You’re midway through your third lecture of the day, sitting next to some kid who seems about as bland as the kid you sat next to last hour. Still, you’d rather look at what he’s drawing in his notebook than listen to a droning monotone for the third straight hour.

You’ve only been on campus four days, and you already feel like breaking into a dead-sprint for the real world.

It’s not that you don’t want to be here, but this campus, this self-sufficient ecosystem, can be so damn confining that it’s like you’re living life on the pause button.

But if he could, Maurice Jackson would tell you to stay and enjoy it. Now in training camp with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, the former Syracuse wide receiver is living in fast forward. Like many of his former SU teammates, Jackson — who picked up 254 receiving yards last year — is learning that life on the outside is dizzying and nauseating. It makes him wish he could still use that pause button.

“I don’t think I appreciated it so much when I was there,” Jackson said from Bills’ training camp in Rochester. “You get so caught up in college that you don’t really see what you have going on. You’ve got so much stability, knowing where you’ll be for a while. You could sit in a class or at practice and know your situation.”

Those days are long gone for Jackson, famous for his 4.19 speed in the 40-yard dash. The Bills picked him up as a free agent, and Jackson’s future is now determined every time he’s on the field.

One wrong step in his route, and Jackson could be sent to NFL Europe. One dropped kickoff in practice, and he’s off to the Canadian Football League. One too many mistakes, and his football career is over the next morning.

“It’s a tough way to live right now,” Jackson said. “I love the game, and I’ll go anywhere to play if I have to. But I think about Syracuse a lot, missing the guys and just missing that relaxed situation. It’s a lot different, a lot more stressful.”

And Jackson considers himself one of the lucky ones.

Yeah, Dwight Freeney got picked in the first round and has shored up a back-up defensive end spot with the Indianapolis Colts. But the rest of Jackson’s teammates from last year’s 10-3 Syracuse squad also live with a professional sports future hovering above them like an elusive doggy treat.

Fullback Kyle Johnson, drafted in the fifth round by Carolina, will probably make the team’s roster. Offensive lineman P.J. Alexander might end up in the NFL, same with Charles Burton, J.R. Johnson and Kwazi Leverette.

Cornerback Willie Ford will likely make the practice squad for the Oakland Raiders and James Mungro is battling for the third tailback spot with the Detroit Lions.

“It’s not necessarily a fun time for those guys right now,” said agent Harold Lewis, who represents Jackson, Ford and Mungro. “They don’t have much job security.”

Chances are, Jackson will be cut. He’ll wind up praying he gets put on some plane to Europe, then hoping to someday land back in the NFL. And the whole time, he’ll be wishing he was daydreaming through the same class he sat in last year, daydreaming about his future.

“You work so hard to put yourself in this situation, to get paid to play,” Jackson said. “And when you get there, yeah, it’s great, but you miss the guys in college.”

So put your book bag back down. Try to listen to the monotone professor. Relax. At least you don’t live each minute with the impending dread that, if you happen to drop your pencil in class, you’ll be kicked out of school.

Published on August 26, 2002 at 12:00 pm