The Oxford-Cambridge track team may still give the Harvard-Yale squad some stiff competition tomorrow in the Stadium, but the English will have to look better than they did during the weekend they just suffered through.

Saturday, at Ithaca, the combined Penn-Cornell team registered a stunning upset over Oxford-Cambridge, 8 to 7. (In these meets, only first places count in the scoring.) Meanwhile, Herb Elliott of Cambridge, who will join the English for the meet here, was a discouraging fifth in an 800-meter race in Zagreb, Yugoslavia.

Steve Machooka, a lanky Cornell freshman from East Africa, led Penn-Cornell to victory with a 4:10.8 win in the mile. Machooka took first despite the presence on the English squad of such milers as Stephen James of Oxford (best time 4:05.1) and Tim Briault of Cambridge (4:08.0).

The English may have lost a possible first place and the meet when their 440 ace, Adrian Metcalfe of Oxford, could not run because of an upset stomach. Metcalfe had previously won the 220 in 21.9; Penn's Bob Harper took the 440 in 48.3.

In Yugoslavia, Elliott was fifth in an international field. Siegfried Valentin of East Germany took first in 1:50.4, a good but definitely not world-beating time.

Elliott should provide much of the excitement tomorrow, especially in the mile, where he and Mark Mullin of Harvard should hook up in a scorching battle. The Australian holds the world record in the mile at 3:54.5, and his best clockings for the 880 and two-mile are 1:47.3 and 8:37.6. This year, he won the 880 and the mile in the Oxford-Cambridge dual meet in 1:49.8 and 4:07.2.

A man of many talents, Elliott became an author on May 25. In his autobiography, The Golden Mile, he wrote, ". . . it's a fact that the warm, soft, synthetic existence Americans lead poses a real doubt about their future. . . A people who so thoroughly modllycoddle themselves must become weaker, spiritually and physically."

Mullin, who has run a 4:07.1 mile himself this spring, might disagree.