"We work so hard. We miss Christmas, we miss Easter, we miss Thanksgiving, we miss every holiday. I miss birthdays, I miss weddings, I miss everything. And usually winning excuses those things to your family, and I have no excuses. It's just really embarrassing, personally for myself.

"All of us are frustrated. Fans are frustrated, I'm frustrated, coaches are frustrated. Because, to be quite honest with you, we’re thinking, ‘What do we need to do? What is it? Why?

Before leaving the postgame interview room, Dawkins sought to find perspective.

“Yes, we're losing games. And it sucks. But there's worse things that can happen. Lose parents, lose family members. People don't have enough food, money. All that stuff. Lose a football game? Yeah, it sucks. I take it on the chin, but we [are] never going to quit. The chin’s infinite.

“There’s always a lesson and there’s opportunity in chaos. To put good film out, to understand what you need to do better and to really know what it is to be part of a winning team and how hard winning is. Sometimes we take that for granted. [We] absolutely took that for granted, and it's humbling. Super humbling.

"It's good that we overcame some stuff and [are] still fighting, still losing. It's just a balancing act, and guys are learning to deal with that from a younger age. I think of the young guys and the future they have. Maybe this will just motivate them to not allow this to happen to them in their senior season."

Penn State captain Nick Dawkins. That's a centered "young guy." You can go a long way and not find something so intelligent, forthright and wise. Godspeed.