MADISON, Wis. --

Emotions among the Penn State football team seemed to fall into one of two categories Saturday night: frustrated or distressed.

Frustration displayed itself in several forms -- defensive end Matthew Rice's knotted forehead as he trudged off the field, the shouting in the Penn State locker room heard through the walls of the media room, the occasional venting of a player in a post-game interview.

Then there were the manifestations of the distress -- red eyes; low and solemn voices; gazes focused on the floor, scarcely shifting upward.

It was not just that Penn State had lost its Big Ten opener to Wisconsin, 16-3, though, perhaps, that would have been reason enough for some of the emotion. It was also that Penn State had lost its top two quarterbacks, the guys upon whose shoulders coach Joe Paterno had put the fate of the team at the beginning of the season.

Zack Mills was out with a separated right shoulder, sustained in the first play of the game. And Michael Robinson was in a more serious situation after a violent helmet-to-helmet hit by Wisconsin lineman Erasmus James near the end of the first quarter.

Robinson lay unresponsive for nearly 10 minutes as teammates prayed, trainers surrounded him and spectators feared the worst. Robinson was taken to the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, where it was determined that he, thankfully, only suffered a concussion.

In the duo's absence, Penn State scored just one field goal in the remaining three quarters. It's unclear when Mills and Robinson will be back -- though Mills vows to return Saturday -- but it's apparent that the team can't win without them.

And so now, headed by the two injured quarterbacks, Penn State is a team that, by the fourth game of the year, is already filled with enough frustration and distress to last a season.

There's Mills, who has had to deal with a far-from-ideal start to his final year.

"With everything that's happened," he said, "it's just frustrating." There's a defense that feels like, in the absence of a steady offense, it was a disappointment to the team.

"If we would have played better, we would have won," linebacker Paul Posluszny said. "If we wouldn't have let them score as many times as we did, we would have won."

And there is a group of younger guys that has already grown restless with losing -- after just two losses.

"We're tired of losing," sophomore linebacker Tim Shaw said. "We're tired of being young. It's our time. We want to win now."

It's a kind of frustration that is reminiscent of last year, a kind of distress that makes you wonder if this team can regroup. Adding to the day's anguish was the news after the game that Paterno's son-in-law was in intensive care after sustaining head injuries in a bike accident.

Though Paterno and his players previously bore the burden of a redemption season, they now have to seek out that redemption while being handicapped physically and emotionally. They grow weary with losing, all the while being deprived of talent that might have been able to prevent otherwise. That's the kind of start to a season that bodes poorly for re-establishment of the program.

"It's tough," Mills said. "A lot of stuff has gone down during this game and throughout this game. Emotionally, we're a little down right now."

With the charter flight home delayed Saturday night, the team filed back into the stadium for the wait. Assistant coach Mike McQueary, noticeable with his fiery red hair, was the last of the group. As he neared the goalpost, he veered off course and stepped into the end zone. Eyes scanning the stadium, he stood still, solemnly pensive.

In those few seconds of thought, perhaps he was thinking how things could have been different that night, how in the few hours spent in that stadium, so much had changed.

McQueary then turned and resumed walking. Though emotional, and though down two quarterbacks, he and his team had to keep on moving.