PROVIDENCE, R.I.--In the giddy clamor of the Harvard locker room after Saturday's 41-7 rout of Brown, one idea lingered uneasily on many a mind.

That missed field goal.

Jim Villanueva's failure to convert a game-winning 31-yd. field goal on the final play of last week's 17-17 tie with Princeton now looms all the larger in the Ivy League race. Had Harvard beaten the Tigers and (as expected) gone on to defeat Penn two weeks from now, the Crimson would travel to New Haven on November 21 guaranteed a share of the Ivy title with a victory over Yale.

And given a performance like Harvard's here Saturday, the team might well have a chance against the almost invincible Elis. Harvard did exactly what it had to do against Brown--which, truth be told, wasn't much.

You don't have to be the 1972 Dolphins to win when the opposing quarterback throws interceptions on his first two passes, the first on his own 20 and then on his 25. You don't have to be the 1967 Packers to win when your opponent gains just 54 yards and yields five turnovers in the first half.

But Brown's incompetence notwithstanding, Harvard made the Bruins pay for every mistake, putting the game out of reach with remarkable dispatch. In fact, the ease with which Joe Restic's charges killed off the Bruins made the tie with Princeton and the subsequent demise of Harvard's title hopes all the more frustrating.

This team, for all its difficulties this year, would be 4-1 in the Ivies if it had beaten Princeton. Instead, it stands at 3-1-1, tied with the. Tigers for third, hoping that both Dartmouth and undefeated Yale lose at least once before The Game.

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And that's not likely.

Harvard displayed a newly resurgent defensive line, led by junior middle guard Scott Murrer, who is emerging as one of the top linemen in the league. Murrer spent most of the afternoon in the Brown backfield, his success enhanced by superb penetration from the ends by Justin Whittington and Pat Fleming. "When they went outside, " Murrer said afterwards, "the guard let me inside without any trouble, and with everyone else getting inside, we all could get in there."

Offensively, the Crimson proved it could dominate by--as usual--giving the ball to Jim Callinan. En route to his 28-carry, 120-yd. day, Cal showed he has become an automatic four or five yards a carry. He may not be the fastest guy on the team (definitely not), but he is Harvard's most impressive straight-ahead runner in recent history. He has lost the easy-to-injure tag and proved remarkably resilient over this season's long haul, and now needs only 230 yards over the next three games to break Harvard's single-season rushing mark, which now stands at 950.

Harvard's showing at quarterback Saturday resolved little about the team's future and may even have complicated the picture considerably. Ron Cuccia was ineffective in the first half, with no completions in four attempts. Cuccia, in fact, has not had much success in the air all year long.

That fact has not been lost on Restic. So, late in the first half, Restic institutes what was essentially a two-quarterback offense. On third downs, Cuccia lined up as quarterback, with strong-armed Don Allard directly behind him; after beginning to call signals. Cuccia would then go in motion and the ball would be shot-gunned back to Allard.

In theory, no defense would manage to defend against the quarterback-turned receiver, and that's just what happened, with Cuccia consistently getting open on crucial third-down situations. But Allard had some trouble getting the ball to Cuccia, and the play worked really well only once in the six times it was tried.

Restic went with Allard almost the entire second half, and the junior came up with a creditable performance--four-for-eight for 50 yards and a touchdown, plus 27 yards rushing. After the game, the coach made clear that Cuccia is still the number-one quarterback, but the Multiflex man no doubt relishes the thought of confusing a few more defenses with the dual-q.b. alignment. If so, he will have to make the arrangement run a lot more smoothly than it did Satuday: still, with the kinks ironed out, it could be a potent weapon.

So the Crimson seems to be hitting its stride coming into the season's final three games. But noble as Saturday's effort was, it probably will not be enough to return Harvard to the Ivy race. And that fact was not lost on the celebrating throng here in the Harvard locker room Saturday.