It Used To Be So Easy ... Used To Be.

Had to laugh at this one. Here's how the Green Alert Penn preview on Aug. 14 began:

HANOVER – It used to be so easy.

Write Penn in at the top of your Ivy League preseason poll and then dig into the rosters and stats and other predictions to try to riddle out how the rest of the conference would stack up.

It’s not that easy anymore.

Now here's how the Philadelphia Daily News Penn preview from Tuesday began:

Used to be, predicting the Ivy League football race was pretty much a no-brainer. You simply put Penn either first or second, and chances are you were Karnac the Magnificent.

Not any more.

Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not claiming the Daily News cribbed the Green Alert. (I almost said, "Went all Biden on me," but this is not a political blog, so scratch that.) It wasn't that way. It just reinforces the theme that the proud Penn program is at a critical fork in the road.

While Penn has been on a downturn, it's quite the opposite at Holy Cross, which Dartmouth will host two weeks after visiting Philly. Chuck Burton at the fine Lehigh Football Nation site takes a look at the state of the Holy Cross program and writes:

If there were ever a time to say "this is The Year" for Holy Cross, this is it. With a preseason player of the year on offense in Randolph, four seniors on the offensive line (five if you include their tight end), and two great WR targets returning, it's a feeling of now-or-never in Worcester.

The main concern that Burton raises is no surprise: the Holy Cross defense.

Holy Cross quarterback Dominic Randolph, by the way, has been named one of 16 players on the Sports Network's first Payton Award Watch list, which is for the top offensive player in the FCS. He's joined on the list by Yale running back Mike McLeod and Colgate tailback Jordan Scott. The full list with head shots and capsules is here.

Named to the Buchanan Battle Watch list is Yale linebacker Bobby Abare. That whole list can be found here. Interestingly, Yale is one of just four schools to have players on both lists.

Find the full Sports Network release on the naming of the watch lists here.

Former Dartmouth assistant Lance Clelland, who left the staff this year to become a high school head coach back home in Maryland, inherited a 1-9 team but he also inherited something else: A rifle-armed 6-4, 215 transfer quarterback headed to Auburn next fall. Timing is everything. Find a story here.

The names of a Colorado recruit that got away and another from the Rocky Mountain state who has yet to make a choice have hit the 'Net. Nate Solder, who graduated from high school in 2006, will be starting at left tackle for the University of Colorado football team in the Buffs' opener. From this story:

Solder was recruited by Iowa State, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado State, and Dartmouth, where he could have played basketball and football. His parents said University of Colorado was always his first choice.

A biology major who had a 3.93 GPA in high school, Solder is listed at 6-8, 300 pounds in his Colorado bio.

R.C. Willenbrock is a highly regarded kicking prospect from Cherry Creek High School, which sent junior defensive back James O'Brien to Dartmouth. According to Rivals, schools of interest at this point include Notre Dame, Virginia, Duke and Dartmouth. Pretty good company.

Creek, of course, had the unique distinction of producing both of Dartmouth's 1995 co-captains, linebacker Taran Lent and running back Pete Oberle.

There's a good story on Syracuse.com about Colgate coach Dick Biddle, who is on the cusp of the school record for career coaching wins. How good a job has he done? Consider this from the story:

In his first season, Biddle guided Colgate to a 6-5 record, becoming just the third coach in history to post a winning record one year after a team suffered an 0-11 season. His winning percentage is the highest of any current coach in the Patriot League, the second best of all coaches in the Patriot's 22-year history and the best of any coach with seven or more seasons at Colgate.

Check out Green Alert Premium tonight for a wrapup of Saturday's practice.