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Rutgers RB Paul James didn't have an college offers by the end of his senior season in high school, but has elevated himself to the starting spot for the Scarlet Knights.

(William Perlman/The Star-Ledger)

Panic? No, Paul James didn’t panic, even though it would have been very easy to do so. After all, he had no college scholarships from BCS conference schools, minimal Division 1 offers that were tenuous at best, and an uncertain future for an undersized running back who was good at a lot of things, but not great at one particular thing.

This was James’ senior year at Glassboro High School. So what did he do? He took the biggest gamble of his life.

"You’re not guaranteed anything," James said this week. "As a scholarship player or not, you’re not really guaranteed anything. So performance is the business and you just have to come out here and perform. I knew I could perform, it was just a matter of getting out on the field and doing it."

Sitting on a bench after practice this week, it was still easy for James to recall the days when he didn't have a certain collegiate future. Now he is the starting running back for the Scarlet Knights, coming off a three-

touchdown game and looking to continue a surreal beginning to his career this afternoon against Eastern Michigan.

Coming out of high school, he was 6-foot, 195 pounds, with no stars, no rankings, no hype and few offers to his name.

"My junior year, I had two D-1 offers — Marshall and ECU (East Carolina)," James remembered. "But they were multiple offers, where they offered multiple running backs. And their other running backs committed right away, so I lost those offers."

A harsh reality.

"I called one college coach to tell him I was coming," James said, declining to identify the program out of respect for the coach. "And he said, ‘Well, sorry, we have a local kid here and he just committed. But you still can come visit.’ "

By the end of his senior season, James didn’t have a destination. He sent out tapes and had his coaches ask around who might have walk-on spots around the area. Two schools responded: Rutgers and Temple. He had already been talking to Rutgers about possibly going to the school and trying out as a preferred walk-on — players identified by the coaching staff to be a part of the roster and potentially vie for a scholarship in the event of transfers or early-departures.

James chose Rutgers. And he stuck.

"It takes a very special person to do it," Rutgers head coach Kyle Flood said. "It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s not easy for them or their families to turn down potential scholarships at the FCS (former 1-AA) level or even a non-BCS school in 1-A."

Now, as a third-year sophomore, James is seeing the gamble pay off. In the season-opening game against Fresno State, he pushed ahead of heralded recruit Savon Huggins to take over the starting tailback job. His first collegiate game? Twenty-two carries, 182 yards. His second? Eighteen carries, 119 yards and three touchdowns.

"It’s not easy for those (invited walk-on) guys to make that decision initially," Flood said. "Once they get on the field, there’s no stickers to say who’s on scholarship and who’s not. This is not intramurals — the best players play. I think the hardest part of the decision is the initial commitment and the commitment to do it."

James, though, is not resting on his laurels now.

He knows just how quickly decisions can be made in football and jobs — and roster spots — can be taken away. So the 301 yards and three touchdowns in two games is a nice start — reassurance that James is the player he thought he was coming out of high school and not a fill-in player who is an afterthought on somebody’s roster.

"Now that I have it, it’s a big motivator to keep this going," James said. "Because I know what it’s like to be back there. I know how hard people are fighting for this spot. I’ve got to work even harder to stay up here."