Michigan fans shouldn’t feel too bad about losing out on Dorin Dickerson, and not just because of all of the other blue-chippers they get. Dickerson found the idea of playing close to home just too appealing to pass.

“I wanted to get it out of the way so I could focus on the high school season,” Dickerson said of his early commitment. “Michigan had everything Pitt had, but it’s not like being 15 minutes away from home.”

I admit, for me, that would have been a negative. But then I was in college to drink heavily just for an education, not to play football with pro-level potential.

The Dickerson commit with the pending commitments of Justin Pinkston and Jason Hargrove has everyone getting giddy.

When it came to recruiting Western Pennsylvania, former Pitt coach Walt Harris once vowed to build a fence to keep prospects from leaving the region.

Dave Wannstedt has taken it a step further. The new Panthers coach is in the process of building a brick wall around the WPIAL.

Whoa. Let’s keep some perspective. This is just the starting point. It’s a great start, fantastic. Has me excited. I’m just saying the foundation isn’t even dry at this point, to use the “brick wall” analogy.

And really, what’s with the gratuitous Harris bashing? Yes, he pissed off the WPIAL coaches, and seemed to lose interest in Western PA recruiting overnight. But remember, 3 years ago, Pitt and Harris looked well on its way to having that “fence” happening. Pitt had recruited Rod Rutherford, then Palko and then there was the huge bounty Pitt appeared to be reaping from Western PA and beyond — Morelli, Andrew Johnson, James Bryant and Johnny Peyton — to name some.

Things can change awfully fast. I just worry, long-term, about unrealistic expectations. I think Wannstedt will succeed in keeping a lot of the local talent, but this is only the end of June and he has a record of 0-0 at Pitt. Hopefully this is only a small point on Coach Wannstedt’s head coaching tenure at Pitt.