The Penn State ACHA Div. I Icers are used to having the bright-red bull's-eyes on their backs as the four-time defending league champions. It's a color that goes well with the blue and white jerseys they wear.

But green, that's not their color. That's Ohio's, the team to beat.

For the first time in five years, the Icers enter a season ranked something other than No. 1, a distinction that goes to the Ohio Bobcats. As if to compound the injury, Ohio is the team that, last season, ended the Icers' four-year run as ACHA champions by dethroning them in a 5-4 thriller of a championship game.

And Penn State coach Joe Battista almost had to deal with the indignity of a daily reminder of that fact, at home no less.

While his house was being repainted this summer, Battista said he was rather oblivious to the process of color selection. That is until he walked into his office and saw the first streaks of Bobcats green.

"No way, under any circumstances, is my office going to be green," Battista said, laughing at Icers media day.

It's a place he's going to spend a great deal of time, however. The Icers must dethrone the loaded Ohio squad -- the Bobcats have outscored their opponents 39-11 through five games this season -- while adjusting to a roster with eight freshmen and without three of the top four scorers from last season.

But, Batista said, it's a fair comparison to the 1999-2000 squad, the one he led to the first of the four consecutive titles.

Questions on offense and needed upperclassmen to step into some leadership roles they hadn't before assumed.

In 2000, we stole a national championship because our defense blocked a lot of shots, bent but didn't break, Mark Scally stood on his head in goal and we got some timely goals," Battista said. "I don't need to go through the three overtime games in a row again but if that's what it takes to win another championship we'd be glad to do it."

They'd also be glad to go through the Bobcats and exact some measure of revenge, too. The first meeting this season between the two teams -- which have met in consecutive ACHA title games, splitting the pair -- will happen Oct. 29 and 30, with a t-shirt whiteout scheduled for the series at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion.

The second series will happen Jan. 7 and 8, but will be incomplete because of the absence of several key players from each team who will be part of the United States' World University Games team. That, Battista said, puts extra emphasis on making the first series count.

It also would be a huge mental edge for the Icers, who haven't beaten the Bobcats in three straight tries and who will need to take advantage of the home ice.

"OU always gets better as the season goes on," Battista said. "They are a systems-oriented team, not a star system type of organization. They play as a unit, it's hard to tell the difference between their first line and their fourth line. They all forecheck the same way, they all hit the same way, they all play defense the same way. They just wear teams down."

And they wear the bull's-eye this season. It's a color the Icers would be happy to take back.