For four years, 47 football games and countless hours, they toiled and sweated and studied. From Notre Dame Sept. 3, 2005, to Connecticut a fortnight ago, from freshman lecture classes to upper-level studies, they put in effort and time and torment. And they came to find light at the end of that long tunnel.

The sun.

The sheepskin.

"It was all worth it, you know. I don't think I would be the player I am today if I didn't go through some of those challenges," said Pitt's C.J. Davis , a West Allegheny High School grad and a member of the core, four-year regulars who poured the foundation for the 9-3 Panthers heading to a Dec. 31 date in El Paso, Texas, with Oregon State.

"Three years of hard work, now we're going to the Sun Bowl. Hopefully, we'll get to BCS bowls in the future. The bar right now is set at a good place."

"Leaving on a good note, a good season," added fullback Conredge Collins. "Going out my senior year and finally getting to a bowl game, making history this year -- being the first [Pitt] team to win nine games, possibly 10, since the 1980s -- it's a real good thing. It's better for the seniors, know what I mean? We're showing that we never gave up. That sour taste of losing, [Pitt was a combined 16-19 in the class' first three years, but] the seniors stood up and took a leadership role and helped ... get this program where it needed to be."

Dave Wannstedt reeled in these seniors four years ago as part of his program-starter kit. They were among the 23-man recruiting class after he returned to his alma mater with the mandate to lift Pitt football back to previous levels after predecessor Walt Harris went to a fifth consecutive bowl and then went out the door to Stanford.

Some of their classmates have fallen by the wayside: Burrell's John Brown, Aliquippa's Tommie Campbell, Derrell Jones, Bryan Williams. But, for the most part, it has been a group that remained steadfast: seniors and four-year contributors Collins, Davis, Rashaad Duncan and LaRod Stephens-Howling, plus key redshirt juniors Doug Fulmer, Cedric McGee, Shane Murray, Gus Mustakas, Bill Stull, Oderick Turner and Mick Williams.

Davis talked about hoisting Pitt's bar and how the players his graduating classmates leave behind could possibly raise it higher.

"We were fortunate to have a great season, and to leave on a positive note is great for the program," Davis said. "With a lot of young guys coming back, they should have a really good season next fall. I believe they'll have an even better season."

Wannstedt doesn't hesitate to declare that the classroom component is just as meaningful as a bowl.

With preliminary grades completed Thursday, he noticed how close the four core seniors were to graduation.

"You got Rashaad Duncan, LaRod Stephens-Howling, Conredge Collins and C.J. Davis -- all these kids started as freshmen, have not been redshirted," Wannstedt said. "Two of them need eight [or nine] credits to graduate, and two of them need 10. So they'll all have their degrees in four years, and all have been starters. To me, that's about as rewarding as it gets.

"Through the ups and downs, they have been very, very consistent and steady with how they've approached not just the football but the weight-room work, their school. ... They've done everything and bought into the program as you hope freshmen would -- and finished out strong."

Nobody said it would be easy when they were freshmen, though.

Collins, wooed from Miami where Wannstedt had just been ousted as the Dolphins' head coach, got an earful every time he went home. He caught grief amid a 5-6 freshman season that started 0-3, a 6-6 sophomore season that started 6-1 and ended without a bowl bid, a 5-7 junior season -- until it ended with promise and a 13-9 upset of then-No. 1 West Virginia.

"Yeah, it was hard," Collins recalled. "A lot of people were talking bad about Wannstedt: 'He was doing it in Miami.' We kept the faith. We kept believing in what he was saying. And we got the job done.

"After that [2007 West Virginia] game, it gave us some life for this season. Knowing that ... if we could play together for three hours that night or that day, we could get the job done. It gave us some belief."