Big Guy Deciding

Houston offensive lineman Scotty Whitmore has "offers" from Dartmouth and Columbia as well as Houston, UTEP, UNLV, Tulane, Army, New Mexico State, McNeese State and Texas State and is on the cusp of a decision according to Vype High School Sports Magazine. The story about the 6-foot-5, 310 tackle from Klein Collins High quotes him this way:

"University of Houston is close, they have a great engineering program and a solid football team. I visited Tulane and Dartmouth and I love the allure of the Ivy League name. I really liked Dartmouth's campus a lot and I would get a chance to experience something other than living in Spring, Texas."

Find photos of Whitmore here. The Rivals page doesn't list the Ivies as suitors but the quote makes it clear that Dartmouth is at least on his radar. Find video highlights here.

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Scratch 6-foot-4 Charlotte Country Day quarterback Morgan Roberts from the list of Dartmouth possibles. The Charlotte Observer blog reports that he has elected to go to Clemson. The Observer reports he had offers from Dartmouth, Ball State, Marshall, Elon, Old Dominion ... and Harvard.

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Tampabay.com has a story about Clearwater's Bennie Niles officially commiting to Dartmouth last week. That was only a formality because Niles, who visited Dartmouth in October, was already an accepted member of the early admission class. He's quoted in the story this way:

"I had some interest from some other schools, but the Ivy League I felt was best for me. I was sold on Dartmouth as soon as I went there."

And ...

"I wanted to get everything taken care of as quickly as possible. This last trip I took was pretty much like a vacation."

Also from the story: "Niles said the coaches want him to play at cornerback and he could start as a freshman."

Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens had this to say about Niles in his comments on the early decision acceptances:

“He is a compact individual with real good speed. He's a very good cover guy, good return guy. We see him as a cover corner with very good speed. He has good quickness, tackles well. An aggressive guy. He's one of the quicker kids coming in.”

Find Niles' highlight video here.

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You have to read all the way to the end to find out that one of the suggestions old friend TigerBlog made during a Princeton athletic department retreat was to allow Ivy League football teams to go to the playoffs. Still waiting to find out what adjective he used to describe himself. (And which letter he chose. "T" or the other one that shall remain nameless ;-).

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The Daily Dartmouth has a story about the college's move from BlitzMail. No one asked me, but I'm kind of proud of my suggestion for the name of the new mail service: Blitz2. Think of it as BlitzToo ;-)