Nobody expected it to be a great weekend for Ivy League football teams, with eight non-conference games scheduled. Nobody expected it to be great, but nobody expected it to be this pitiful.

Only Yale--quickly establishing itself once again as the class of the Ivies--with a 27-18 win over cross-state rival, UConn, emerged unscathed. Led for the second week in a row by the powerful running of tailback Rich Diana (140 yards, two touchdowns), the Elis came back three times to overturn the previously unbeaten Huskies. Diana also completed a halfback option pass for 22 yards.

In Amherst Saturday, the University of Massachusetts held off a late Dartmouth rally to win 10-8, the Minutemen's third straight victory over the Big Green in all of the teams' first 21 meetings.

The Minutemen relied on the running of halfback Garry Pearson and quarterback Dean Pecevich to roll up a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. UMass then let its prodigious defense take over, holding the Big Green at bay until the game's final 15 minutes.

Twin Disasters

Two performances which seem destined for the Ivy League's Most Embarrasing Moments film were those of Princeton and Penn. The Tigers were refried by Delaware, 61-8, while Lehigh shut up the Quakers, 58-0.

To its credit, Princeton, was facing the number-one nationally ranked Division 1-AA team in the country. But the Tigers are a Division 1-A team. You figure out the NCAA.

In Bethlehem, Pa., it was also a battle of Single A vs. Double A, with the same humiliating result. Lehigh rolled up its highest point total ever in its series with the Quakers, which dates back to 1885. Penn, incidently, leads in that series, 41-8.

A Nation Watches

In the rest of the Ivy contests, Army held off Brown, 23-17; Colgate dealt Cornell its second straight loss, 34-10; and Lafayette ran past struggling Columbia, 28-13.

The West Pointers, who visit Soldiers Field next week to take on the Crimson, tallied fewer first downs and nearly 100 fewer yards on total offense than the Bruins. But two touchdowns by Larry Pruitt (one on a 57-yard punt return and the other on a 23-yard pass reception) carried the Cadets to their first victory of the season.