When Patrick Witt was faced with playing against Harvard in his final game or interviewing to become a Rhodes Scholar, the Yale quarterback chose to put football ahead of the academic honor.

According to a story in The New York Times, Witt made the decision at a time when his Rhodes candidacy had already been suspended due to an allegation of sexual assault by another Yale student.

The Times, citing multiple people, said the Rhodes Trust learned of the alleged incident and informed Witt and the school about the suspension. Yale was asked to re-endorse his candidacy.

Witt released a statement through his attorney Friday. It denied the allegations in the story by The Times. Part of the statement read as follows:

To be clear, Patrick's Rhodes candidacy was never "suspended", as the article suggests, and his official record at Yale contains no disciplinary issues.

Patrick formally withdrew his candidacy for the Rhodes Scholarship on Sunday, November 13, in an email to both the Regional Secretary and the American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust. He withdrew after being informed in an email from the Regional Secretary on November 8 that the Rhodes Committee would not reschedule Patrick's final interview, which would overlap Yale's football game versus Harvard on November 19 ...

As this decision process unfolded, Patrick became aware that an anonymous source had contacted the Rhodes Trust with false information purporting to reference an informal – and confidential – complaint within the University. In light of this, and given the short period of time between this occurrence and the potential final interview, the Rhodes Trust asked for an additional letter of reference for Patrick from Yale. By that time, however, Patrick had already informed Athletic Department officials that he intended to withdraw his candidacy due to the inability to reschedule his final interview, and that he would issue a statement to this effect following the Princeton game on November 12 ...

There is no public record of the accusation against Witt. The Times reported an informal complaint was filed by a female accuser in September, saying Witt assaulted her in her dorm room. Under school policy, an informal complaint is resolved without a full investigation and there is no finding of guilt or innocence.

Witt applied for the Rhodes with the understanding that the final interviews would come on the same day as the Harvard game. In the weeks after being selected as a finalist, he had mentioned the difficulty of making a choice between the two.

Witt sought counsel from Yale coach Tom Williams, who said he had passed up an interview for the Rhodes in order to attend an NFL tryout. It was later revealed that Williams had lied about his candidacy. He eventually resigned as coach.

Witt announced the week before the Harvard game that he was withdrawing his Rhodes candidacy. He mentioned the criteria given to applicants is "energy to use one's talents to the full, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports," and a "devotion to duty."

"The important part here is not so much the game, but the principle of it," Witt told USA TODAY at the time of his decision. "If I were to go to that interview and skip the game, in a lot of ways I'm not acting like the person they selected to interview."