from the game for so long, and of his size – he’s listed at 6-feet-1, 195 pounds, which seems okay on the height and highly unlikely on the weight – but I don’t think either is going to be a factor. I guess I’ve written this before, but I’m writing it again – I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks in 40 years of watching high school football in Central New York, and Paulus is, with no doubt whatsoever, the best in my memory. Someone asked me recently who the other great quarterbacks might have been, and I’ll confess there hasn’t been an overabundance of them, but still, he was good enough to be pursued by some of the top programs in the country. Good arm, great feet, an uncommon sense of the game, with an ability to keep plays alive better than anyone I’ve ever seen at that level.

 

Paulus might have some rust on him, but I think he’ll be SU’s starting QB by the third game, if not at the start of the season, and I think he’ll do a great job.