Harvard-Brown has turned into the best rivalry in the Ivy League, with last-minute drives, dramatic reverses and unexpected heroics the rule in recent years--including last year's 17-16 Crimson triumph.

On paper, Harvard should be in a position to end that skein of heart-stoppers and cruise to an easy victory today in Providence--just as the Crimson should have eased past Dartmouth and Princeton the last two weeks.

Brown is going through what football coaches like to call a "rebuilding" year, which translates to "losing" in English. Brown has only won once this fall (over--who else--Penn) and lost to Yale, Princeton and Cornell.

But, as coaches always say about future opponents, the Bruins are better than their record indicates. Better for Brown usually comes in the form of its quarterback Hank Landers and tight end Steve Jordan.

Landers currently leads the lvies and the entire East in total offense with 1522 yards, many of them to his 6-ft., 4-in. tight end. Jordan, a bona fide All-American candidate, has 26 catches for 483 yards, and an impressive 18.6 average. And with tailback Vince Stephens, who returns this week from an injury, the Bruins look downright imposing when they have the ball.

But their problem is they don't get to keep the ball all the time, and that means their defense must play, too. That's when the troubles start. Brown's defense has given up more than 20 points in all but one game this year and caused the loss to Cornell, which boasts the most comatose offense in the league.

The days of wine, roses and John Woodring (1980 graduate and current New York Jet linebacker) are emphatically over.

So that means Ron Cuccia, Jim Callinan and Company should find easy pickings at Brown Stadium. Callinan is coming off the best game of his career and the second best ever for a Harvard runner (190 yards), so things look particulary rosy for him.

Cuccia is still looking for his first big game of the year; he is averaging fewer than 100 yards per game. And that may be the key to explaining why the Harvard offense has been so sporadic all season. Given a dry field, Cuccia will have every opportunity to come up with that big day. For the 2-1-1 Crimson, its almost-dead championship hopes depend on it.