Former Duke point guard Greg Paulus said in a conference call yesterday that he has been offered an opportunity to join the Michigan football team and compete for playing time at quarterback, according to ESPN.com. He has not been offered a scholarship, school officials told the Detroit News yesterday.

The ESPN.com report on Thursday morning was unclear whether the offer was for a scholarship or just to join the team. Because it’s technically a recruiting issue, a spokesman for the Athletic Department declined to comment when contacted by The Michigan Daily.

Michigan early-enrollee quarterback Tate Forcier told The Michigan Daily he saw the report yesterday morning and talked with quarterbacks coach Rod Smith about the situation.

“I’ve been talking to coaches all morning, and my position coach, Coach Smith, he told me specifically that they have not offered him — they don’t know why he would lie,” Forcier said Thursday afternoon. “They said, ‘We’ll let you’ll know what’s up,’ because right now, their specific words were, they haven’t offered.”

When asked how he would react if Paulus did indeed join the team, Forcier said that “if it happens, it happens.”

“I’m not worried about it,” Forcier said. “A kid like that was good in high school, but it’s nearly impossible to come back to this level and play. It might be possible, but not in the quarterback position. You have to know too much, you have to know the speed of the game.”

Forcier’s older brother Jason, who missed the 2007 season per NCAA eligibility rules after transferring to Stanford from Michigan, saw the Paulus situation similarly.

“Football might be the hardest sport to come back from a layoff and play,” Jason said to The Michigan Daily. “If you look into different sports, professional leagues, you’ve got minor leagues for baseball and basketball. The NFL doesn’t have any of that.

“It just doesn’t materialize because that’s how hard it is to stay competitive.”

Paulus attended Tuesday’s final spring practice to talk with Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez about joining the team, according to FOXSports.com.

Jason said Tate’s understanding was that Paulus arrived at Tuesday’s practice unannounced and the coaches weren’t aware of his arrival.

Paulus was a highly touted dual-threat quarterback in high school, passing for 11,763 yards and 152 touchdowns.

Michigan isn’t the first place Paulus has looked to play football. On Wednesday, Duke coach David Cutcliffe offered Paulus a tryout at wide receiver, according to ESPN.com.

“He’s a quarterback at heart, but there was no way he was going to be able to compete and play quarterback for us,” Cutcliffe said to ESPN.

But Paulus told reporters in a conference call Thursday morning he is only interested in playing quarterback, according to ESPN.com.

“The chance to compete for a starting job is important,” Paulus said in the conference call. “With me only having an opportunity to play for one year, the chance and the opportunity to compete at a high level is important. There is an opportunity to do that at Michigan.”

On the Dan Patrick radio show Thursday morning, Paulus confirmed that he worked out with the NFL’s Green Bay Packers last week. He said he talked with a Big Ten and a Big East team, as well as other schools. Paulus also was interviewed Thursday on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption.”

“What he’s doing is generating great interest, and that’s smart on his part,” Jason said of Paulus. “If he’s considering himself a product, that’s really good marketing. It should be a snowball effect, whatever school takes notice of it.”

Paulus played four years of basketball at Duke. But under NCAA rules, he has a fifth year of eligibility should he choose to use it in a sport other than basketball. Every student-athlete has five years of blanket eligibility and can play four years of one particular sport.

The NCAA released a statement yesterday considering Paulus’s situation.