This is the time of year when some gridiron soothsayers boisterously brandish the tattered copy of their successful predictions; others cry softly in their beers, offering lame excuses for their prognosticatory failures.

Any Ivy critic worth his salt would have just kept his mouth shut this season. For today, the next-to-last game for six teams and the last for two, there are still four colleges very much in the running for league honors, and the race conceivably could wind up in a three or four-way tie. At this very same point last year no one but Princeton and Dartmouth had a ghost of a chance of capturing the top position. Today the latter two, Cornell, and Penn all may finish at least tied for first.

The dark horse is, of course, Pennsylvania. The Quakers are in fourth place with an ordinary 3-2 record, but convincing victories over Harvard and Yale the last two Saturdays led Coach John Yovicsin to pronounce them "the most improved team in the league." Considering that they lost to Dartmouth and Princeton by a total of only seven points earlier in the year, the Philadelphians may now be the strongest team around; Cornell will be in for a rugged time Thanksgiving Day.

In fact, the Big Red may meet its match again today when it plays a Dartmouth team with a habit of allowing 105 less yards than the Ithacans are accustomed to gaining.

Dartmouth in Driver's Seat

As Yovicsin pointed out, Dartmouth is the only team that can take the title by itself. Cornell, Princeton and Penn all need help from someone else to finish first. There is an advantage to rooting for the scoreboard, however, for Penn and Princeton will be playing cellar teams in Columbia and Yale today, while Cornell and Dartmouth knock heads together.

Even this elementary form of crystalball gazing may have its hazards, for Yovicsin refuses to write off either of the bottom two teams as potentially dangerous. In fact, he claims that on a given Saturday any of the Ivy eight could still beat any of the others.

One of the strangest phenomena in an otherwise unusual season is that the strongest team on paper appears to be fifth-place Brown. The Bruins are right behind Dartmouth and Harvard in total defense and trail first-place Cornell by three-tenths of a yard per game in total offense.

In addition, Brown players lead the league in individual total offense, passing, About the only safe thing that can be rushing, pass receiving and scoring. said about today's games is that there will be much confusion in league standings tomorrow morning. And Harvard could still finish second....