Penn State football entered the Orange Bowl staring at one of the program’s biggest games of the century.

After falling to Ohio State in early November, the Nittany Lions were galvanized. Players took to Twitter announcing they’d get another shot at the Buckeyes, and even with James Franklin’s 1-0 mantra, the playoffs loomed.

Franklin and Co. finished at No. 4 in the final College Football Playoff rankings, drawing SMU and Boise State during their run to the semifinals. It was never supposed to end against the Fighting Irish.

But it did. The national championship was closer than it had ever been for the Nittany Lions and while the players and coaches watched the Irish take the stage as Orange Bowl champions, Franklin looked at the positives.

“When you’re talking about a 16-week season that we have in college football, there are opportunities to bounce back from setbacks. Notre Dame was able to do it, and we were able to do it,” Franklin said. “We kept getting better as the season went on and the guys just kept battling. I could not be proud of the young men in that locker room.”

Franklin, Drew Allar, and Nick Singleton were all visibly upset when they took the podium for their postgame press conference. While Franklin said there were “a thousand different emotions” he was working through, he wasn’t hurting for himself but for everyone else in the locker room.

In a culture built on trust, family, and development, the loss stings. Even so, it’s the same culture that will help everyone in blue and white move on and set their sights on the future.

“I wanted it for the guys in the locker room and this staff,” Franklin said. “The sun will come up tomorrow, and the one thing I want to make sure of is that all of those guys walk out of that locker room with their heads high and their chests out because they have a ton to be proud of.”

The Nittany Lions ended the 2024 campaign as one of the last four teams standing. For everyone surrounding the program, that wasn’t the goal.

Franklin admitted that finding the silver lining in this season isn’t what the players want to do right now, but it’s what needs to be done. For some, like Tyler Warren, Abdul Carter, and Dvon Ellies, Thursday was the last time they’d don the blue and white. Franklin won’t remember their careers for how they ended, though.

“I take a lot of pride in how our guys conduct themselves, how they carry themselves, the degrees they get, the type of men that they’re going to be, and the type of leaders and fathers,” Franklin said. “Maybe I’m old school.”

In an ever-changing landscape, Franklin has prided himself on the old-school identity. The transfer portal, NIL, and potential 17-game seasons are now a part of college football, and Penn State won’t shy away from it. For Franklin, though, tradition holds weight.

It was evident in the Nittany Lions’ tilt with the Irish on Thursday, which featured 23 passes and 42 runs. A team that Franklin characterized as a throwback program with throwback uniforms played throwback football on Thursday.

Franklin, who will turn 53 less than a month from Thursday, still accepts that identity. For him, it’s truly about molding student-athletes into men. The Nittany Lions didn’t buy a playoff roster, they created one in-house.

The relationships formed during the development of the roster evoked emotion in the 11th-year head coach. A tear rolled down his face as he spoke on watching a “gangly kid from Virginia,” in Tyler Warren turn into one of the best tight ends in college football.

It’s not the on-field success Franklin wanted, but it’s success nonetheless.

“I want their experience to be so much more than a transactional experience,” Franklin said. “I want it to be a transformational experience.”