Over a month after Penn State began its search to replace the legendary Joe Paterno, the post remains vacant.

One name that has continued to come up in rumors surrounding the position is Harvard coach Tim Murphy, mentioned as an ideal candidate because of on-field success and a clean track record. Murphy became the winningest coach in Harvard football history this season and earned his sixth Ivy title.

But with rumors continuing to circulate, Murphy has adamantly denied any contact with the search committee throughout the process, a claim corroborated by Russ Rose, the Penn State women’s volleyball coach and one of the six members of the search committee.

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In light of a Yale University investigation over the accuracy of football coach Tom Williams’ resume, the three-year Bulldog coach resigned Wednesday, finishing his career at the school with a 16-14 record.

In the weeks leading up the The Game—which for the fifth-straight year, Harvard won, 45-7—Yale quarterback Patrick Witt garnered national attention for having to decide between a final interview for the Rhodes Scholarship and playing in the annual Harvard-Yale contest. As the storyline unfolded, Williams remarked that he faced a similar dilemma in having to choose between his own final interview for the Rhodes and NFL tryouts on the same day.

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Hopefully, after splurging on that engagement ring, Josue Ortiz still has enough money left over to buy himself a nice big trophy case.

Because he’s going to need it.

On Friday, the Harvard senior defensive tackle added another accolade to his growing list, as he was named an AP third-team All-American for the second straight year.

The honor came one week after Ortiz won the Asa S. Bushnell Cup as the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year on Dec. 5 and the Harry Agganis/Harold Zimman Award for the New England Senior Player of the Year on Dec. 8.

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By almost any metric, the 2011 Harvard football program had a historic campaign. Coach Tim Murphy became the winningest football coach in Crimson history. And nearly every week it seemed, the squad matched or broke some ancient offensive record.

Once it was all set and done, Harvard had scored 374 total points—breaking a modern-era record set by the juggernaut 2004 team—en route to a 9-1 overall record and a league title. After a shaky early-season loss to Holy Cross, no other team came close to topping the Crimson.

But Harvard really shined in conference play, going an unscathed 7-0. The Crimson’s smallest margin of victory was a healthy 10 points, which came in a 41-31 win over Cornell.

But even then, the contest wasn’t as close as the score made it seem. Down by 17 with two minutes to go, Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews and Co. found the end zone with 1:32 left on the clock to narrow the gap to 10. But the game was already well out of reach by that point.

The team’s historic performance leads to the question: had any Harvard squad dominated the Ancient Eight quite so effectively as the 2011 version?

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The good news just keeps on coming for Harvard senior defensive tackle Josue Ortiz.

In a ceremony held Monday at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, Ortiz and Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews earned the Asa S. Bushnell Cup, the equivalent of the Most Valuable Player award in the Ivy League.

This year marks the first time that the Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year shared the award.

The Ivy League named four finalists—two from both the offensive and defensive sides—for the cup. Ortiz beat out Penn senior linebacker Erik Rask, while Mathews topped Dartmouth senior tailback Nick Schwieger.

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