Two players are out for the season with injuries and Doug Marrone is defending Greg Paulus. Wait, what week is this?
As you would have expected as this point, the injuries that kick returner Mike Jones and long-snapper Dalton Phillips sustained in the Louisville game will keep them out for the remainder of the season. It's almost impressive at this point how unwavering the Football Gods are in their disdain for us. That's nine players lost to season-ending injury if you're keeping count.
Doug was back on the offensive again today ensuring people that despite the results, Greg Paulus is still the man for Syracuse in 2009. Though, things got a little...rambly.
"You know what's funny about Greg, and Greg is our starting quarterback," Marrone said before rephrasing his comment, "it's not funny. But one of the things that has gone unnoticed because we haven't won, Greg probably will have the highest completion percentage in the history of our school, and that's .658. So, no. We're still looking for packages. We're still going out there to win games, not to give people experience for next year.
"It's not next year until the last game is over. The way people are getting experience now on this team is through injury."
Syracuse is going to latch on Greg Paulus' completion percentage the way Barack Obama latched on to universal health-care. Left out is that Greg is currently tied for third for INTs in a season (14, with Troy Nunes amongst others) and is one pace to match or beat the record of 16.
Hopefully, they're able to find some more of those packages their looking for in the next two weeks. Keeping looking, guys.
Donnie Webb wonders not so much about what's being said as what's not being said. Namely, about Ryan Nassib:
Don't want to speak for Marrone but what's unsaid here is a reluctance to let Nassib run the entire offense. Is it a trust factor? A management factor? A performance factor? There's something there.
For those who wonder if the incoming freshman will be looked upon to play immediately, or perhaps the Ridiculously-Good-Looking-Charley-Loeb Era begins in 2010, you might be on to something...