It was a comedy of errors; neither team seemed to want a victory. But in the end, before a less-than-capacity crowd of 87 at Boston University's Nickerson Field, the J.V. Terriers made fewer miscues, and downed the Harvard J.V. football team 9-0, lowering the Crimson's mark to 3-2.

Harvard's offensive coordinator A1 Bruno summed it up: "It was one of those games where we just made too many mistakes." And mistakes there were. Eleven penalties for 86 yards. Six fumbles, four of them lost. Three missed field goals. At one time Harvard faced third and a long 40 from its own one yard line.

But B.U. was not much better. For most of the game, the Terriers' coterie of running backs and quarterbacks--B.U. played three quarterbacks to the Crimson's five--battled for the lowest yard per carry average. Not counting Toussaint James, who swept around end for 54 yards in the last minute of play, the Terriers rushed 45 times for a paltry 64 yards.

The game started off promisingly enough. B.U. won the flip and elected to receive. The Harvard defense, which turned in a strong showing, gave up a first down, but then forced the Terriers to kick.

The Crimson took the ball in good field position and marched downfield until Paul Golitz (10 carries, 50 yards) was stopped at the 17 on a third and three. Joe Abate's kick fell short, however, and the Crimson never came that close to the lead again.

The Terriers got the ball back and promptly punted, only to recover a fumble five plays later, and the pattern was set for the rest of the game. B.U.'s overworked punter, Phil Gaudette--quite possibly the worst punter in the East--punted nine times for an average of 22.8 yards. He boomed one all of ten yards.

The second half promised more of the same, until Harvard got the ball midway through the third quarter on its own 18. Two penalties and a screen pass for minus seven yards later, the Crimson were on their own one. When Golitz met the right side of the B.U. line in the endzone on the next play, the safety gave the Terriers all the points they needed.

Late in the third quarter, B.U. signal caller Mike Kearny found split end James wide open at mid-field and he scampered untouched to the end zone to round out the scoring at 9.