A Gridiron Surprise Party

The Ivy League football season got underway for real on Saturday, but that seemed to come as something of a surprise to Cornell and Harvard.

Maybe they just weren't used to playing winning ball--in three games each, they had one victory between them--or maybe last-minute injuries disoriented them, but for whatever the reason, the Crimson and the Big Red passed the afternoon in a state of mild astonishment.

"We were very lucky," a relieved Harvard Coach Joe Restic said afterwards. "In the end, or maybe three days down the road, you look at it a little differently."

But fur now, "You look at the win, it's a W, that's the big thing."

* * * * *

The Surprises came thick and fast, starting with a second play that made the old folks in the audience think of the first play from scrimmage in the 1981 Penn game.

Like Jim Callinan before him, junior fullback Robert Santiago eluded a swarm of scrambling visitors and sprinted for a 73-yd. touch-down--five yards further than Callinan did the day he broke the Harvard single-season rushing record.

But on the very next series, Cornell started eating up yardage the hard way. The Big Red rammed the ball up the middle again and again, marching to within inches of the Harvard goal on the rushing of senior halfback Tony Baker and fullback Mark Miller.

Once inside the five, however, the Ithacans might as well have been scaling a wall-three times they tried for, and three times the Crimson defense denied them, the end zone.

Then--surprise!--Miller fumbled on the one.

"I was on one side and it just came across the line," junior K.C. Smith said later. "He [Miller] went the other way and the ball was just sitting there.

"I just jumped on it."

* * * * *

For a while there, it looked like there were loose balls all over the place. Barely two minutes into the second quarter, Harvard sophomore Scott Collins found himself on the Cornell 28, the unintended receiver of a pretty Shawn Maguire pass.

"We were expecting a pass, and I saw their backfield receiver come back--he [Maguire] just sort of threw it right to me," Collins said. "Then I just started running."

* * * * *

After watching the Big Red run at will most of the afternoon, defensive tackle Barry Ford had a word of caution.

"Our team has a problem," be confided. "Let me tell you what it is.

"We're inconsistent."

No shock there, to be sure Friday after practice, Ford was pleasantly surprised to learn that he'd been elected Senior Class Second Marshal (first vice-president)

"It was a mild distraction last night," he grinned. And Saturday' "Well, it just put me in the right frame of mind."

* * * * *

Even intended receivers had a few scares. Harvard quarterback Brian White, under duress on the Cornell 32 toward the end of the third quarter, picked out sophomore Joel Seay on the 16, was popped by a rushing Cornell lineman and lobbed the ball almost straight into the air.

"When the play started I wasn't really the intended receiver," said the split end. "Once he had to scramble in the backfield...we made eye contact. I fortunately was able to get to it."

Seay, unchallenged, snagged the ball and made for the end zone, before being forced out at the nine-yard line. "I was surprised that it came down that open," he remarked.

* * * * *

The mildest of distractions may have been the handful of the 11,500 spectators usually concerned with the fortunes of the men's basketball team.

"It's just sort of camaraderie," said senior guard Kevin Boyle, who sailed through the post-game rush with Arne Duncan, Keith Webster and Bob Daugherty. "They don't know we're there or anything."

That might be best. Asked about his comrades' performance, Boyle characterized it as "a mediocre defensive effort on both parts.

"But they got it together in the end," he conceded. "A W is a W."