A Big Back In The Back Yard

The state of New Hampshire isn't really known for producing top high school football players and Dartmouth hasn't exactly been known in recent years for recruiting those few that come along. That could change according to the Nashua Telegraph.

This story reports that Dartmouth is on the radar of 6-foot-3 Souhegan (NH) High School running back Steven Jellison. From the story:

His list includes his father’s alma mater, Harvard, as well as Ivy League rival Dartmouth. But it also includes a pair of New England Small College Athletic Conference powers, Amherst and Williams.

The University of New Hampshire, where his brother Sean is a red-shirt junior, is also in the mix. The Wildcats, reportedly, extended a verbal scholarship offer to Steven Jellison last fall.

Variously reported as 230 and 245 pounds, Jellison ran for 1,355 yards last fall according to this page. Another story in the Nashua paper notes that Jellison was at his best when it mattered most, the Division III state championship game. From the story:

On Saturday, in the most important game of his career, Steven Jellison put up Sean Jellison-like numbers, scoring four touchdowns – one on the interception – and rushing 25 times for 238 yards.

Jellison's older brother, Sean, is a junior running back at New Hampshire. As the big brother's bio notes, father Ronald played and then was a graduate assistant at Harvard. Sean Jellison, by the way, holds the New Hampshire career rushing mark of 5,890 yards. He ran for 220 yards and a 5.2-yard average in limited action at UNH last fall. He had eight carries for 64 yards against Dartmouth.

Dave Coulson over at The Sports Network does a nice job of analyzing Fordham's decision to go to scholarships and the Patriot League's accommodation of the move. Under the headline, "A Shotgun Wedding in the PL," Coulson writes:

This agreement, which was voted on this week by the Patriot League football presidents, seems to buy time for all parties. It gives Fordham three years to determine the best conference solution to match its long-term plans, and it provides the notoriously slow-moving PL with a more comfortable timeframe to grapple with and discuss the issue of scholarships.

But make no mistake, this is anything but a perfect solution, and when the next three years are up, we could see Fordham move to a conference more in line with its future goals, unless the PL follows the Rams' lead.

Coulson adds:

It wouldn't be surprising to see schools like Colgate, Lehigh and Lafayette make an argument for a move from need-based aid to a scholarship model, with Holy Cross and even Bucknell likely on the fence.