It was like something out of a bad dream, really. One expected to wake up momentarily and find out that, no, Harvard hadn't fumbled the ball away in the closing seconds, and no, Harvard hadn't taken itself out of the Ivy title picture. Perhaps we had had too many bourbon-and-ciders at the pre-game tailgate.

But it was not a dream, it was real--and when Crimson halfback Ralph Polillio fumbled quarterback Larry Brown's handoff with 28 seconds remaining on the Princeton 5-yd, line and Tiger tackle Steve Hart pounced on it, Saturday's away game had ended in a 24-24 tie.

Harvard had served Princeton two touchdowns on a silver platter in the first quarter at Palmer Stadium before roaring back and dominating the second half.

Then, just as every reporter in the pressbox was writing the lead for a Harvard victory, Brown slipped on the handoff, the ball bounded forward off Polillio, and Princeton had it.

Brown, depressed after the game like the rest of the squad, showed a lot of class in explaining the mishandled play.

"I put the burden on myself," Brown said. "All we were going to do was set up a straight-on field goal for Bosnic, so we were going to go off-tackle to Ralph. I lost my balance and tried to force the ball through, and as I tried to force it, he knocked it out of my grasp. It was a one-in-a-million play."

Almost incredibly, the two squads kept the Princeton crowd of 17,500 on the edge of their seats for the remaining 28 seconds as first Harvard, then Princeton intercepted passes.

Terry Trusty--subbing for the ill Fred Cordova--picked off a Princeton aerial with 13 seconds to go, followed 10 seconds later by a Steve Rowles pick-off of a Brown spiral.

The Tigers' Chris Howe attempted an impossible 54-yard field goal with three ticks left on the clock, and he gave it a mighty ride, dropping it just five yards short of the crossbar.

It might even have been better for the demoralized Crimson if Howe had made the intercontinental attempt, since it would have added a tone of finality to the frustration-wrought contest.

It's been said that a tie is like kissing your sister, but this one was more like French-kissing your dog. Harvard now stands at 1-2-1 in Ivy league play, leaving the gridders all but out of the title picture.

"I felt badly for the team," coach Joe Restic said after the game, "because they really stormed back."

"Those turnovers in the first half just gave them 14 points, though," he said.

And indeed, the way things went in the first quarter, it looked as if the Tigers would roll over the Crimson the way Hitler ransacked Poland.

Princeton took a 7-0 lead 13 minutes into the game when their gifted new quarterback, Steve Reynolds, threw a wounded duck down the left sidelines to tailback Cris Crissy, who discoed into the endzone past two stumbling Harvard defenders.