When I first heard Greg Paulus was considering playing football, I figured it was a joke. The guy already played at Duke, so how the hell could he just pack up and head north to Michigan?

Turns out the guy was a good high school quarterback. And though he won’t be playing for the Wolverines this year — and trust me, Rich-Rod could use him — he will be playing up north, only for Syracuse, whose last good season might have been when DNabb roamed those parts.

“My gut and my heart were telling me that (Syracuse) was the best place for me,” Paulus said from Durham, N.C., during a conference call.

He worked out for the Green Bay Packers in April, acknowledged meeting with Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez about playing for the Wolverines, also visited Nebraska and said he was contacted by about two dozen programs.

This will at least make Syracuse relavant this year. They probably won’t win, but it’ll give people something to keep up with. And for Paulus, switching to football will at least make sure this never happens.

[AJC]

A lot of blogs are doing this, so I feel I should jump in. And with the recent nothingness in sports, why not? Which brings me to this: Each day I will try and post major conference breakdowns for all you college fanatics out there. The Big Twelve, SEC and ACC will be broken into two parts, since there’s two different divisions. All others will be covered in whole.

I’ll have a ranking posted next to each team, and for the teams in conferences broken down by divisions, that ranking doesn’t represent the ranking for the division. . . it represents the ranking for the entire conference. To see past entries, click here. On we go.

• West Virginia (1): Hard to pick against these guys. The defense is shaky, sure, but with Pat White and Steve Slaton, there won’t be a lead they can’t come back from. Both were hurt last year, which slowed the team, but if healthy there’s no reason they can’t go undefeated. Oh, and an interesting stat, one I only know because I’m a Georgia Tech fan: The Jackets have only lost two times in their five trips to the Gator Bowl. Their first loss came to Miami, who a year later won the National Title. Their second loss? Last year versus West Virginia. We’ll hold that thought.
• Louisville (2): People think there’ll be a fall off with Petrino gone, but Louisville is still loaded from top to bottom. They’ve got the best quarterback in the country, and maybe the best defense in the Big East. Their road block? They’ve got West Virginia in Morgantown, where foes don’t win often.
• Rutgers (3): They’ve got USF and West Virginia at home, and could very well be undefeated before their showdown with Lousiville November 29. They’ve got Ray Rice back, yes, but they also lose 11 starters from last year.
• USF (4): Only because it’s become a popular pick, I’ll go ahead and throw them at the four spot. They’ve apparently got a good defense — I won’t even pretend to have seen more than two of their games, and that’s even a stretch — and though they only have 3 starting seniors on their roster; the catch, however, is the other 15 returning starters from last year’s squad that went 9-4, finishing 4-3 in the Big East.
• Pitt (5): With Dave Wannstedt as your head coach, fifth in a weak Big East is about the best you can expect. The guy had it once, I know, but it just isn’t there anymore.
• Cincinnati (6): They were 4-3 in the Big East last year, and return 16 of their starters. The good news is they play West Virginia and Louisville at home; the bad news is they’ll beat neither, and the teams they might stack up against they play on the road.
• Syracuse (7): They’ve always got basketball, right?
• Connecticut (8): See: Syracuse.