Again.

"Brent always makes the big plays," Oldenburg says.

Harvard (7-2 overall, 5-1 Ivy) need only beat Yale Saturday in New Haven, Conn., to claim a part of the Ancient Eight title that has eluded it since 1983.

And if the defense--led by linebacker Wilkinson--plays like it has for the previous nine games, that shouldn't be a problem.

"We're going to try to put together the perfect game Saturday," Wilkinson says. "And go out with a spark of glory."

The Yale game will mark the end of Wilkinson's outstanding college career.

Is there life after football for the two-year letterman?

For Wilkinson, who prides himself on his scholastic--as well as gridiron--record, there certainly is.

After the football season, he'll wrap up his career at Harvard with an economics degree. And next fall, if all goes well, he'll enroll in the Harvard Business School.

But after that, he's not certain just what he'll do.

"Ideally, I'd like to get into managing, consulting or banking," Wilkinson says.

Wilkinson, not Washington

Wilkinson--a Mt. Vernon, Ohio native--learned to play football as an eight-year-old living in Texas where his father, a pilot in the Air Force, was stationed.

"One day my father came in and said, 'How would you like to play football for Mr. Leffingwell [a neigh, bor]?'" Wilkinson says. "I'd never played before but I said, 'Sure.'"

Wilkinson's four-year stay in Texas taught him a great deal about the game he would play magnificently in later years at Mt. Vernon High School and at Harvard.