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Paulus picked; pleasing people; perplexing pundits
Well I do say it has been a most interesting morning here in Cuse Nation. I figured that there would be a blog post today but not for this reason. As a father of 4, I’ve come to expect that some things just don’t go as planned, so why should this be any exception? Let’s pause to rewind my last twelve hours or so.
I got home yesterday to find a nice suprise waiting for me in my mailbox. The NCAA was kind enough to tell me that my application for Final 4 tickets has been approved! So now, all I need is my beloved Orange to follow through on the extremely early predictions to be true. You know the ones that led me to fill out AND PAY in advance for. Come on Wes and Brandon!! Or maybe, being in the bluegrass, I could always wait it out and triple my investment in the hope of UK fulfilling its fans fervor. While the cash would be nice, I don’t think I could stomach a season of UK Fan feeling all high and mighty. I’ve started to enjoy hearing more than just Big Blue and Little Red during college basketball season.
So while I’m prepping my brood for their first day of school, Coach Marrone goes and gets all trigger happy and makes the call to the media that Greg Paulus is the starter. So I totally miss the news until I’m riding into work after dropping off my happy K schoolers when who breaks it to me than Joe B. Hall, who tag teams with Denny Crum for one of the most difficult am talk shows to endure in the history of mankind. There’s nothing worse for a transplanted NY’er to endure than waiting 10 minutes for a slow talking Southerner to weave their story. Fortunately I knew the moment he started blabbering about Paulus that he must have been named the starter. I even got notified via email too! Why it took twelve hours to paste in the Paulus to starter with the plea for ticket purchasing, I don’t know.
Well of course the national news cycle is all over this and with good reason. You can get a feel for it in Syracuse, in BE cities, nationally and in the blogosphere. I’m sure by now we’ve all looked around to see what everyone thinks. It’s probably one of many reasons why Paulus has been chosen. It’s news. And that news is either positive or negative depending on the take you have from it.
It’s a plus: If you think its a plus, you think that any news involving the University and the football team that makes national news for the program is good publicity. Pro thinkers also realize that the window to Paulus era is short one anyway and you have to use it while you can. One can also make the case that Paulus starting now gives Nassib time to develop without the pressure of Paulus looking over his shoulder. That whatever he does won’t be measured against what Paulus might have done. Nassib throws INT, WWPD? See the Axeman. Plus playing Nassib after Paulus would have the benefit of not shattering the young red-shirt frosh’s confidence and cause him to regress in his development.
You negative Nancy’s out there, the main thought can be summed by this thought, “Damn, SU football must be terrible if a guy 4 years removed from taking a snap can win the starting job in just a week’s worth of practice.” Or, “I’m sure this was a PR move made to sell tickets.” (Hey we did get that email afterall) It was also a move made to shadow the announcement that the Cuse is forgoing home dates with USC and Notre Dame in favor of the Meadowlands. Dang Gross, always working to slip bad news in with the good news. (More on this subject later)
Well I think it was a given that if the intel that Marrone got from Paulus’ NFL tryout plus his review of HS film coupled with his interview of Paulus was enough to extend a scholarship, it was a sure bet that he was going to end up starting. And if that’s the case, the sooner versus later scenario was likely the route it was going to take. I am most surprised at the timing, because the early words from DM were quite positive about Nassib. I figured he would wait until about 10 days before the opener before announcing the decision, even if he already made it in his mind so0ner. All to give the impression that is was an open competition and the better man did win.
Anyway, the Cuse has their man named at QB. It will be an interesting rest of camp to say the least. We shall see how the national media follows the rest of camp.
