By ERIC OLSON

AP Sports Writer

 

Ohio coach Frank Solich knows what to expect Sept. 1 when his team is the first to play Penn State.

“There’s going to be lots of buzz around the game and it’s going to be for negative reasons,” Solich said Tuesday at Mid-American Conference Media Day in Detroit. “The only thing we can do is come in and play good football. There will be a lot of emotions, I’m sure, but we just have to play good football.”

Solich’s Bobcats are favored to win the MAC and go to a fourth straight bowl — all of which will be deemed irrelevant in the buildup for the opener in State College, Pa.

The question there, and throughout college football, will be what kind of team will the Nittany Lions have in 2012 and beyond after the crippling sanctions imposed by the NCAA?

On the flip side, are opponents eager to play the fallen traditional power. Or, will they bring heavy hearts into games against a program tarnished by the horrific crimes perpetrated by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky?

After Ohio, the Lions play at Virginia and host Navy and Temple before opening Big Ten play at Illinois.

The eight Big Ten coaches who will face the Nittany Lions this season weren’t available or declined to comment. They’ll meet with reporters at the conference’s media day in Chicago on Thursday.

Ohio cornerback Travis Carrie said it will be “real strange” to visit Penn State. The Bobcats, who went 10-4 last season, will be playing the Lions for the first time since 1974, and an ESPN national television audience will be watching and wondering how the Lions will come out.

“We’re going to be ready to play on Sept. 1, and I think the biggest thing for us is remembering where we’re going,” Carrie said. “Penn State has always been good and the guys they have there when we play them are going to be ready to play.”

Solich, as is his nature, will take nothing for granted against what could be a depleted Penn State team.

In 2002, Solich and his seventh-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers went to Happy Valley and endured a 40-7 nationally televised embarrassment that marked the first of seven losses that season — the Huskers’ most since 1961. Solich beat Penn State in Lincoln, Neb., the next year but was fired after the season.

Solich’s straight-ahead mantra already is being followed by quarterback Tyler Tettleton.

“We have to treat it as just another game,” he said. “I’m excited to get the chance to play there, and we can’t get caught up in anything more than playing the best we can.”

 

Ohio Bobcats

2012 Football Schedule

September

1 at Penn State Noon

8 NEW MEXICO STATE 7:00

15 at Marshall 6:30

22 NORFOLK STATE 2:00

29 at UMass 3:30

October

6 BUFFALO Noon

13 AKRON 2:00

27 at Miami 3:30

November

1 EASTERN MICHIGAN 6:00

7 BOWLING GREEN 8:00

14 at Ball State 8:00

23 at Kent State 1:00

30 MAC Championship 7:00