Thing that make you go hmmm….

Honest to God, why are people reacting the way they are to the Greg Paulus story. To those of you who don’t know, Paulus has been a point guard for Duke the past 4 years. Paulus was a Gatorade Player of the Year in football for Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse and snubbed Notre Dame and Miami for Duke Basketball. Great decision in my opinion.

In these new days of coaches needing to explore every possible avenue to win now (Gillespie you hear me?) Rich Rodriguez has reached out to Paulus (as has 6 NFL teams) to check on his QB skills and Coach Rod has actually offered a scholarship to Greg.

Now, clearly a newsworthy story, it shocks me how people are responding to this. I think this move for coach Rod is nothing short of BRILLIANT.

To start, for those of you who don’t know, each college football team has 85 scholarships at one time, to span over 5 year of players (red shirting causes this). If I enter a season with 84 scholarships and have a choice between a walk on student and a former Gatorade Player of the Year, guess who I’m picking?
Second, last season Michigan almost led the country in plays for a loss and 3 and outs. Clearly the QB play in Coach Rod’s new spread system was going to struggle though. Gotta give him props though, he went out and recruited Tate Forcier to run the point in his new offense. Oh, wait, sorry, guess that was a Freudian slip, did I say point?

Anyone who knows anything about football knows that freshmen are your enemy.
So for those keeping score, Coach Rod has a chance to bring in a great freshman, bring him along at the proper pace, but add a quarterback to his team who as been a point guard for one of the most pressure packed programs in the country and who can toss the pigskin? Not only is Paulus battle tested, which is the biggest issue with most college players, but he has the ability to play free and easy which will undoubtedly allow him to excel.

I think this move is beyond brilliant. Paulus might fail, miserably in fact. But Michigan only has the QB who sucked last year and a freshman to depend on. Are you honestly going to tell me that’s a better option? And Paulus would be gone in a year allowing Forcier to pick up the system, put some weight on and pick up the leadership skills necessary to shine in the program of the Big Blue.

I don’t personally like or root for Coach Rod, but this is the absolute right move and I truly question the rest of the media coverage of sports I get if their opinion is so far off on this one….