Michigan Out Of The Paulus Sweepstakes

Despite an express acknowledgement from former Duke basketball player Greg Paulus that he would be competing for the starting quarterback job at Michigan in 2009, Scout.com recently reported that Michigan no longer is pursuing Paulus’ services.Apart from a mention of the report by our friends at SportingNews.com, the Scout.com item has apparently gotten little or no play.Assuming the report is true (since, you know -- cough, SI.com, cough -- these things are never wrong), let’s take this opportunity to explore the deeper question triggered by Michigan’s flirtation with Paulus: Why did Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez want him?Yes, Paulus ran a spread offense in high school. But he primarily threw the ball from that formation; Rodriguez’s version of the spread features a quarterback who runs as much or more than the starting tailback.But here’s the thing. Rodriguez didn’t always use the spread in that fashion. Indeed, when he was the head coach at Glenville State College, just about 40 minutes down the road from PFT/CFT headquarters, there were more flying balls than an all-male trapeze routine.At Morgantown, Rodriguez inherited players who were better suited to running from the spread formation. So Rodriguez played to the strengths of the players he had -- and Rasheed Marshall played the role of Pat White years before Pat White came to Morgantown.And it worked. Though not as exciting as a passing-based spread offense, the Mountaineers rolled up yardage and, before too long, racked up wins. The problem, of course, is that a run-based spread offense makes a college coach an unattractive option for the NFL game, and we’ve heard that Rodriguez wants to coach at the pro level. Indeed, we’ve heard that Rodriguez was incredibly pissed off that the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t interview him for the vacant head-coaching job in early 2007, at a time when former Louisville coach Bobby Petrino -- a Rodriguez rival in the Big East -- was hired by the Falcons.So, at Michigan, one of Rodriguez’s agenda items presumably is to return to the Glenville State version of the spread, since throwing the football effectively is the way for a college coach to catch the eye of one of the 32 NFL owners.The problem is that the Rodriguez offense is too widely known as a run-based system. So if/when Michigan is recruiting a quarterback who could help transform the thing back into a passing attack, the other schools that want the kid will tell him, “You don’t want to play for Rodriguez. He’ll make you a glorified tailback. And you’ll get hurt. And you’ll never make it to the NFL as a quarterback."By landing Paulus, Rodriguez could have gotten a one-year chance to reverse the perception of his offense. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Rodriguez changed his mind about Paulus, or whether the folks at Syracuse called him up and said: “You don’t want to play for Rodriguez. He’ll make you a glorified tailback. And you’ll get hurt. And you’ll never make it to the NFL as a quarterback."Either way, Rodriguez’s offense won’t be known as anything but Wildcat-quarterback factory unless/until he lands a big-name, slow-footed gunslinger.