Hackenberg’s back story is well chronicled: His father, Erick, grew up in Pennsylvania coal country, dreamed of playing quarterback for Paterno and wound up as a backup at Virginia. The pull of State College was strong, and O’Brien, while winning eight games with an undermanned team in 2012, played the recruitment hand to convince the much-sought-after Hackenberg that three years with no postseason opportunities would be a better deal for him than he would get anyplace else.

Beyond O’Brien’s reputation as an offensive guru — he was a coordinator for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady in New England — there was resonance in the pitch, even if O’Brien would soon bail on it. Proof was the relief and, yes, the joy that the 2012 team produced for a university and a community scarred by the Jerry Sandusky horror and the subsequent dismissal and death of Paterno.

There were no bowl dollars for two years, but as it turned out, there was plenty of currency in making the most of the privilege of still existing.

“Every single week we went out there thinking we had to prove something,” Mike Hull, a senior middle linebacker, said.

When O’Brien left, the Hackenbergs took the high road, saying that he had been honest with them during the negotiating process and that they understood college football was, after all, big business.

Still, the family had to think about what to do next, depending on the identity of the new coach.

That coach was James Franklin, formerly of Vanderbilt, by reputation a world-class recruiter and talker, who began his postgame news conference Saturday night by thanking reporters for covering the game and ended it by cautioning them to drive home safely.

It didn’t take long for him to persuade Hackenberg that his passing fancies and N.F.L. prospects would be unaffected, which was logically the first priority. But Hackenberg, given a chance to reconsider his original choice, to sit out a season and to rematerialize in 2015 at another football factory, again did not fall for the bowl-game hype, the friends-of-the-program junket gifting.