Official statistics were not kept. No one is sure what the final score was. But one thing seems clear: Harvard beat Brown. Badly.

The time was preseason, in September. The place was Harvard Stadium. The chief weapon was Tom Yohe's arm. The victim was Brown.

Yohe, the Harvard quarterback, tossed a pair of touchdowns to lead the Crimson over the Bruins, 29-0--or some similar, big score. Brown could barely get the ball past midfield. The Bruins looked bad.

So bad that they're now tied for the Ivy League lead with Harvard and Cornell.

So bad that today's game is the last serious obstacle the Bruins, face in their quest for the Ivy championship.

A win today, and the Bruins are champs tomorrow. They face Dartmouth (0-3 Ivy) and Columbia (0-4 Ivy, 0-37 overall and counting) to close out their league schedule.

Bad. So bad, they fell to Harvard, 29-0, in preseason. Or did they?

Was the scrimmage simply a mirage? Official records were not kept. No one is sure what the final score was.

So, did it happen? Can a team so bad then be so good now?

"We know that they're a different team now," Harvard Captain Kevin Dulsky says. "They've got a lot of guys back [who were missing from the scrimmage], and they've got the momentum of the season."

A bad team becomes a good team. A meaningless, preseason game becomes a meaningful, regular-season showdown.

Down, Not Out

Long ago, Brown was down.

"They weren't as prepared then as they are now," Dulsky says.

Now the Bruins are cruisin'.