It would have been hard by now to have not heard the news. Only under a rock – or inside a cave, perhaps – could one living in the continental 48 have escaped the barrage of piercing, penetrative coverage of the so-called Ohio State tattoo scandal. A crack appeared, followed shortly by a crowbar. Water crept in, froze, thawed, and froze again.

Then, everything came a-tumbling down. We, the onlookers, are now staring at a frontier pretty bare of Buckeye flags. Jim Tressel is no longer on the top of the bill, along with Terrelle Pryor, the main player in his sad final act. Other programs have clearly experienced similar upheaval – some to a far greater extent. For the scarlet and gray, however, this season marks a wholesale shift in persona.

Are we prepared?

The fans will rally behind interim coach and former player Luke Fickell, but no one among us has seen him patrol the sidelines as a head coach. The players will rally too; many of them will be thrust into roles either unfamiliar or of far greater prominence. The rest of the Big Ten would probably be licking its collective chops, but even that dynamic has shifted with the addition of Nebraska and the inherent unpredictability of change.

What will become of Tresselball? Will the opposition expect punts from its 40-yard line, or shotgun on fourth-and-three? Will Fickell let personnel dictate his decision-making, or will he bend this team to his will? We won’t know until it happens. No matter the tack he takes, he and his band of brothers (since, at 37, he’s not quite old enough to be Dad) are essentially the (one hundred and) three musketeers. One for all, and all for one.

Tressel secured his seat when he signed his contract back in 2002, and then promptly seized his throne when he hoisted the crystal national championship trophy. A down season, while there really weren’t any, was nothing he couldn’t have handled. Fickell, on the other hand, is auditioning for his own job, and like a rookie quarterback, he’s going to need the guys around him to hold up their end of the bargain if he plans to keep the crown.

And there’s uncertainty there, too. A bevy of new faces will be taking on new responsibilities this season, especially in the first five games, when the Buckeyes will be without the services of suspended players Boom Herron, DeVier Posey, Mike Adams and Solomon Thomas. With only four starters returning on defense and just 10 of 22 coming back overall, there’s going to be a lot of on-the-job training.

Is the next great Buckeye tailback going to bust loose in the form of Jamaal Berry, Carlos Hyde, or Rod Smith? Perhaps a more important quandary is whether this logjam of young receivers will be able to make the chains move when it counts. Corey “Philly” Brown has flashed it, but not one of them is really proven. Mike Brewster will be the big, beating heart of that offense, and it’s a damn good thing – it’s going to take a lot of muscle to keep the blood flowing against the Big Ten’s best.

Logic dictates that this team’s strength will be defense. In spite of the relative lack of experience, these are still all guys that Fickell has been grooming personally for their entire careers. If he makes the call to plug a redshirt freshman in at cornerback, you have to believe he’s got every reason to.

It’s a talented team, albeit with some questions, but the face of Ohio State football isn’t the only thing that has changed: the rest of the conference has changed around us.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers have hit the scene like a buxom, blonde foreign exchange student. She shows up, and all of a sudden the rest of the girls aren’t quite as pretty as they once were. Experts love the heft of their defense, the fiery outbursts of their coach, the mere novelty of their presence. Wisconsin adds a sexy name as quarterback, and stock in Madison goes from good to great.

Michigan too will have a different feel. New coach, new offense, a new (renewed?) energy to the rivalry. New frontman Brady Hoke will have them growling hard come November. The OSU armor is chinked, they’ll think. And they’ll be aiming for the heart – titanic losing streak be damned. About the only things left over from the ‘old days’ will be Joe Paterno’s Coke bottle glasses and Indiana’s losing record.

One way or another, this season is going to be a memorable one in Buckeye lore. They’re either going to pen a tale of glorious redemption or one of lost time and regret. There’s a lot at stake, and this new group of players and coaches will be betting the farm on itself to win the bout.

There’s been a lot of talk of proving it on the field. There usually is. Where it used to be cliche, it is now not. Good or bad, from now until January, each day is the first day of the rest of their scarlet-and-gray lives.