Your eyes do not deceive you, folks.

Penn State football dropped its Big Ten opener to Wisconsin after holding a 17-0 first-half lead. The offense sputtered, the defense failed to hang on, and the Nittany Lions painted themselves as a gigantic question mark heading into the rest of the season.

It’s all similar to a year ago (almost to the day), beautiful sunset and all. The then-No. 3 Nittany Lions fell to Oregon 30-24 in a heartbreaking double-overtime thriller in the conference opener. Everybody knows what happened to Penn State after that. It didn’t get up from the knockout punch the Ducks gave it.

Matt Campbell’s situation is different than James Franklin’s. Franklin was a goner the second Dillon Thieneman wrapped his webbed hands around that wayward Drew Allar pass. Penn State fans were fed up. Sure, the loss sucks for Campbell, but he at least has a chance to redeem himself. And he cannot let it go to waste.

One loss cannot turn into two, or three, or four. Campbell has to ensure that. And he and the Nittany Lions are flushing the ugliness down and turning their focus immediately. Life in the Big Ten was never going to be perfect. But they have to face reality sooner than expected.

“In life, you learn a lot more from a loss than you do a win. This is what we needed, God doesn’t make mistakes, so I feel like everything happens for a reason [in] my life, for this team. We ain’t going to flinch, we’re just going to come back better,” running back James Peoples said postgame.

Peoples was one of the lone bright spots on offense for Penn State against the Badgers, if you can even call it a bright spot. He was the Nittany Lions’ only rusher to average over three yards per carry, taking 14 touches for 67 on the day.

He also knows a thing or two about playing in the Big Ten. The Ohio State transfer played in 22 games for the Buckeyes over the last two seasons. He understands what it’s like to be hit in the mouth by the conference’s physicality, as Penn State learned on Saturday.

“Details. Everything matters, especially in this conference, as an offense we just need to get better,” Peoples said. “Detail. And that’s going to start when we come back on Sunday … and watch film and tighten it up for [Northwestern].”

Penn State will face a unique challenge while swallowing the loss, though. The Nittany Lions will face off against the Wildcats on Friday, which moves the entire weekly schedule up one day. Penn State will have to pound the film room and correct its mistakes quickly as it attempts to ease the disillusioned fanbase.

“You gotta keep your head up. It’s literally the first conference game, and we got a whole season to play, so just keeping our head up … A short week, and that’s just another opportunity to show ourselves and show who we are,” safety Jeremiah Cooper said. “I feel like everything is a setup for us right now, and we look at it as that as well, and we just got to put this loss behind.”

Cooper and the defense held on as long as they could against Wisconsin, but Penn State’s horrid offense was too much to bear. It doesn’t let the defense off the hook, but it is certainly a conversation to have with Koby Howard, at least for the next two games.

A lot of it falls on Rocco Becht. The Penn State signal-caller went just 12-for-29 passing for 129 yards and one interception. Sure, he averaged a first down per pass, but that’s simply thanks to just four completions of 15+ yards. Becht never looked truly in control, and his late-game heroics failure killed the faintest glimpse of hope left for the Nittany Lion fans still in the stands.

“I’ve been in a lot of situations like this before. I think for me, it’s being able to lead this team, keep our heads up, because the season’s not over,” Becht said. “We could go out there and win every single game, but we got to put the work in … Being able to communicate, be better as a whole and have each other’s back, because the season’s not over yet.”

The season is indeed not over yet.

But if Campbell, Becht, Cooper, Peoples, and the rest of the Nittany Lions really want to avoid another all-time catastrophe like the one the Penn State faithful just started healing from, they have to buy into their own words.

They have to go out and beat Northwestern in the debut of its new stadium. They have to go out and beat USC in the White Out. They have to go out and beat Michigan in the Big House.

“Adversity is what college football’s about. The ability to overcome adversity and the ability to unify and rally forward,” Campbell said. “This will be a great test for us. We’re going to find out a lot more about ourselves here in the next six days.”

Penn State just put a whole lot of pressure on itself. Its response in the coming weeks will tell the college football world everything it needs to know about the new-look Nittany Lions.

But all it can do for the “next six days” is take the loss and move forward.