COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Imagine having a generational quarterback and not knowing what to do with him.
Imagine having a wide receiver corps that's just simply not good enough to maximize that quarterback's enormous potential.
Imagine coming into your biggest regular-season game in many years -- perhaps even decades -- and embarrassing yourself on a national stage offensively.
All while your defense is playing its a** off to do everything it can to keep you in the game.
Penn State's offense was abysmal in Saturday's season-shaping showdown at Ohio State. Drew Allar had one of the worst games by a starting quarterback in a long, long time, the offense was putrid on third down and the No. 7 Nittany Lions lost to the No. 3 Buckeyes, 20-12, at Ohio Stadium.
"Sucked," Allar said of his performance, while fighting back some tears.
Allar started the game 10 for 30, looking nothing at all like a prized prospect. He was in charge of an offense that failed to convert its first 15 third-down attempts.
He didn't get much help from his wide receivers, who couldn't get open against Ohio State's secondary.
Allar also didn't get much help from his offensive line, which put him under pressure much of the day.
It wasn't all Allar's fault, not by a long shot.
The entire offense was one big disaster on this day. Penn State finished 1 for 16 on third down, and Allar put together one good touchdown drive in the closing seconds to somewhat salvage his stats. He finished 18 of 42 for 191 yards and one TD.
"We didn't make enough plays today," James Franklin said. "We did not make enough plays in the passing game. We weren't able to create separation."
Offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich did not have a good day, which is a given when the offense struggles like this.
Asked if the offense let down the defense, which played outstanding, tight end Theo Johnson was succinct.
"100 percent," he said.
OK, so let's dive into the wide receiver situation, which is the most glaring weakness.
As everyone knew coming into the season, this would be the biggest question mark on the team. Now, that question mark has turned into this giant exclamation point: The wide receiver situation is worse than anybody could have imagined.
We can't look at Allar's struggles and pin all the blame on him. He made some bad throws, no doubt, had poor footwork on a lot of throws, panicked at times and just looked, well, he looked like a first-year starter playing against an excellent defense for the first time.
But Allar doesn't have much help with his wideouts. KeAndre Lambert-Smith, who had six catches for 52 yards, is a solid possession receiver, but it's become more and more clear that he's not a prototypical No. 1 receiver in the Big Ten.
Behind KLS, there's just not much. Nowhere near enough to challenge a quality secondary. No other wideout had more than two catches or more than 28 receiving yards. Dante Cephas, who caught two balls for 28 yards on the last-gasp TD drive, was a non-factor in the game prior to that and has been a massive disappointment this season after transferring in from Kent State.
Harrison Wallace III is back playing, but he had only two catches for 19 yards.
Where, oh where, have you gone, Parker Washington? His decision to turn pro after last season just might have been the biggest thing that happened to Penn State from a personnel standpoint, because had he stayed, there would be a legit No. 1 wideout and Allar's life would be a lot easier.
By comparison, Ohio State star Marvin Harrison Jr. caught 11 passes for 162 yards and one TD. He was essentially the difference in the game, as the Buckeyes went to him numerous times in key spots.
I asked Franklin after the game about the development of the wide receivers, who are being coached this season by Marques Hagans, after fired Taylor Stubblefield following last season.
"Obviously, again, when you look at today, and the combination of lack of success on third down and lack of explosive plays, we got to look at that hard," Franklin said. "I think there's some things that we can do in terms of how we're calling the plays, and I think there's some things that we need to do from a fundamental standpoint, there's no doubt about it.
"But Drew needs some guys to make some plays for him on a more consistent basis, there's no doubt about that."
As for what happened specifically in this game, Franklin noted: "I think their combination of man coverage and the pressures they were bringing, they were getting there a half second before we were able to get open, and we weren't able to make plays in those scenarios."
Here's a personal note: I was the reporter Franklin chose to embarrass when I asked last week about just letting Allar take deep shots and give his receivers a chance to make a play. The question was worded poorly, but everyone who knows anything about Penn State football understood exactly what I was getting at.
I mention this because it might seem that anything I write at this point about the lack of a deep passing game might come across as some kind of "I told you so."
But this much is clear: There's no need for an I told you so, because we saw Saturday exactly why the lack of development of the overall passing game stood to be a big problem.
Now, that problem has cost Penn State a big loss, and perhaps its best chance yet at a College Football Playoff berth.
All because these coaches failed to identify and solve a giant problem that had become obvious to everyone. But in starting 6-0 and destroying a bunch of weak opponents, Franklin and Yurcich never took the proper steps to get Allar and the wideouts more opportunities to build chemistry, because the concern was "not to get bored" and keep calling safer plays.
It was easy to predict that style wasn't going to work against Ohio State. Many people have been saying exactly that for weeks.
And sure enough, it didn't work against Ohio State.
It won't work in a few weeks against Michigan, either, as the Wolverines are an even better team than the Buckeyes.
Allar was hard on himself after the game, saying he hadn't felt this badly since losing his final high school game.
"It sucks to lose like this, especially on the road," said Allar, an Ohio native who did not have a good homecoming. "I mean, very good team, but at the end of the day, we still lost, so there's a lot a lot emotions in the locker room, and for good reason.
"Nobody wants to feel this way. We put countless hours of our work in, and it sucks to have a result like this. But we have to wash it, learn from it, because if we don't learn from it, we're just fooling ourselves. We have to really be critical of this film and just really learn from it and not let this happen again."
It's a shame it happened in the first place, because this was absolutely a winnable game, and everybody involved in Penn State's offense is going to be kicking themselves for a long time over this.
