The Rejuvenation Begins: Syracuse Preseason Camp - August 11th

by Sean Keeley on Aug 11, 2009 12:34 PM EDT

Tremendous. It's not a word thrown around lightly. Unless of course, you're Doug Marrone. In that case, you throw it around like it's a ragdoll. Just take his press conference yesterday during the opening day of practice. He used the word not once, not twice but eight times!

It was a tremendous day to look back and think about how important it is what we're planning to do...

Every day I remind myself about how important the decisions that I make for the players on this team and what I ask them to do are to make them better football players and to help make them tremendous students and leaders in our community

The worst thing you can do is have tremendous resources around you and not tap into it.

I see three competitive players coming from the spring who have done a tremendous job.

Tremendous.

It was an exciting day for everyone. The start of a new era. The beginning of...something. It was almost too much to take. It was the kind of day that just made you want to...you know...throw up. Just ask Arthur Jones.

Not yet. I felt a little weird. I told Jared Kimmel earlier, one of my rituals is I throw up before every game and when I was in their putting my pads on I started getting that feeling a little bit like, 'Oh, man, we've got a game or something.' See you're making me emotional now, I'm trying to hold it in. I'm excited.

The story of the day, as he will be for almost every day, was Greg Paulus. Greg finally stood in before everyone in a Syracuse uniform and started discussing what's it's like to lace'm up and what his new teammates have been like so far:

I've asked for directions on campus, buildings, teachers and they've been awesome every time.

Gotta say, I've given adequate directions, so-so directions, really good directions...but never awesome directions. These guys really are a team!

Paulus, nor any of the quarterbacks, did any throwing in front of the media as the pace will start slowly. Paulus says his arm is coming along, but it's a whole 'nother ballgame once practice kicks in.

Speaking of QB's, Ryan Nassib is still alive, believe it or not. He's not giving up the starting job without a fight.

No matter what the depth chart might be, especially right now at the beginning of training camp because we're probably starting from a clean slate, you've just got to play football and keep competing every day.

Nassib says he's spend a good deal of the off-season working closely with WR Mike Williams. Perhaps...a little too closely?

We're clicking on a lot of levels.

I bet.

Coach Marrone noted that incoming freshman Rishard Anderson is still being held up by clearance issues but should hopefully be in came soon:

"...we're waiting to hear from the (NCAA) Clearinghouse on (freshman) Rishard Anderson. We don't have direct communication with the Clearinghouse, that's usually between the parents and the NCAA. They've called back to the school today and they've asked for more information, so we're in the process of that. I'll keep everyone up-to-date with Rishard."

Unless he doesn't qualify, which at that point Doug will say that he does not comment on people who aren't with the team.