Blue White Illustrated

aybe they didn't know how to feel about it all. The Nittany Lions' fifth-year seniors, less than 30 minutes re- moved from a 30-13 victory against Temple at Beaver Stadium, said all the right things. Having attained the sixth victory of their season and guaranteed themselves a spot in a bowl game, they had just seen the script flipped, and the emotions they were experiencing were raw and unfamiliar. So they did what kids do. They tried to play it cool. "I think we're excited that we can go to a bowl game now, but we want to keep winning games so we can get to the best bowl game possible," senior line- backer Mike Hull said. "Some of the older guys who have been to bowl games, we'll calm the younger guys down and let them know what the deal is." How very passé. The problem, of course, was that James Franklin had betrayed their col- lective sense of nonchalance just min- utes earlier. In wrapping up the opening statement that accompanies every media appear- ance he makes, the Nittany Lions' head coach acknowledged the enormity of their accomplishment. For three sea- sons, they had been playing under the shadow of the NCAA sanctions, and in each of those seasons they had won at least six games – a thorough repudia- tion of the doomsday scenarios that so many people were envisioning in the immediate aftermath of Mark Emmert's gleeful punishment of the Penn State football program. Even though he only arrived on the scene last January, Franklin understood what bowl eligibility meant to the play- ers and personnel who had lived through the program's darkest days. "We don't talk about these things a whole lot… but it does mean something a little bit more special [given] the fact that we had [so many players] who stayed around this program and this university when the community and football program needed them the most," he said. "The fact that we are go- ing to be able to send them out the right way and be able to continue our season and keep our family together for a month or so after the regular season ends is special. I'm really happy for those guys." Following the Temple game, reporters clustered around the players who have kept the program competitive in the face of the sanctions – from the current fifth-year seniors who chose to stay even after they were given the opportu- nity to leave without sitting out a year, to the members of the 2013 and '14 re- cruiting classes, who signed with Penn State even though bowl bids weren't supposed to be in the offing until 2016 at the earliest. The feelings of those players were not easily packaged into a quote or sound bite. Miles Dieffenbach, the fifth-year sen- ior guard who returned to action earlier this month after injuring his ACL in the spring, is one of those who stood firm even though the door was open for him to leave in 2012. Among the few offen- sive linemen to remain at Penn State through the sanction seasons, the Pitts- burgh native maintained a belief that everything would work out for the best. With that in mind, he said that attaining bowl eligibility was the realization of a goal that went far beyond wins and losses. "That's the reason we stayed," he said. "We knew that we were going to bring this university and this team back and we were going to have an opportunity to play in a game, so I couldn't be happier than to capitalize on it." One of the benefits the Nittany Lions will receive is that they will be able to have additional practices in conjunction with the bowl appearance. Regardless of the destination or date of Penn State's bowl game, the 15 extra practice ses- sions will provide a big boost to a roster that is filled with inexperienced players. While it will no doubt be a special occa- sion for Hull and his nine fellow schol- arship seniors, more than 80 percent of the Nittany Lions' current roster will return for at least one more season. The figure is nearly 65 percent for those with at least two years of eligibility remain- ing. The perks of playing in a bowl game are familiar to players in the nation's most successful programs, but the over- whelming majority of Penn State's cur- rent players can't address that subject because they have no postseason expe- rience. "Honestly, I've never been to a bowl game, so I wouldn't know," redshirt sophomore running back Akeel Lynch said. "I'm just glad that we have the op- portunity." This is a group of Nittany Lions with a sense of their place in the history of the program. It's a program that is loaded with milestones, and by winning their sixth game of the 2014 season, this year's Lions notched another one. "I just think it means a lot to the sen- ior class and everyone who has lived through everything that has gone down here," Hull said. "It's just a big step for the program to get back to where I think it should be." ■ LAST WORD N A T E B A U E R | N B A U E R @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M M Lions in winter

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