The Penn State football team seemed to be following the path during the opening two weeks of the season that seemed inevitable following unprecedented NCAA sanctions last summer, which included drastic scholarship cuts and a four-year bowl ban.

After a total of 18 players left the program, the Nittany Lions lost to Ohio at home and then suffered a one-point defeat at Virginia when kicker Sam Ficken missed a 42-yard field as time expired — his fourth blown field goal of the game.

But first-year coach Bill O’Brien never wavered in his convictions that the Nittany Lions could still field a team that would make their fan base proud, and he became even more resolute after seeing how his players handled that 0-2 start.

“There was still a lot of resolve in the locker room,” O’Brien said on the Big Ten coaches conference call this week. “I knew when these kids showed up that Monday for practice after the Virginia game, it was one of our better practices of the year to that point. I knew, like I always knew, we had a bunch of resilient kids who were going to practice hard and try to improve.”

The Nittany Lions have weathered the initial hit of those severe penalties and have ripped off five straight wins. They built a 38-0 lead at Iowa on Saturday before settling for a 38-14 victory. They’ve even begun receiving votes in the national polls.

So much for doom and gloom in Un-Happy Valley.

“When the sanctions came out, that was a frustrating time for a little bit, for maybe a day,” O’Brien said. “But if you’re inside this building, you can see we’ve got great kids here, we’ve got a hell of a coaching staff, we’ve got great support staff, we’ve got strength coaches that are phenomenal. … It’s really never been doom and gloom in here.

“We can’t control how people outside the building feel. We can only control what we do, so the phrase doom and gloom never entered this building.”

The Nittany Lions (5-2, 3-0 Big Ten) will host ninth-ranked Ohio State (8-0, 4-0) on Saturday in a game that not only will pit two teams vying for the Leaders Division title, but also two coaches who are the front-runners for the conference coach of the year award.

Despite the mass defections, the Buckeyes’ Urban Meyer is wary of the Nittany Lions. They handed OSU a 20-14 loss in Ohio Stadium last season and finished 9-4.

“I have great admiration for Penn State, always have with being from this area and knowing what kind of school that is,” Meyer said.

“Penn State was undefeated at this time last year (actually 7-1). As a result, when you’re undefeated, you’ve got very, very good football players. I mean, very good. They beat us at our home stadium last year. So make no mistake … this is still Penn State.”

Quarterback Matt McGloin has passed for 1,788 yards and 14 TDs, easily surpassing last year’s totals when he finished with 1,571 yards and eight scores.

O’Brien was the offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots for five years, and OSU co-defensive coordinator Everett Withers said McGloin has some of the same mannerisms of Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady.

“He knows exactly where he wants to go with the ball,” Withers said. “We turned on the tape (Sunday) night, and we saw him go one, two, three on reads. I don’t know if we’ve seen that all year from any quarterback. Most quarterbacks, it’s one and then take off and run or duck and hide. He’s actually pretty talented as far as progression reads.

“He does a nice job of buying time in the pocket. He’ll escape the rush. He’ll move left or right. And he’ll find the right guy.”

McGloin’s emergence has lessened the sting of losing nearly one quarter of the team’s roster. Star running back Silas Redd transferred to Southern Cal, and the Nittany Lions also are without their leading returning receiver and starting kicker.

Asked about McGloin, O’Brien said: “No. 1, he’s smart. He has a really good brain. He understands things. … No. 2, he’s very, very competitive and tough.

“If you’ve got a guy that’s going to work hard and he’s smart and he’s tough and competitive, you’ll take that guy any day of the week as your quarterback.”

McGloin has said his fiery streak mirrors that of his coach.

“He’s a much better athlete than me,” O’Brien said, at first dismissing the comparisons. “He’s got a lot more hair than I do. I think what he’s saying is we’re both Irish. We both have a little bit of a temper and we both like to compete.”

When the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky scandal hit, recruits scattered. The Buckeyes picked up previous Penn State commits such as five-star defensive linemen Noah Spence and Tommy Schutt and four-star offensive lineman Joey O’Connor.

Penn State’s 2013 class consists of just 11 players and is ranked 48th nationally by Rivals.com, which is better than only Purdue, Indiana and Minnesota in the Big Ten. That means the challenges for O’Brien and the program may just be starting.

But while the Nittany Lions have been docked 20 scholarships per year for the next four years, O’Brien still believes he has a bevy of selling points on the recruiting trail — topped by an atmosphere at Beaver Stadium that he says is second to none.

“This is without a doubt the best college football environment in the country. There’s just absolutely no doubt about it,” he said. “Obviously, I’m very biased. But having been here now for a certain amount of home games and watching that student body and listening to our fans and knowing that there’s 108,000 people who are going to be here Saturday night, I mean, this place is going to be loud.”

The Nittany Lions have given fans plenty of reason to raise their voices this season — much more than probably anyone imagined.