Kickoff time: 1:30 p.m.

Dartmouth's voracious throngs make their annual foray from the woods of New Hampshire into Cambridge today, ostensibly for this afternoon's Harvard-Dartmouth football game--which promises to be a thriller in the tradition of the last two years' games.

Harvard has a score to settle today. In last year's memory-haunting game, Dartmouth robbed the Crimson in the last minute of play of its second squeezed-out victory in a row.

With Harvard leading 21-20 with less than a minute to play, Dartmouth was in field-goal position and sent in kicking specialist Pete Donovan. Donovan's kick went wide, however, and Harvard's fans went wild, thinking they had won.

But the officials called off-sides on Harvard Captain Don Chiofaro, and Donovan got a second try--which he made good. And Dartmouth won the ball game, 23-21.

Today's game is as unpredictable as last year's.

Record-wise, Dartmouth looks weaker than in previous years. The Green has won only half its ball games this season, losing to Princeton, 34-7, two weeks ago and to Holy Cross (which Harvard defeated in its opener, 27-20, the week before that.

But last week, Dartmouth reboundtd to trounce a hapless Brown team, 48-0, and looked impressive doing so. The Green's total offensive yardage was the second highest in Ivy League history, coming within nine yards of Yale's record 614 yards set a week before against the Brown team.

But what was impressive was the fact that Dartmouth did all that with an injury-ridden team. Up until the Thursday before the Brown game, 12 of the Green's starters were out with injuries, and seven of those saw no action at all on Saturday.

The Dartmouth offense is led by sophomore quarterback Jim Chasey, who took over the play-calling duties from veteran Bill Koenig two weeks ago, and halfbacks Bob Lundquist and Tom Miller. Chasey throws well--26 completions out of 45 passes so far, without any interceptions.

Fifth in Nation

But Harvard's defense--fifth in the nation in defense against scoring--has been improving rapidly and has shown it can handle any passer. Cornell quarter-back Bill Robertson--the Ivy League's best last year--was held to under 60 yards passing yardage by the Crimson's defenders last week.

Harvard's defensive secondary has looked especially good. Leaks from Dartmouth's scouting reports show that Coach Blackman regards the unit of Tom Wynne, Pat Conway, John Ignacio, and Rick Frisbie as the strongest he has faced in the last few years.

Although Harvard's offensive backfield is healthy again, the Crimson line may be without junior tackle Bob Dowd and sophomore end Bruce Freeman, who are now on the injury list. Freeman's catch of a George Lalich pass set up Harvard's only touchdown against Cornell last week.