Maine Mystery Solved

Published reports through the fall kept saying Dartmouth was high -- or even leading -- standout Maine tailback Jared Turcotte's list of college choices. More recent stories about the player Sports Illustrated called the state's best stopped mentioning Dartmouth. A story on Turcotte's recruiting trips in the Lewiston Sun-Journal explains what happened:

Dartmouth, an early front-runner in the process, would have been on the itinerary, but the school told Turcotte recently that, while he met its academic standards, they no longer had a place for him on the team at his academic level. Turcotte said he's disappointed, but added "I can't really fret too much about it." It's helped that Brown has since said it does have a place for him and has asked for game film.

I'd heard from a coach I knew years ago who is familiar with Turcotte that he could be, "a game changer," so that's disappointing news for Dartmouth. ... Word is the number of potential recruits on campus this weekend is 20. ... Hopefully some of them were at the men's basketball game last night when Dartmouth overcame a 13-point deficit to defeat Harvard and 7-foot potential NBA draft pick Brian Cusworth in overtime. Leede Arena was flat-out rocking as the Big Green fought back to win for the sixth time in its last seven games.

The Daily Dartmouth is having Internet problems so it wasn't until this morning that I was able to pull up a rambling column that incensed many in the Dartmouth athletic department for its comments on athletic director Josie Harper. Click here to see why.

A Pennsylvania newspaper recently ran a story about a backup safety who walked on at Penn State and earned a scholarship for a year after turning down "offers to become a certain football standout at Ivy League Princeton." Chances are the kid would have been a fine Ivy League player and perhaps a standout, but a certain standout? Ivy League football is better than people "from away," know, and to anoint someone a certain standout is a kind of a backhanded swipe at the league.

According to a Pioneer Press story, Brown swept up a quarterback from Cretin-Derham, the St. Paul, Minn., quarterback factory that produced, among others, Florida State grad Chris Weinke and Joe Mauer, the national player of the year at QB before wisely choosing a baseball career.

Could the Ivy League be ready to add another school? It's not going to happen, of course. But the president of one major football power has that kind of academic ambition for his school, saying: "We need a Top 10 university, so our kids can get the same education they would get at Harvard or Yale." From the story: "If there is any goal that (redacted - school name) has pursued as fervently as a national football championship for the (redacted - team name), it is a place among the nation's highest-ranked public universities. Any guesses? To find out what school's president said that, click here.