Importing Excel format data into R/R Studio and using glmnet package?
After soliciting assistance from many colleagues, I found the answer to my problem.  And, I thought it be worth sharing.  glmnet package requires that you format your data as matrix.  

What I had already done is import and transform the data as matrix as follows:

data.matrix(data)


But, that is not enough.  You still have to convert the X and Y arrays as matrix as follows:

a) First do the x matrix: 
x = as.matrix(data,...);
b) Second do the y matrix: y = as.matrix(data,...). 

Once I did the above change the glmnet package seems to work just fine.

I am unclear why the glmnet package is so much more sensitive to how much you matricize your data.  But, that is the way it is.