It didn't take long for Penn State football to start feeling the aftermath of the recent sanctions handed out by NCAA president Mark Emmert.
The loss of Silas Redd and a few other big-name players looms large in just the first week of the Nittany Lions' inaugural season under Bill O'Brien.
The secondary was weak, and the running game took a hit when starter Bill Belton suffered an injury in the 24-14 loss to Ohio. He remains questionable for this week's clash at Virginia.
Without Belton, the Lions could look to former walk-on Derek Day. And the other two runners on the depth chart - Curtis Dukes and Akeel Lynch - didn't see any playing time Saturday.
Penn State's 65 allotted scholarships may not seem like a problem to the average college football fan. But it hurt. And Ohio exploited that in the secondary.
Malcolm Willis got burnt more than a few times, and Penn State failed to get to the quarterback. Tyler Tettleton had all the time in the world to throw the ball.
But there's no shame in losing to a team that I think may fly through the season 12-0. I've taken a lot of scrutiny for that belief over the past several days, but go look at the remaining schedule.
Penn State has a chance to come off of Saturday's loss with a win that could go a long way for the Lions. PSU has a pair of winnable non-conference tuneups - home with Navy on Sept. 15 and Temple on Sept. 22 - prior to kicking off its Big Ten slate at Illinois.
They still have a chance to right the ship heading into its first road battle under O'Brien when Penn State travels to Virginia. The Cavaliers are coming off a 43-19 win over Richmond where they pounded the Spiders for 545 total yards - 311 coming from the arm of quarterback Michael Rocco.
The Virginia quarterback is no stranger to Penn State. His father, Frank Rocco Jr., was a quarterback on the 1982 national championship squad. Rocco Jr.'s grandfather was an assistant for many years at Penn?State as well.
It all comes down to Penn State's secondary and front seven once again. The Nittany Lions showed a limited number of blitzes against the Bobcats. Penn State only recorded a single sack.
And with a depleted secondary that didn't play all that well against Tettleton and Ohio, we can expect much of the same from Rocco this week.
I'm hard-pressed to give Penn State a chance in any game on the road this season. Possibly the only real shot it has is in Iowa City on Oct. 20.
The Nittany Lions will see a very hostile crowd Saturday in its first road game. Sure, there will be some classy fans on hand, but remember it's still thousands of college kids on campus.
Matt McGloin certainly has taken his very own scrutiny over the past three years at Penn State. Saturday's game may have been the best in his career. But for the Nittany Lions to have any kind of success, the run to pass ratio must creep back near 50-50.
In the first half, McGloin was 21-of-26 for more than 170 yards. It was efficient, but Penn State's drives were stalling. The former walk-on finished his day completing 27 passes for 260 yards and a pair of scores.
But the most revealing statistic here is the number of times he threw. McGloin dropped back and threw 48 times. That was the most of his career. His second-most was against Nebraska last season with 34. The Nittany Lions only ran the ball 22 times.
In the 2011 season, the Nittany Lions ran the ball a total of 515 times as opposed to 376 pass attempts. Thats nearly a three to two ratio of rushing attempts to passes. We all know that came down to Joe Paterno's old-school feel for the run. But like everything else, times have changed at Penn State.
One important thing that has changed is the confidence in McGloin.
At Tuesday's press conference with O'Brien, the coach was asked if Paul Jones would see any time at the quarterback spot.
"Paul has made a lot of improvement but, right now, we're going to stick with one guy," O'Brien said.
With the arrival of O'Brien, Penn State is certainly expected to follow the Patriots' suit with a good tight end package. That was evident Saturday.
Greenwood graduate Matt Lehman, who play his football at Newport, had the biggest catch of the day out of all the tight ends - a 14-yard scoring pass from Matt McGloin late in the second quarter.
Fellow tight end Kyle Carter caught six passes for 74 yards.
It was nice to see Penn State's new motto "One Team" prio to kickoff against Ohio. Approximately 600 student-athletes were on the field when the Nittany Lions blasted through the tunnel. Each Penn State athletic team was represented except for the womens soccer team, who was on the road.
The attendance was about average for an opening game at Beaver Stadium - 97,186. That number, as difficult as it may seem, will only continue to drop as the season progresses. The times of getting over 100,000 faithful to fill the stadium are over.
Nick Wagner is a sports reporter for The Sentinel. He can be reached at nwagner@lewistownsentinel.com
