Seventeen years ago, a now-chubby Boston sportscaster, Mike Lynch '76, booted a late field goal to give Harvard a 10-7 win and its first of two outright Ivy crowns in the Restic era.

Some MIT pranksters punctuated a 45-7 Harvard victory in The 1982 Game by inflating a huge balloon at midfield of The Stadium.

In 1985, Yale burst the Harvard balloon by taking a 17-6 victory and knocking Harvard out of the Ivy League championship.

And, of course, there was The 1968 Game. Harvard wins, 29-29. No further comment needed.

The football field is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide, bounded by the inside edge of the end lines and sidelines and surrounded by a six-foot wide white border. Goal lines, eight inches wide, are marked in white 10 yards inside and parallel to the end lines.

The field extends beyond The Stadium, past the hordes of tailgaters and toward the oceans on either side.

The Game is a truly national collegiate rivalry. Alumni in every state a claim to the outcome of The Game.

Loyalties are not decided on the basis of geography. Cantabrigians and Somervillians do not, as a rule, care who wins.

But there are pockets of Wisconsinites and Marylanders who are part of The Game. Some are Eli and some are Crimson. All, in a sense, are players.

The football is a spheroid, measuring 11 to 11-1/4 inches long, with a short circumference of 21 to 21-1/4 inches and a long circumference of 26-1/2 to 28 inches. It is constructed of a rubber bladder inflated to 12-1/2 to 13-1/2 pounds per square inch, and it weighs 14 to 15 ounces.

The shape of a football is unique. Have you ever seen anything except a football that is shaped exactly like a football?

The rationale behind the shape is simple. The bounce of the ball is also absolutely unpredictable.

So has gone the 1992 Crimson football season. The ball, so to speak, has bounced every which way away from Harvard. Or, more accurately, the ball has consistently bounced through Harvard's slippery hands.

Those kinds of bounces can change directions in unfathomable ways. Physics controls the bounce of the ball.

But Harvard's job today is to grab the ball. It cannot rely on science, cannot wait for a favorable Harvard bounce.

Harvard seniors know it is their turn to grasp the pigskin and run with it. They have never beaten Yale. This is their last chance.

This is The Season.

This article originally appeared in the 1986 Yale football supplement and has been updated slightly for this issue.

By the way, Harvard won that year, 24-17.