diff --git a/vars/main.yml b/vars/main.yml
index 0ce47be..96a030a 100644
--- a/vars/main.yml
+++ b/vars/main.yml
@@ -83,10 +83,8 @@ anvil_ollama_base: "http://192.168.1.150:11434"
 # 70B+8B can't both stay resident in the ~62 GB budget (expect model swaps).
 litellm_models:
   # ---- local_* → Anvil/Ollama, local GPU, no cost ----
-  - name: local_qwen2.5-72b
-    backend: ollama_chat/qwen2.5:72b
-    api_base: "{{ anvil_ollama_base }}"
-    api_key: ollama-no-auth
+  # local_qwen2.5-72b removed 2026-09-14: the model is retired from Anvil (RAG
+  # chat is local_qwen2.5-14b now). A dangling alias would 404 at Ollama.
   - name: local_llama-3.3-70b
     backend: ollama_chat/llama3.3:70b
     api_base: "{{ anvil_ollama_base }}"