Once upon a time, when that great schedule-maker in the sky was compiling the Ivy slate, he decided to do Harvard a big favor. Tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 on Soldiers Field, the Crimson will no doubt feel quite blessed indeed, as the gridders oppose Columbia in the Ivy opener.

How many teams, after all, have the privilege of opening their league season against Columbia? You know, the Columbia Lions, the team which has been the butt of more jokes than Wilbur Mills and Fannie Fox combined.

This year, however, the joke may be on the team that treats Columbia too lightly. The Lions are an improved football team, and although improvement to them may consist of getting beat by only two touchdowns instead of the customary three, they're at least on the right track.

Last weekend they served evidence of this mild return to respectability by remaining in the game with a strong Princeton team until the third quarter. The Lions finally succumbed by a 27-7 margin, but in so doing, caused more than one pair of eyebrows to raise.

"Columbia moved the ball well against Princeton," Crimson coach Joe Restic said yesterday. "Although their passing shouldn't hurt us, they have improved their triple-option running attack."

Depths of the Basement

The chief overseer of Columbia's rising fortunes is former Boston College assistant coach Bill Campbell, who is in his second year at the helm. Campbell has won but one of eleven games during his stay at Baker Field, but he realizes that when you have to rebuild from the depths of the basement, you don't reach the attic overnight.

"This is only my second year," Campbell said last night, and it takes time to rebuild."

"We're playing a lot of sophomores now who had good freshmen years last fall, and we have another good freshman squad now," he said, adding, "I think we'll be more competitive this year, and we're capable of an upset if someone overlooks us. But I don't think we can play with teams the caliber of Harvard or Yale yet."

Campbell's realism takes into account that the Lions will be playing without sophomore quarterback Kevin Burns, whose broken collarbone will sideline him for the season and Bruce Stephens, their best back in the pre-season, who suffered an ankle injury during the opener against Lafayette.

Strong Crimson Defense

In place of Burns and Stephens, a Crimson defense which Campbell terms "one of the strongest they've ever had" will have to stop Mike Delaney and Doug Jackson. The former has completed 11 of 25 passes and rushed for 103 yards thus far, while the latter is the Lions' leading ground gainer with 140 yards, 114 of which came against a tough Princeton defense.

As for the Crimson, this week has been a productive, if not embarrassing, one. "We had a good week in practice covering a lot of the areas that we needed to," Restic said. "I told the team that we can't win football games with eight fumbles and ten penalties, because we have too many other problem areas to deal with."

The Oakland Raiders would probably have trouble winning football games under those circumstances, but at least the Raiders have two things going for them that Harvard doesn't.

Number one is a kicking game. "We have to find someone to put the ball between the goalposts, or this is really going to hurt us," Restic said, without adding that it has already hurt to some extent.

Quarterback-Center Exchange

The second concern involves the obscure area of the quarterback-center exchange. Quarterback Jim Kubacki, you see, stands at 6'3", which is five more than center Carl Culig. Thus, "Jimmy has to crouch down to get the ball, which is a real disadvantage" according to Restic.

Further disadvantages will be the absence of Fran Cronin from the defensive secondary, and the possible absence of halfback Tommy Winn, both of whom were injured last week.

Otherwise, all hands are fine, and as a result, Columbia's rehabilitation will have to suffer yet another setback. And cool it on those Columbia jokes. After all, it's bad enough we're here and not at Fenway Park to begin with.