A strange coda for story of perfect Yale quarterback Patrick Witt, who dropped out of the finalist round for the Rhodes Scholarship so he could play in the Harvard-Yale football game: While Patrick was agonizing over his decision, his coach Tom Williams told everyone that he faced the same dilemma as a linebacker at Stanford in 1992, and chose football.

But, New York Times blog The Quad reports, Coach Williams was lying:

He had never been a Rhodes scholar candidate or applicant, let alone a finalist, as he had let the world believe. He had told Yale he was a candidate with an entry on his résumé. His biography on the Yale Web site said the same thing.

Patrick took his coach's advice and subsequently led the Bulldogs to a stunning 45-7 defeat at the Harvard-Yale game. Soon thereafter, Yale opened an internal investigation into Tom Williams' falsified credentials, and on Wednesday—a day before Williams' birthday and four before Christmas—Yale's first African-American football coach resigned. So I guess Harvard really won this year, huh? [The Quad, images of Williams and Witt via Getty]