Hot Dog! It's the Colonial League

Holy Cross has been long been one of the dominant small college football powers in the area, posting a 25-7-1 slate over the past three years.

This year the Cross is 3-4-1, and many Crusade watchers spell the reason C-O-L-O-N-I-A-L.

"Colonial"--not as in Colonial All-Beef Franks or Colonial America--but as in the Colonial League.

Over the summer, the presidents of Holy Cross, Colgate, Lafayette Lehigh, Bucknell and Davidson got together and decided to incorporate their school--all of similar sizes and background into a football conference.

Which probably sounded like a fair idea to the coaches of these schools until further details of the league--which doesn't begin official operation until next year--came out.

One imagines that as Crusader mentor Rick Carter was reading the proposal over his bowl of Wheaties, he reached the issue of scholarships--and nearly choked to death.

You see, the Colonial League doesn't allow its members to give out scholarships. Now if you're the coach of the Bucknell Bison, that's no big deal because you don't give them out currently. But if you're Rick Carter, that's a VERY BIG DEAL.

With 70 scholarship players on its current squad, the Cross football program stands to be hurt immensely by the no-scholarship rule--which will be implemented in 1988.

And although there are ways to get around the rule, e.g. increased financial aid, one imagines that Rick Carter had a few choice words to say about the Colonial League after he finished his reading of the charter.

Which brings us back to this year. The scholarship rule won't take effect for several years and the league itself isn't yet in operation, but the Cross must feel like people who have seen the future and know the destruction it will bring.

And Carter--one of the top coaches in Division I-AA--is like the once and future king, only his future doesn't appear to be with the Crusaders.

Of course a lot of other factors have contributed to the lowering of the Cross, but you can't help but think that Holy Cross's fate was sealed by its president over the summer--far, far away from the gridiron.

* * *

Anyway, the picks:

HARVARD 7, HOLY CROSS 6. This game boils down to Gill "The Thrill" Fenerty against the Harvard secondary. Harvard scores a touchdown when a Fenerty option pass is tipped up into the air by an inept receiver and intercepted by Harvard safety Cecil Cox, who returns it for a touchdown.

Fenerty carries on every play from scrimmage and finally scores late in the fourth quarter on his 80th carry. But he collapses from exhaustion after that play, and the rest of the Crusaders refuse to kick the extra point until Fenerty is back on the field.

When his docters finally consent to roll his stretcher onto the field, Holy Cross has earned so many delay-of-game penalties that kicker Billy Young faces a 70-yd extra point kick.

It falls short, and the Crimson wins by a point.

DARTMOUTH 99, COLUMBIA 3. I'm sick and tired of all the Columbia jokes which are going around. I have a very good friend at Columbia, and it's really a very nice school. That being said, the Lion football team still isn't going to win another game this century.

CORNELL 17, YALE 16. I think Yale's problem during the past two weeks (a loss to Penn and a tie at Dartmouth) are due to the fact that Hurricane Gloria forced the cancellation of its game against UConn. I don't know why this would be, but it's just this gut feeling I have--something about electro-magnetism.

RICHMOND 31, BROWN 29. Afraid that the officials will rob him of another field goal, Brown kicker Chris Ingerslev refuses to kick a 20yd. field goal with one second left in the game. Brown's back-up kicker misses wide right as time expires.

PENN 20, COLGATE 17. The Quakers brush up for their game against the Crimson next week.

WILLIAM & MARY 35, PRINCETON 31. Princeton quarterback Doug Butler, taking a page out of Redskin signalcaller Joe Theismann's book, tries to get his last name to rhyme with "Heisman" to improve his chances of winning that famous trophy.

He fails.