Harvard's track team, rated one of three co-favorites in Saturday's meet, won't make it there after all.

Last year the Crimson ran second to Villanova and this year the team was considered in a class with the Wildcats and Maryland. But a University regulation prohibits team competition during exam period; eight runners whose exam schedules permit it will enter as individuals.

John Bakkensen will be there to defend his discus title; hammer thrower Art Croasdale, high jumper Chris Pardee, and triple jumper Olufemi Olunjoyo round out the field contingent. Hurdler Tony Lynch, sprinters Wayne Anderson and Joe Sam Robinson, and miler Jim Smith will enter the track events.

But Aggrey Awori, Walt Hewlett, Mike Hauck, John Ogden, Keith Chiappa, Bill Pfeiffer, and the rest of the Crimson team will be back in Cambridge hitting the books.

Those who are going could still cause some fuss at Rutgers, where the Eastern championship meet will be held. Bakkensen has the best discus throw in the East this year, and has lost just once, when, Manhattan's erratic Bob Steigerwald got off a 175 ft. throw and beat him by two feet in the Penn relays. Bakkensen, a consistent 170-footer this spring, should win Saturday.

Another good bet for an individual championship is Lynch, who finished second in last year's 440-yard hurdles behind Manhattan's Vince McArdle, who has graduated. Lynch lost to Pittsburgh's Dick Johnson at the Penn relays and to Navy's Cortland Gray in the Heps, but both races were close. The Crimson's captain-elect will double in the 120-yard high hurdles, where he's likely to place if he can approach his season's best time of 14.3. Doubling, however, means running five races, and that's a lot of hurdling.

Anderson was second in the indoor IC4A 60-yard dash to Sam Perry of Fordham, an Olympic-calibre runner who has been injured this spring. In the 100, Anderson, who has run a wind-aided 9.6, has to be considered a co-favorite with Villanova's Earl Horner and a host of other runners in the 9.7 area.

Anderson has a morning exam Saturday and may not be able to get to Rutgers in time for the 100. In that case, he'll go in the 220, a wide-open race in which Horner is defending champion.

Robinson will run the 440 and possibly the 220; Smith will enter the mile and possibly the 3000-meter steeplechase, a race he has never run before.

In the field events, Croasdale has thrown the hammer 190 feet, which would have made him a favorite in this event a year ago. But this year there are no fewer than five other hammer throwers who have gone over the 190-foot mark and one, Bowdoin's stylish Alex Shulten, has thrown over 200. Croasdale will have to scramble for points.

Pardee has cleared 6-9 and should fight it out for second place with his old friend Kim Hill of Yale. First seems firmly in the grasp of Maryland's seven-footer Frank Costello, who is consistent at 6-10, but on a good day Pardee, who cleared 6-10 1/2 last summer, could challenge him.

Olunloyo has triple-jumped close to 46-feet, but he'll have to improve by about a foot and a half to place.

The meet shapes up as an ultra-close contest between Villanova and Maryland. The Terrapins, Atlantic Coast Conference champs, have all-but-sure first places from Costello and broad jumper Mike Cole (24 ft., 11 3/4 in, this spring) and a likely first from javelin thrower Russ White (250 ft., 1/2 in., the best throw in the East).

After that the Terps look for points to three 15-foot pole vaulters, Cole (21.5) in the 220, Steve Lamb (47.5) in the quarter, Ramsey Thomas (1:52.8) in the half, and George Henry (4:08.7) in the mile. But except for the pole vaulters and Henry, whose time is second-best in the East, the contributions of these gentlemen are likely to be minimal.

It's going to be up to Villanova, a team with amazing depth in the track events, to overhaul the Terps' sure points by getting the most out of their men in the close, competitive running events.

Horner won the 220 and was second in the 100 last year; Marshall Uzzle scored in both. Hurdlers Larry Livers and Ken Coniglio placed last year; Noel Carroll, Tom Sullivan, and Dave Hyland were second last year in the 880, mile, and steeplechase respectively, and the men who won the last two have graduated.

Others Will Figure

In the end, the meet may depend not on Villanova and Maryland runners, but on the top runners from other schools. If St. John's enters Olympian Tommy Farrell in the 880, he's a clinch to beat Carroll. But if Farrell runs the 440, as he has been doing this spring, Carroll only has to beat the same field that trailed him in the IC4A 1000-yard run.

If Seton Hall's Herb Germann (4:07.2) and St. Johns' Larry Furnell are in good form, they can beat Henry and Sullivan. Or they may beat one and not the other. If Perry runs the sprints, Horner and Uzzle are dead; if he's out of it, they're in it.