Holy Cross is from Worcester. Its football team is large, dresses in purple clothing and calls itself the Crusaders. If that doesn't sound like a motorcycle gang to you, then you grew up in Iowa and probably go to Dartmouth.

Actually, the nickname Crusaders has always scared me. The Catholic High School back home was nicknamed the Crusaders, and it always had great football teams. I can remember the Crusaders whipping us Warriors year after year, sometimes as bad as 56-0. I can remember some of those guys riding in a motercycle gang, too.

It's not that I don't think Harvard can beat Holy Cross. The Cross is a hard-hitting team that loves to beat Harvard, and the gridders are ailing on defense with senior Justin Whittington a questionable starter, but that's not the problem.

The problem is, I'm afraid Harvard will win. Worcester isn't very far from Cambridge, and every time The Cross plays here plenty of students come along to cheer the squad on.

I've read about those Crusades. The first Kawasaki I hear, I'm diving for cover behind Linus O'Donnell.

Another thing about Holy Cross. The people there didn't mind losing football teams these past few years because they had Ronnie Perry.

Ronnie Perry played every sport except football. Holy Cross had a winning basketball team because of Ronnie Perry. Holy Cross had a winning baseball team because of him, too. He was the school's best at everything--ski-jumping, calf-roping, powerboat racing, you name it.

But Ronnie Perry has been gone for two years, and Holy Cross is beginning to mind losing football teams. No longer is it assured of beating arch-rivals Boston College and Providence College in every sport Ronnie Perry played. They are beginning to joke about the Purple and White again, and Crusaders aren't much on humor.

So watch out for this bunch. Boston University didn't, and lost. UMass didn't, and needed the last play of the game to win, 13-10, last week. Look for the same kind of nailbiter today. HARVARD 21, HOLY CROSS 20.

***

It's the Ivies against the East this week. The predictions:

COLUMBIA 24, LAFAYETTE 14: Lion John Witkowski is a fine quarterback. Joe Cabrera and Jim (PT 109) McHale form a strong backfield. Columbia didn't look all that bad losing to, Harvard last week.

Lafayette won its opener, 51-0. However, that was against Central Conecticut, which isn't playing Notre Dame this year: Bob Naso's Lions take a few stumbling steps toward respectability.

UMASS 24, DARTMOUTH 21: The game of the day, worth driving to Amherst for. The Green are fresh off a win over Princeton and the Minutemen are flying high after the last-second dumping of The Cross. They don't come any closer than this one, a match of two strong teams.

COLGATE 30, CORNELL 20: I like a girl at Colgate. I hate a guy at Cornell (no, it's not Dick Bertrand). Throw in the fact that these upstate-New York rivals always have rock-'em sock-'em scuffles, and such intangibles become important, because otherwise it's too close to call. I really like this girl at Colgate, so make it Colgate by ten.

DELAWARE 35, PRINCETON 3: Delaware is ranked number one in the nation in the Division 7-AA classification. Delaware beat Temple last weekend. Temple plays Georgia this year. Notice that Princeton isn't a major part of this paragraph.

ARMY 20, BROWN 6: Okay, Brown didn't make it close against Yale last week. Okay, maybe they won't get any closer this week. But the soft ice cream there is the finest in the Ivies.

YALE 28, UCONN 21: Yale may be the best in the East this year.

LEHIGH 40, PENN 5: No way the Quakers can do it twice in a row.

Last week (and season totals): 2-2, .500. Shaky start, folks.