Hands on his hips, Greg Paulus shook his head slowly and coldly. His blissful complexion turned pale. That GQ-charm faded. No, Paulus did not pay attention to those verbal grenades from Big East coaches.

‘I don’t hear or see many things,’ said Paulus, suffocated by recorders and cameras. ‘This is a big commitment right now with camp and double sessions.’

One anonymous coach said in an ESPN.com report that he wished Syracuse was first on his schedule. Another said Paulus will struggle reading defenses. And yet another hinted that his presence in SU is more about the turnstile than the win column. Not exactly a welcome mat.

Paulus insists he’s locked in tunnel vision. But deep inside, Paulus’ brother knows Greg feeds off hate.

‘He wants to stick it back into peoples’ faces who don’t think he can do it,’ said Mike Paulus, a quarterback at North Carolina.

Nobody knows if those Big East coaches are right or wrong. Because nobody knows Greg Paulus the college football player. About five years ago, high school scouting aficionado Tom Lemming compared him to Joe Montana. But Paulus chose basketball. Four years at Duke later, he’s returning to football. Back in Syracuse. Five minutes from his high school.

Maybe this wild experiment combusts in ugly fashion. Maybe it wakes up a program that’s been sedated for half a decade. Either way, a fragrance of mystery stalks Syracuse this fall. And that’s the allure. Paulus’ hyperactive transition to college football has been a mysterious work in progress. He wasn’t around for spring ball. Paulus is one giant unknown.

Those around him – his teammates, his coaches and family – know what’s brewing behind the curtain.

‘People are thinking, ‘This kid has never played quarterback. Is this going to work?” said Dave Paulus, Greg’s father. ‘This kid is a hell of a quarterback, and they are going to see here very shortly.’

Tryout opens door

No way was a scout from the Green Bay Packers on line one. This had to be a prank call.

Smiling inside his office at Duke, Chris Collins played along. The Blue Devils’ assistant basketball coach listened to the so-called Packers scout, jotted down some information and called Paulus. The Packers, supposedly, wanted to give the point guard a workout.

They both laughed.

‘He hadn’t taken a snap since high school,’ Collins said. ‘We didn’t know if it was a joke, if someone was pulling a prank on us.’

Collins did his homework. The scout was legit. So Mike grabbed a couple of his receivers and the Paulus brothers went to work. Eight miles apart, they traveled back and forth to Duke and UNC. Nothing too serious. Mostly ‘to at least look decent,’ Mike joked.

A funny thing happened, though.

‘The passion and the itch came back,’ Greg said. ‘I started to make certain throws and thought, ‘Maybe we can do this.”

The Packers never offered a contract. But they gave Paulus a platform to reintroduce himself as a football player – they made the transition realistic. Suddenly, 15-to-20 schools were calling. And these were no pranks. Paulus visited Michigan, Nebraska and Syracuse in search of the best chance to start.

On his trip to SU, Paulus meandered through the halls of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with head coach Doug Marrone at his hip. Students gawked as Paulus’ tour guide Carolyn Davis, a Ph.D student, showed him broadcasting equipment he had never seen at Duke.

The awkwardness she typically buffered as a tour guide was nonexistent here. A rapport was forged.

‘It seemed like they knew each other really well,’ Davis said. ‘You know how you act when you’re around a professor? It wasn’t like that.’

And the opportunity to start was clear.

‘From a quarterback situation, it’s a lot harder to walk into Nebraska and start than it is at Syracuse,’ Mike Paulus said. ‘That’s not a diss on the program. That’s just realistic. They needed help, especially at that position.’

So with an offer from a European basketball team on the table – and a slew of agents ready to represent him – Paulus did a 180. Instead of living halfway around the globe, Paulus made a pilgrimage home. Behind a squint-to-see NCAA rule that allows four-year college athletes to compete in another sport if they haven’t redshirted, Paulus chose to enroll as a graduate student at SU on May 14.

Paulus never felt constricted to the status quo. At some point, he knew football could pop up again. After all, he was the Gatorade National High School Player of the Year at Christian Brothers Academy, throwing for 11,763 yards and 152 touchdowns as a four-year starter.

Right now, he’s Syracuse’s starting quarterback. After that, who knows?

‘Broadcasting is an option. Coaching is an option. Football is an option,’ his dad said. ‘And if he wanted to go to Europe to play basketball, that’s an option.’

Maybe someday Paulus will slide next to Mike Krzykewski on the bench like so many former Dukies. This football experiment hasn’t derailed that dream. If anything, it enhances it. Collins said Paulus hopes to help the Orange’s basketball team in a graduate-assistant type of role.

But that’s months from now. His basketball is safely stashed away. Paulus’ new teammates beg him to slip into Manley Field House for a quick pickup game. He declines. At each interview with the media, Paulus instinctively repeats that football – and only football – is his 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. obsession.

Collins texted Paulus all August. Like everyone, he wanted a sneak peak. In return, Paulus provided 100-character peepholes into what’s cooking behind closed doors.

Each successive text was a tad brighter than the last.

‘I can sense the excitement going back and forth,’ Collins said.

Marked Man

He’s been sheltered all preseason. In pads, but untouched. Syracuse’s coaches don’t let the quarterbacks get hit.

So when guys are foaming at the mouth to smack Paulus for the first time since 2004, he’ll need a safety valve. A trusty tight end. A friend in times of danger. He’ll need diehard North Carolina fan, Mike Owen.

SU’s starting tight end has followed UNC since fifth grade. He was part of steaming Tar Heels Nation when Gerald Henderson struck Tyler Hansbrough with a nasty elbow that drew a faucet of blood. So he had to ask.

‘How were those games man?’ he asked Paulus. ‘There were blood and fistfights. That’s intense.’

Arguably no position in sports is as polarizing as the Duke point guard. Paulus was a bull’s eye for four years, blasted with obscene spam every night. Though his football game was cryogenically frozen for four years, Paulus boasts an unprecedented resume for a college quarterback.

When referred to as one of the most hated players in sports after an August practice, Paulus cracks a wide grin, replays old memories for a moment and chuckles.

‘Yeah, that was a good time,’ he said.

Like the guaranteed ‘Mike is bet-terrr!’ chants in Chapel Hill. Or the countless pictures students held of players skying over Paulus for dunks. And the time West Virginia’s Cam Thoroughman took a below-the-belt postgame shot for the ages. After the Blue Devils – and their eight McDonald’s All-Americans – were blindsided by the Mountaineers in the second round two years ago, Thoroughman asked a reporter if Paulus was one of those eight.

The reporter acknowledged he was and a shocked Thoroughman responded, ‘Oh, my God. Are you kidding?’

It’s part of his job description at Duke. You’re forced to lead as America’s Most Wanted.

‘I had so much fun on the road,’ Paulus said. ‘There’s no better feeling than keeping people quiet with a big shot or a big play.’

This is how he was able to command respect immediately from his SU teammates. Paulus barely picked up a football the last four years, playing catch with Mike in the backyard sparingly.

Teammates, like critics, were unsure if Paulus could handle football at first. They knew he could handle pressure.

‘The competition, the fight, the hunger,’ Owen said. ‘He brings that mentality here.’

Paulus and Owen haven’t debated the Henderson/Hansbrough incident quite yet. Touched on it, but haven’t dove into it. Green-lighting such discussion is like triggering a healthcare debate. There’s a time and place. No use risking quarterback-receiver hostility in August.

But the time will come.

‘Come January, February, whenever the season starts and it’s Duke-Carolina, we’ll butt heads then,’ Owen said.

Getting Ready

After inheriting a new offense and a new set of quarterbacks, Rob Spence kept it simple. He didn’t need a howitzer arm. He didn’t need a tuck-and-run dazzler. Last spring, Syracuse’s new offensive coordinator insisted he needed a brainy ‘point guard’ in the cockpit.

Spence was being metaphorical. The answer was literal.

‘(Paulus) has a good feel and a very high athletic I.Q.,’ Spence said. ‘He’s very, very intelligent and a natural leader.’

Spence isn’t one for leaking details of his complex, multi-receiver offense from Clemson. But he is quick to say there have been no shortcuts in Paulus’ growth. Familiarity helped. At CBA, head coach Joe Casamento employs a high-school version of Spence’s offense.

‘You’d be surprised how similar the game is whether you’re talking about the pro level, college level or high school,’ Casamento said.

A year and a half ago, Casamento and another high school coach from Kentucky visited Spence for a week in Clemson to pick Spence’s brain. It’s a common trip. NFL, college and high school coaches all visit Spence for knowledge, Casamento said.

So Casamento doesn’t see today’s Paulus as any lesser than the golden boy that generated full-ride offers to Notre Dame and Miami (Fla.) as a football player.

‘When he was a senior, 18-year-old kid, everybody thought he was great,’ Casamento said. ‘Now he’s a 23-year-old man and everybody wonders if he can do it. I think all those people are crazy.’

This summer, with Paulus thirsting for reps and SU’s coaches prohibited from working with players per NCAA rules, his inner circle at CBA lent a hand. Blasts from the past, former Orange safety Bruce Williams and current Orange wideout Lavar Lobdell, ran routes for Paulus regularly. Casamento stood nearby as Paulus’ football occupational therapist, helping him recapture his old self throw by throw.

The rust accumulated in Paulus’ velocity. He wasn’t driving the ball with his hips and legs enough. With daily reps, Casamento helped fix this. Marrone sees a polished product.

‘When something breaks down, he can see the field,’ Marrone said. ‘He can make quick decisions.’

To catch up tactically, Paulus used his younger brother. Together, Greg and Mike studied film of Mike’s Tar Heels playing three schools Greg will face this fall – Rutgers, Connecticut and West Virginia.

‘So I could say, ‘These guys do this and these guys do that,” Mike said. ‘At Carolina, we game-planned for them, too.’

After UNC plays UConn Sept. 12, Mike plans to mail his playbook from that week to Greg.

The accelerated preparation injected quiet confidence to the unknown. Coaches liken Paulus to Drew Brees, Marrone’s former pupil as offensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints. Whether Paulus’ sixth sense in the pocket, surgeon precision and Duke-tested leadership truly makes him Drew Brees Lite won’t be revealed until this weekend.

But Paulus promises that coulda-made-that-throw-back-in-the-day doubt hasn’t crept into his mind.

‘I haven’t had that thought for one second,’ he said.

It starts

A booming thunderstorm blasts the roof of the Carrier Dome as Greg Paulus takes his place in the first row of Syracuse’s team photo at media day. Three players to his right is Owen, gazing and grimacing at the Dome top. He’s a little nervous. His car windows are rolled down.

Paulus also looks up at the storm. Wearing this odd, new shade of blue, he slowly spins around in place for a panoramic view. This is his new home.

He could struggle. Who should start under center may erode into a season-long debate. This is only a one-year fling that could delay the maturation of redshirt freshman Ryan Nassib or true freshman Charley Loeb.

With his hands lounged on his V-neck of his shoulder pads, Paulus soaks up the moment with a too-good-to-be-true or what-did-I-get-myself-into pause. All eyes are on him this fall. He knows this. He’s had to answer the same questions every day, most of which are packaged in different words with the same meaning – ‘Are you nuts?’

The mystery is finally revealed Saturday.

‘They’ve kept things really low key and I think that’s a good element of surprise,’ Dave Paulus said. ‘Because I think people are going to be surprised here very soon.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on September 3, 2009 at 12:00 pm