Orange crowd excited for Paulus' debut

Big East Blog

September, 5, 2009

Sep 5

1:26

PM ET

By Brian Bennett

Posted by ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- OK, so the Carrier Dome crowd (not a full house, by the way) is geeked. Greg Paulus, the former Duke point guard, leads the SU offense onto the field for the first play. He lines up in the shotgun. The play clock is sprinting toward zero. We're about to see history. ...

Or we're about to see senior center Jim McKenzie snap the ball five feet over Paulus' head, which is hard to do. Minnesota recovers the ball on the Syracuse 16 and scores two plays later. Not exactly the start Paulus and new SU coach Doug Marrone were hoping for.

Since then, it hasn't gotten much better. Syracuse had a first-and-10 at the Minnesota 16, but had to settle for a field goal. Minnesota took the kickoff and scored. It's 14-3 in the first quarter. But Paulus did complete his first pass -- a 5-yarder to tight end Nick Provo.

Tags:

Syracuse Orange, Doug Marrone, Greg Paulus, Big East, Minnesota-Syracuse 090509

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