Harvard Hatches A QB

If you watched the Harvard jayvee football team in a shaky performance at Dartmouth last fall, you might have found yourself wondering who would replace the two fifth-year quarterbacks who finished up their eligibility this year.

If you spent any time at all on the Internet in the last 24 hours, you've got a pretty good idea of one strong candidate for the opening.

Andrew Hatch began his college career with the Harvard jayvees in 2005, took a Mormon mission after his freshman year and then enrolled at LSU. He was the third-team quarterback on the 2007 LSU national championship team and won the starting job at the SEC powerhouse last fall. Platooning early in the season and injured in the second half, he played in six games, completing 26-of-47 passes and ran for 129 yards.

Now Hatch is transferring back to Harvard. The Las Vegas Sun writes about the Nevadan's decision to return to Cambridge and says:

He will start classes at Harvard later this month and expects to have two years of eligibility remaining.

I'd assume how much eligibility he has will still have to be determined by the Ivy League, which has its own set of occasionally arcane rules.

Hatch wasn't a star at LSU, but coach Les Miles had this to say in a canned quote:

“Don’t underestimate what Andrew Hatch did for our football team in 2008. He filled a void for us at quarterback in 2008 and his play on the field allowed us to start the season off on a positive note. Even though an injury kept him out of action for the last half of the season, he still played a tremendous role in the success of our team. Andrew has a bright future and we wish him continued success both on the field and in the classroom."”

The Associated Press notes: "LSU won its first four games, with Hatch playing in the first three, but wound up 8-5."

The Harvard Crimson had a lengthy story about Hatch playing at LSU a year ago.

The Hatch story is surprising, but not without some precedent. Their stories aren't exactly parallel, but Penn running back Joe Sandberg was a freshman with the Quakers in 2003, transferred to Rutgers, where he practiced but did not play in 2004, and transferred back to Penn the next year. He played went on to play for the Quakers in 2005, '06 and '07, earning first-team, All-Ivy honors his last two years. (Editor's note: It's been explained to me that while Sandberg did in fact leave for a year at Rutgers, because he was in good academic standing he was not considered a transfer upon returning.) The Daily Pennsylvanian wrote about him when he transferred back from Rutgers. ... Spencer Gloger was a fine basketball player at Princeton who transferred to UCLA, sat out the required year and then transferred back to Princeton. The Daily Bruin wrote about him when he left LA. It was never publicly known whether Gloger intended to play again at Princeton after returning. He did not, but given that he's still playing professionally in Europe it's clear he still had the basketball bug.

Another high schooler coming to Dartmouth on a recruiting trip according to media reports is Cole Pembroke, a safety at Desert Vista High School. Pembroke had 49 tackles last fall. The Ahwatukee Foothills News reports he has visits scheduled to Dartmouth, Holy Cross and Trinity. Scoutcombines.com has a page on the 5-11 1/2, 190-pound Pembroke.

Columbia has announced its 2009 schedule and in addition to Fordham and Lafayette, the Lions' nonconference schedule will feature a game against Central Connecticut State of the up-and-coming Northeast Conference. CCSU had a 7-4 record last fall, earning some Top-25 votes early in the year.

There was a note here Saturday on the Jan. 22 Ivy Football Association dinner. Find a direct link to the dinner registration here. The page notes the alums being honored this year, a list that includes Donald Rumsfeld, Princeton '54; Stone Phillips, Yale '77; Robert Kraft, Columbia '63; Ed Marinaro, Cornell '72, and Jake Crouthamel, Dartmouth '60. There's a page on Crouthamel here.

The Ivy League has announced that it will be holding postseason tournaments for four teams in men's and women's lacrosse. Good for lacrosse, but it seems the ultimate hypocrisy that a sport that already sends more teams deep into the postseason than any other Ivy sport now has added a second layer of postseason play. Football, meanwhile, continues to be the only sport not allowed to go to the postseason

A couple of basketball notes before signing off. On Saturday the Penn men's team will play NJIT, which is 0-17 this winter and on a 50-game losing streak that includes losses this month to Yale (80-51) and Columbia (73-50). Asked about the game, Penn coach Glen Miller told the Daily Pennsylvanian, "I'm not going to say they're as good as Temple, because everyone knows they're not. But they're a team we've got to take seriously."

And today's Daily Princetonian reprises one of the best college basketball pictures you will ever see. It's the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat all in one perfect picture after Princeton upset defending national champion UCLA in the first round of the 1996 NCAA Tournament.