It's the season in a weekend. It's the beginning and the end. It's all that matters. It's The Game.

For the Harvard and Yale football teams, The Game is the barometer of a winning or losing season.

Harvard could finish the season 1-9, and a win in The Game would make it a successful season. Reverse the record to 9-1, and a loss to Yale would make the year a failure.

The Game. A 60-minute contest that makes or breaks a season.

Four years ago, Harvard was on the brink of winning the Ivy League title. Yale had nothing to play for. That is, except for The Game. The Elis rose up and denied the Crimson the title, 17-6. A 7-3 Harvard season meant nothing. Harvard lost The Game.

Sometimes The Game takes on a new meaning when the combatants battle for the Ivy League title. Last year, the two entered the game with identical 7-2 records. Winner take all. The Game, the Ivy title. When Harvard defeated Yale, 14-10, to win the title, it was hard for the players to figure out which accomplishment was more important.

There is only The Game this year. Harvard enters today 2-7 overall. Yale is 2-6-1. The Crimson has defeated only Brown and Columbia, a pair of squads that have combined to win one game this year.

Yale has beaten Columbia and Dartmouth. They tied winless Brown, 24-24, to start the season. Yale's opponents have scored twice as many points, 222-105, as the Elis.

But records don't matter in this game. Slaughters at the hands of other foes are inconsequential.

The rest of the Ivy League schedule is a preliminary match. The Game is the main event.

The winner of The Game leaves the season just that--a winner.

The losers will have the rest of the year, perhaps the rest of their lives, to think of what might have been.

Two years ago, the teams were in a similar situation. Harvard was 2-7 going into the game. The Elis were 3-6.

Both teams had long since been eliminated from the Ivy race. There was nothing to play for. Except The Game.

Sophomore quarterback Tom Yohe led the Crimson to a 24-17 victory over Yale.

Harvard finished the season 3-7. And winners.

For Harvard, The Game this year presents the Crimson with the perfect opportunity to salvage a dismal season.

This year began with the Crimson looking to repeat its Ivy League title. Harvard was on top of the world last year, standing with its foot on the neck of the Bulldogs, the Ivy League trophy in hand.

The players looked forward to going 10-0.

"We'll take one game at a time," Harvard Captain Don Peterson said before the season.

Harvard started the year looking as if it would tear right through the league, starting with a 41-7 win over Columbia. A couple of non-conference losses did not mean anything. Losses to Cornell, Dartmouth and Princeton did. The Crimson was eliminated from the Ivy League title.

Losses piled up. Goals changed.

"We want to close out the year with wins over Penn and Yale," wide receiver Neil Phillips said after Harvard lost to Boston University.

Harvard lost to Penn, 52-13, last week.

Only The Game remains.