It's ... It's ... Underdog!

If you were betting on Ivy League football on Saturday, you were probably losing.

Unless you were betting the underdog.

Let's start right at home. Harvard, leading Columbia by a score of 27-10, was merely waiting for the gun to sound late in the fourth quarter when Lion quarterback John Witkowski, one of the Ivy aces, gathered his troops for one final assault on the Crimson defense. By this time--2:41 left in the game to be exact--most of the Harvard second team was on the field, as Harvard coach Joe Restic had emptied his bench to give the back-ups some game experience.

After three plays netted a grand total of minus-four yards, Columbia decided to go for it on fourth and 14 from their own 11, and Witkowski and his exceptional wide receiver tandem of Bill Reggio and Don Lewis really started to click.

The Lion signal-caller hit Reggio for 22 yards over the middle, good for a first down, then found Lewis open on sideline patterns on the next two plays, for a total of 16 yards. After another completed pass to halfback Tom Norton, Columbia had swankered from its own 11 to the Harvard 39 in only four plays. After the game, Restic would express disappointment with his team's inability to close down the Lions passing attack in the game's latter moments.

Witkowski kept the ball in the air, and after two in completions, he found Reggio splitting the seams of the Harvard defense over the middle at around the 25-yard line. Reggio ran to the 20 before he was tackled.

Three straight times Witkowski put the ball up, and three straight times the ball missed the target and bounced on the turf and into the end zone. On fourth down, with only 15 seconds left in the game. Columbia went for six one last time.

As Witkowski stepped up in the pocket, clear of the Harvard rush, he noticed tight end Dan Upperco standing alone in the center of the end zone and hit him with a perfect spiral for the final score of the day. Columbia's try for a two-point conversion failed.

Thus, the game that seemed to be all but over at 27-10 had ended with a much narrower, 27-16 margin. The Lions, 12-point underdogs according to Las Vegas line, had lost by only 11.

The other Ivy underdogs, however, were' satisfied with taking a loss and beating the spread. They actually thought they could win. And, incredibly, all three of them turned idea into action and came away with stunning opening day victories.

The biggest surprise, of course, filtered out of Hanover, N.H., and into the Harvard press box well before the Crimson had finished with Columbia.

Many had picked Dartmouth, which tied for the league title a year ago and had a bunch of key players returning, to take the Ivy laurels (vines?) home again in '82. Those same soothsayers had Penn penciled in eighth place, a spot the Quakers have found to their liking in recent years. The predictors had the Big Green favored by 15 points over the foot ballers from Philadelphia.

Those same soothsayers are now predicting weather in the Sahara Desert. Looks like rain. I hear.

Three touchdown passes from Penn quarterback Gary Vura, one in each of the first three quarters, and three interceptions by the Quaker defense, proved to be enough to entirely shut down the Big Green, 21-0.

Then there was the extra vanganza that Cornell and Princeton concocted in Ithaca. N.Y.--an affair straight out of Believe it or Not. The Big Red, 13 points in the black according to the odds makers, found themselves trailing by 17 late in the third quarter.

Cornell promptly rebounded with 19 straight fourth-quarter points, to lead 36-34 with 7:48 left in the game.

With 4:30 to go. Princeton took over on its own 21 for one last run down the field. Only the Tigers skipped the running game, as quarterback Brent Woods threw them down the field 79 yards in 11 plays. The winning score came on a four-yard Farris Curry run with only 54 seconds left in the game, sending the Tigers back to New Jersey with a 41-36 win. I'd say they earned it.

Finally, there was the Yale-Brown game in Providence. R.I. Yale. which loses its best players to graduation nearly every year and somehow manages to remain at the top of the Ivy ladder, came in favored by only three and a half points, something of a surprise. After all, the Bruins, without Hank Landers, had no particular quarterback to speak of.

What they did have was a defensive back who used to play quarterback, who suddenly had to play quarterback again. His name is Joe Potter, and he did nothing more against the Elis than complete 11 of 16 passes for 150 yards and one touchdown and run for another score. The Bruins built up a 28-7 lead into the fourth quarter and held on at the last minute to stop the late-surging Elis, 28-21.

So, all in all, if you went for the underdog, you also went four for four on the Big Board in Las Vegas. Take Polly Purebred out to dinner with your winnings.