Penn State wasn't expecting to open its 2020 season on a sour note, dropping a 36-35 overtime decision at Indiana last Saturday.

This weekend, the task gets no easier.

Welcoming No. 3-ranked Ohio State to Beaver Stadium Saturday night (7:30 p.m., ABC), the Nittany Lions will have to shake off the disappointment of the first game and, more important, put together their best performance if they plan to take down the Buckeyes.

"They handled it well. Sunday was a tough day and Saturday night was a tough night, but the guys have handled it well," Penn State head coach James Franklin said Thursday night on his weekly radio show. "We've had a really good week of preparation. Obviously, our guys are excited and motivated with Ohio State coming here. Obviously, this was supposed to be the White Out, but a little bit different environment, a different setting. But we've had a really good week of preparation and now we gotta go out play that way."

Will even the Nittany Lions good week of preparation translated to the field be enough?

We checked in with Kevin Noon, publisher at BuckeyeGrove.com, to learn more about what strengths Ohio State brings to the table, its potential vulnerabilities, and his perspective on how this one might play out:

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1) Do you think the somewhat competitive first half last week against Nebraska is going to be to Ohio State’s benefit?

KN: Coaches are always looking for coachable moments and there were more than a few in that opener against the Huskers. Let’s not forget, the Big Ten went right into conference play, so there were no directional A&I schools on the schedule for anyone, it was right into B1G play and while the Huskers have largely underperformed over the years in the conference, that does not mean that it was a sacrificial lamb.

But back to the main point, while the team does its best to hunker down from the outside elements, it can’t avoid hearing how this team can just show up and make it into the College Football Playoff. A dose of reality may be just what this team needed, a 14-all tie score at one point, only going to the locker room up 10 points and then still winning the game 52-17 when the clock read 0:00.

The defense made some adjustments along the way that seemed to fix what Nebraska was able to exploit early in the game and some of the short-yardage struggles throughout the game were better to appear in week one against Nebraska than week two at Penn State, where the margins are sure to be much thinner.

Now, it won’t be a benefit if the Buckeyes can’t improve upon what didn’t work week one. Penn State is well aware of what didn’t work, and it might be worth testing Ohio State to see if those things are truly fixed. If we look back to 2018 and Ohio State’s defense or lack thereof, it never really was truly fixed, and Ohio State just had to outscore teams that year. It won’t be like that this year, but we have seen what happens when things don’t get fixed.

2) Is Justin Fields better than last season? What were his concentration areas for improvement in the offseason?

KN: Well, if Fields is able to continue at his 95.2-percent completion rate, it just might be over for everyone. But all joking aside, Fields is healthy, feels great, has taken on a vegan diet (better him than us) and is another year more developed and more familiar with the offense.

I think a lot of it just comes down to him working through his progressions, not locking onto a first option and really identifying when he should try and prolong a play and when he needs to just let a play come to an end.

He loses a lot of veteran experience in the receiver room but having Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson will make a good quarterback look great and a great quarterback look special. Another year of working on timing and being able to communicate non-verbally will get everyone on the same page.

We are already talking about a quarterback who had 41 touchdown passes last season against three interceptions, and two of those came in the final game against Clemson.

3) Given the conflict Fields creates for defenses, who are the other pieces in the Buckeyes’ offense that are most likely to give Penn State trouble?

KN: Well, Ohio State’s running game is in panic mode, if you listen to fans. This state of panic saw the Buckeyes run for 222 yards, but to their credit, neither starting running back with Master Teague and Trey Sermon exactly had their best game. Some of that can be put on an improving Nebraska defense but it just felt that not everyone was on the same page. Was that first game nerves? Was that first game rust? Time will tell and going against Penn State is not exactly what the doctor ordered in terms of getting things rectified and back up to a 250-plus-yard juggernaut.

We talked a little bit above about Olave and Wilson, and they will both pose a lot of issues. There are some concerns that Olave will be good to go for this game after he had to leave the Nebraska game, with an undisclosed injury. Some people felt as if he may have gotten his bell rung, others felt it could have been a stinger. There is optimism that Olave will be good for this game, but we won’t know, until we know. (Editor's note: BuckeyeGrove.com is reporting Friday morning that Olave is expected to play.)

Ohio State brought in the nation’s top receiver class last season and we saw three of the four see some playing time with Jaxon Smith-Njigba making a highlight touchdown catch during the game. There is just depth upon depth in this Ohio State passing game.

You don’t go into this game expecting to win if you are one-dimensional, and Ohio State won’t be just a passing team but if the running game is just “okay” this week, Ohio State has the weapons to light things up.

4) Were there any lessons for Penn State’s offense to learn regarding Ohio State’s defense from that Nebraska game?

KN: Well, I think a mobile quarterback has a chance to do some damage. Get to the outside on Ohio State and see what happens. If you look at Luke McCaffrey’s long run on the first drive of the game, Ohio State did not do a great job of defending that and it took some time for the Buckeyes to be able to take that away from the Huskers.

The Huskers were not really able to affect the game much in the throw game but Adrian Martinez as a passer has been a declining property through the years and the Huskers are just pretty thin in terms of pass-catchers.

Honestly, I don’t think there is anything that Penn State will suddenly do that Penn State was not already going to do. While you do want to see what works against a team, you don’t want to reinvent your team, especially with games every week. You need to get good at what you do and not try and channel 22 minutes of Nebraska football or you will risk channeling the other 38 minutes as well.

I would really expect to see a lot of designed plays for Sean Clifford and maybe even Will Levis, just until Ohio State can prove that it has figured out setting an edge and getting to a mobile quarterback.

5) How has the approach to special teams evolved in the transition from Urban Meyer to Ryan Day, if at all?

KN: Urban Meyer loved to run special teams when he was head coach, but the Buckeyes went out and got Matt Barnes from Maryland when Ryan Day took over. That does not mean that Day is not interested in all of that, but some coaches like to have their fingerprints all over that type of planning and Day is going to be much more involved with quarterbacks and the offense and found a good one in Barnes to run all of that.

Ohio State is not the type of team over the years to break off those big returns, but they have been very secure (outside of a couple of notable memories) in terms of the return game. Ohio State has a strong place kicker and punter and will use both of them whenever needed, but Ohio State also feels good enough in its own offense and defense to pass up on the punt and/or kick and try and keep drives going on.

The Buckeyes will still put starters out on its special units and at the same time makes young players earn their stripes on the special teams. It is all still very much of critical importance to Day, just like Meyer before him and Jim Tressel before that.

Bonus) What’s the pick?.

KN: Ohio State comes into this game with a few concerns from some sloppy “First Game” play in week one but still with a 35-point win under its belt while Penn State absolutely outplayed Indiana for about 96-percent of its game and still couldn’t seal the deal.

In short, we have two talented teams coming in with very different outlooks on life.

Penn State has to win this game, an 0-2 start in the B1G East equals Capital One Bowl, at best and will raise the volume of those who are ready for James Franklin to find his next job.

Ohio State has to win this game if it wants to win the Big Ten East again and be in the mix for the College Football Playoff. Nobody is going to talk about style points at this point on the year but upon seeing Wisconsin/Nebraska get shuttered, every opportunity you are on the field, make it count, because nothing can be taken for granted.

Penn State does a lot of things that could challenge the Buckeyes including and not limited to a strong quarterback run game, great tight end play and the ability to stop the run.

Ohio State is far from perfect through four quarters of football this year, I can list several major points of concern, or at least major in the eyes of people associated to Ohio State. Even with all of that, the Buckeyes still put up 52 points in a league opener.

This game will be close for about a half, maybe a little longer as Penn State fires off well and the Buckeyes play “a solid B-minus” to start the game. But coming out of the locker room, the urgency will really kick in for the Buckeyes and the talent disparity between the two rosters will really become apparent and Ohio State will pull away as there won’t be any juice from a crowd to keep Penn State there with the Bucks.

Ohio State 38

Penn State 17

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