While not yet up on any MSM outlets, it would appear that Jason Pinkston and Justin Hargrove have officially announced their verbal commits to Pitt. These aren’t just two of the top recruits in the WPIAL, they are among the best in all of Pennsylvania.

Pitt’s early recruiting success has caught a lot of attention. From the Rivals100.com site:

The Panthers have seven verbal commitments so far for the class of 2006, all from the Keystone State. The current crop is highlighted by Rivals100 selection Dorin Dickerson and standout defensive tackle Jason Pinkston.

“I think they are doing a great job overall and doing what (former Pitt and current Stanford coach) Walt Harris was able to do early in his tenure, but at a higher level,” Rivals.com national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell said. ” Pittsburgh has been, at times, an area where huge programs could spot recruits and steal kids away because there wasn’t a strong enough presence at Pitt to keep them at home.

“Clearly now there is that strong presence in Wannstedt based on the commitments of players like Pinkston and Dickerson.”

And it looks like there could be another by tomorrow:

The staff has other targets throughout the Keystone State who the Panthers are involved with. Monroville Gateway athlete Aaron Smith and Harmony quarterback Kevan Smith both are being heavily courted by Pittsburgh. Junko and Cavanaugh are co-recruiting Kevan Smith while Bray is on Aaron Smith.

Junko also is the recruiting coach for Pittsburgh Woodland Hills linebacker Greg Webster. It was reported by Pittsburgh-area television stations that Webster will commit to the Panthers during the next 24 hours, giving Pitt five commits in five days. Webster is an important recruit for the Panthers. His teammate, five-star Darrin Walls is rated by Rivals.com as the No. 1 cornerback prospect in the country and the No. 2 overall prospect in the state of Pennsylvania.

Walls has Pittsburgh in his top four, along with Florida, Notre Dame and Michigan. It is an understatement to say that Walls would be the crown jewel in this recruiting class should he choose to stay home and play for the Panthers.

Dominoes. Pitt has the attention of many other interested parties at this point. Some are worried, even as they rationalize it away.

As for the players actually on the Pitt roster for the 2005 season, there is this:

University of Pittsburgh junior linebacker H.B. Blades and junior quarterback Tyler Palko have been named preseason candidates for some of the nation’s most prestigious college football honors.

Blades (Plantation, Fla./Plantation) has been named to the “watch lists” for the 2005 Bronko Nagurski Trophy and Chuck Bednarik Award. Both awards are presented to the nation’s top defensive player at season’s end.

Palko (Imperial, Pa./West Allegheny) is on the watch list for the 2005 Maxwell Award, annually presented to the nation’s most outstanding overall player.

It always spices things up when someone is watching.

You may as well throw a dart at the teams selecting in the lower half of the 1st round. No one knows where Taft is going (Insider Sub.).

We don’t have a clue where McCants, Andray Blatche and Chris Taft are going. All are likely first-round selections, but no one seems to know where. McCants has been rumored to be going as high as No. 10 and as low as No. 23. Blatche has gotten interest from the Bobcats, Celtics and Knicks. Taft apparently has garnered interest from the Kings at No. 23.

That #23 spot or shortly after seems to be where he can start expecting his name called.

Chris Taft will NOT be available when we cycle back to the Hawks at 31. Every single team, from the Kings at twenty-three until the Knicks at thirty can use a 6-10, 250 pound monster, who was positioned to be in the lottery for the last eleven months.

Not that people aren’t still piling on him.

As the draft nears, few vacancies remain on the Taft-bashing bandwagon. How much of the negativity is justified remains to be seen, but it has been open season on the Panthers’ big man after a few poorly reviewed workouts. One NBA scout said he would have too many concerns to take Taft with a first-round pick, but there are still a number of teams considering him in the late teens and 20s. Taft’s biggest flaw was that he had the basketball world expecting such great things — what with his chiseled, 6-10 frame and sporadic flashes of eye-opening talent — and never delivered during his sophomore campaign at Pitt. He relies too heavily on one post move (a jump-hook) and played lethargically in ’04-05; perhaps a slight on draft night will be the grudge he needs to blossom as an aggressive player. For now, though, he hasn’t shown enough. To take him before any of a slew of quality (albeit smaller) forwards on the board — Channing Frye, Joey Graham, Hakim Warrick, Ike Diogu and Sean May — would be a mistake.

Considering that the Suns are in a holding pattern for acquiring Kurt Thomas from the Knicks, I still keep being surprised to see yet another draft prediction with the Suns pulling the trigger on Taft.

21. Suns (from Bulls)

Chris Taft (6-10 power forward, Pittsburgh): Won’t have to bulk up to play at the next level.

I suppose it would be possible to help the Phoenix bench which was horribly exposed by the Spurs.

This actually might make sense as far as fit, if he lasts.

29. Heat: Chris Taft, 6-10, F, Pittsburgh

Had sub-par workouts, causing his plummet; Pat Riley could tap high school point guard Monta Ellis instead.

Assuming Mourning comes back for another year, I could see Taft getting a chance to develop and being forced to get tougher and better. Of course, with South Beach, he could just party out of the league.

Some Pitt comments regarding basketball and football were made at the golf tournament.

First, from former Pitt QB John Congemi:

“The perception is the excitement is back,” said Congemi, a broadcaster for ESPN who will work several Big East football games this fall. “This is coming from a guy who is excited that Pitt people are back at Pitt. It’s good for the Big East because it draws attention to the league.”

Wannstedt isn’t Congemi’s only reason for optimism.

“Matt Cavanaugh, the quarterback on Pitt’s 1976 national championship team, is back as offensive coordinator,” he said. “What he says, [quarterback] Tyler Palko can take it to the bank. He wouldn’t have to hesitate believing it because Cavanaugh has done it in college and the NFL.”
…
Congemi is looking for Wannstedt to take the Panthers to levels that Walt Harris couldn’t.

“In my opinion, Pitt underachieved under Harris. They stayed status quo. I think Pitt has to be Top 25 this year, something like 8-3 or 9-2.”

Reasonable expectations.

Then there is the ever reasonable Digger Phelps on the Big East and Pitt.

“It will be the best conference in the country,” he said. “The new teams will bring in three NCAA bids to go with the five the league normally gets to give the Big East a lock on eight. They could get as many as 10.”

The downside to a 16-team conference is that four teams won’t be invited to the Big East tournament. “You’ll get more coaches fired that way,” he said. “It’s going to be tough on the coaches to keep winning to satisfy their fans in a league like the Big East.”

Who will be the best team in the Big East?

“With a healthy Curtis Sumpter, Villanova,” he said. “They’re the team to beat in the Big East, maybe in the country.”

What about Pitt?

“[Carl] Krauser could get them an NCAA bid. Without him, who knows?” Phelps said of the senior guard who recently pulled his name out of the NBA draft and is eligible to return to the Panthers. “He should come back to play at Pitt. Period. He needs more consistency in his game. He’s got to dominate. Pitt needs a leader on the floor. Krauser puts everything else in place.”

And just a final thing with Krauser, back at the Chicago NBA camp he had a bad day going against John Gilchrist, late of Maryland. The reports had said that Gilchrist put pressure on him on every possession. This article on Gilchrist gives just a touch more detail:

According to several scouts who attended the Chicago camp, what impressed them most was Gilchrist’s defense and competitiveness. During one game, Gilchrist hounded Carl Krauser so ferociously that the Pittsburgh guard couldn’t get his team into its halfcourt offense on three straight possessions.

Yeah, that would be having a bad game.

Did you ever see a movie called “The Paper“? Not a great movie, but one of the last sightings of Michael Keaton in a real movie. Anyways, there’s this confrontation scene between a columnist played by Randy Quaid and a NYC official (played by Jason Alexander) who Quaid has been ripping in his column for a couple weeks. Alexander’s character plaintively asks why Quaid was going after him like this. Quaid answers:

“You work for the City. It was your turn.”

I often think about that quote with regards to ESPN. To me it explains what they do after a team wins a national championship in college football. They start looking closer at the school and the program for something. It’s what they did a year or so after Tennessee won it all, then Ohio State. If I were a USC fan, I’d be getting kind of nervous.

They do it in other things as well.

ESPN has always played a slippery game with issues of ethics, journalism, entertainment, and the bottom line. They do employ real journalists and do real reporting and news. They often hold themselves out as a real news gathering organization, yet when it is convenient they will fall back on the claim that they are “merely” an entertainment company. They will use their flagship “news show,” SportsCenter to cross promote their own entertainment programs (or Disney’s) when convenient — think “stories” about the making of “Playmakers,” “Tilt,”whatever that Dale Earnhardt movie was called, “The Rookie,” and “The Longest Yard” to name just a few that popped into my head. It’s a waste of time, but people know the score with what they are doing.

Then there is the way they sanction those who dare criticize any of their companies. Remember this?

He made the mistake of criticizing Disney and Miramax over the level of violence in “Kill Bill,” in one of his rambling columns. And actually had harsher criticisms in a separate piece he wrote for The New Republic. No explanation from ESPN was ever given. Gegg Easterbrook was simply pulled and fired without explanation.

That is, actually, the only hard and fast rule: Thou shalt not criticize Disney companies or employees.

Once the connection is over, though, anything is fair game. Hence, the BCS is going to start coming for a roasting by next year when Fox has the rights.

That of course brings things to Tom Lemming. Lemming is one of the, uh, pioneers of covering college recruiting. ESPN.com, for years used him to supply recruiting news content. No longer. ESPN.com is going exclusively with Scouts, Inc. for recruiting content.

Now in the latest ESPN The Magazine, Bruce Feldman — who is a real journalist and does a solid blog for ESPN.com on college football — writes about the recruiting sites pursuit of top blue-chip cornerback Myron Rolle. (No permalink, but it is the July 4 issue with Derek Lee on the cover, pp 67-72.)

Tom Lemming, one of the pioneers of the recruiting beat, has been in the business since 1979, when he had one subscriber by mail. Last year he racked up 45,000 miles crisscrossing the country to scout for his magazine, Prep Football Report. Lemming denies accusations from coaches that he sells information-and influence-to the very schools whose signees and recruiting classes he is ranking. One coach says Lemming coerced prospects to attend a photo shoot this spring by telling them he otherwise wouldn’t consider them for the roster he helps put together for the U.S. Army All-American game. The shoot was held on Notre Dame’s campus. “Tom Lemming is a huge Notre Dame guy,” Myron says. “He kept saying to me, ‘You know they have a great coaching staff. You know Charlie Weis is Mr. NFL. You’re an academic guy. That place is for you.’ Then he killed Florida State. He said, You’re stupid if you go there.’ Um, okay. Thanks.”

Lemming is used to being slammed. “I’ve had people bad-mouth me for years,” he says. “I try to be honest. I rarely talk to kids. The Internet people talk to them all the time. If there’s anyone influencing anyone, it has to be them.”

The problem for Lemming, is Rolle actually has credibility. The kid is an honor student and a strong family. The ND Blog, Blue-Gray Sky properly condemns Lemming.

Personally, I hope he stops mentioning Notre Dame to all recruits, lest we be included when the NCAA finally decides to do something about him. But until the NCAA cracks down on him and other unethical recruiting types — something I think is coming in the next 5 years — then ND fans may just have to hope that Weis tells Lemming to cram the ND sales pitch and keeps him at arms length from the program, lest the NCAA deem him a booster and he gets everyone in trouble.

In the meantime, there isn’t much that can be done other than refusing to assist in anything that supports him financially. And believe me, most ND fans wish Lemming would go away. Reporting on recruiting news and ranking recruits based on his own “talent evaluation skills” [sic] is one thing, but the way he inserts himself into the process is bad for the sport, bad for the schools, and definitely not in the best interest of the high school kids making one of the biggest decisions of their lives.

The article is more than about Lemming, that just seems to be one of the juicier bits. It is relevant, though, to point out how many years The World Wide Leader in Sports conveniently ignored all of this. Nary a criticism or comment was made at ESPN, as they had his content on ESPN.com, and put him on TV for talking recruiting.

Most of the article concerns the recruiting sites that operate under Rivals.com or Scout.com banners.

For Pitt fans, the only good news out of the article is that Pitt is not in the running for Rolle’s services, so PantherLair and PantherReport, don’t get embarrassed. The Michigan Rivals.com site gets particularly hit, and by extension Michigan fans.

When McKinley, who fields most of Myron’s interview requests, failed to return the call of a guy from Rivals’ Michigan site, he received an e-mail that read as if it were written by an ex: “I just feel hurt. I thought we were friends. I feel like this was a slap in the face to me.”

It would be funnier if it also wasn’t so disturbing. Leaving an apparent e-mail trail, no less.

Part of the piece discusses the possibility of the NCAA coming down on these sites by coming down on the schools.

No surprise then that in May, the hot topic at the Big Ten coaches meetings was the meddling recruiting gurus and their Internet sites. There was a lot of frustration, but few solutions. One suggestion was to prohibit coaches from attending the many recruiting combines sponsored by the websites across the country. If college coaches don’t show up, the theory goes, fewer kids on the prowl for scholarships will attend. Eventually, the analysts would have fewer kids to analyze and the street agents wouldn’t have their fish in a barrel.

The coaches are all for shutting these sites down. It makes sense, they don’t have control.

My one quibble with the piece is the tone of “shock, abject shock,” that the people writing and covering the teams on these recruiting sites might, you know, actually be fans of the teams.

This is the life of a blue-chip football player in the online age. Teens jump from anonymous recruit to folk hero in the click of a mouse. And in cyberworld, a realm outside the long arm of the NCAA, recruiting sites throw journalistic ethics aside to snag the morsels of information and rumor that will feed their insatiable fans-and earn the websites millions of dollars. The constant swirl has coaches and prospects like Myron scrambling for cover.

Unlike gambling or drugs or grade-fixing, recruiting’s twisted web presence impacts every scholarship player on every team. And there is little the coaches can do. “It is the worst problem to hit college football in my lifetime,” says one ACC coach. “You’re talking about an epidemic that started about five years ago. Every year it gets worse.”
…
Some reporters don’t even pretend to keep their allegiances hidden. The Scout USC guy, appearing on a signing-day TV show, was crestfallen to see blue-chip WR DeSean Jackson pick Cal. “I really thought we were gonna get him,” he said on air. A recent job posting on Scout’s Iowa State site asked: “Would you like to make a living covering your favorite college sports team?”

It is information. People want it and are willing to pay for it.

Look, I don’t get the obsession about every potential recruit. I obsess over plenty of things but I can’t bring myself to follow the utterances of every high school kid who may be a blue-chipper. But, I’m not about to piss on those who do want to follow that stuff. And I say kudos to those who are managing to make a living doing it.

A real paranoid thought. No evidence, proof or even particularly well thought out. Just kind of tossing it out. If I were Rivals or Scout, I’d be watching ESPN very closely right now. This could be an opening shot. My guess is they would love to get into the same area if there is sufficient money to be made from a subscriber base. TWWLS has not only the cross-marketing advantage, but also the ability to weaken the eventual competition with articles like this. They could then swoop in and claim the moral high road with their recruiting-team site, and with their 800-pound gorilla status in sports dominate in the field.

Tyler Tkach, last mentioned on this blog when Coach Wannstedt was on the trail in Eastern Pennsylvania, has made a verbal to Pitt. Tkach had drawn offers from a lot of ACC schools, including NC State and Virginia. Rivals.com has him as #41 in Pennsylvania and PantherLair puts him at #25. Tkach plays both TE and DE.

What makes the signing important to Pitt, in a broader sense is that Tkach is from the Eastern part of the state. An area Pitt had seemingly abandoned. A very, very good sign.

The Taft Saga continues.

I have to admit, I’ll be watching the draft at 7:30 on Tuesday to see what happens. I pretty much swore off the draft once there was no Charles Barkley and the TNT crew to liven it up. Still, can’t ESPN at least bring in Hubie Brown for an “upside” shout out, and maybe give all of us what we really want — a steel cage death match between Stuart Scott and Steven A. Smith? I’m just asking, because we all know Bill Simmons isn’t allowed to.

I’m now convinced, that Chris Taft really made a mistake in who he hired as his agent.

[Billy] Ceisler reiterated the fact that the most important thing for Taft or any player isn’t what number he is picked at, but ,rather, which team picks him.

“It is all about finding the right fit,” Ceisler said. “I’ve talked to Chris about this, and he completely understands and agrees. I asked him ‘would you rather be [Pistons forward] Darko Milicic or [Mavericks forward] Josh Howard?” One guy was the second pick in the [2003] draft and has played like one game in two years. The other guy was the last pick in the first round, but he’s played a lot, become a budding star and is poised to sign a huge second contract after next season [first-round picks get a guaranteed three-year contract for their first deal].

“That’s the goal, get in the first round to a team that gives you a chance to play right away in a system that you can thrive in.”

Yeah, winning is secondary. It’s all about getting that next big contract.

You know, this Ceisler guy is also Charlie Villanueva’s agent. Wouldn’t you like to watch him squirm by asking him which guy should be drafted higher, since they play the same position?

I’m trying to picture Taft as a member of the Phoenix Suns as this draft prediction goes. I mean, picturing Taft trying to go up and down the court at the Suns’ pace just doesn’t seem to fit. Still…

The Suns also took a hard look at Chris Taft, a 6-10 forward who was once projected as a lottery pick. But questions about Taft’s work ethic seem to have caused him to slide.

“The projections have been wrong a lot in the past,” Taft said. “If I slip, I’m fine with it.”

[David] Griffin[, the Suns’ Director of Player Personnel,] said Taft stood out as the best of the big men the Suns have brought in to work out.

The Suns draft at #21.

Nearly missed it, but a Bob Smizik column, with which I actually agree.

If Krauser does not return, Pitt will be a significantly less talented team. It will be without the point guard who dominated play the past two seasons and without the player who was its clear leader.

That doesn’t have to be a negative.

As much as he offers, Pitt could be better off without Krauser — if not in the short term, definitely in the long term.

Without Krauser, other players will get a chance to develop — as point guards, as leaders, as players willing to take the tough shot.

Without Krauser, it’s possible freshman point guard Levance Fields will get an earlier opportunity to play and could be an immediate answer at that position. Without Krauser’s imposing presence, Pitt’s stable of wing players — Antonio Graves, Keith Benjamin, Ronald Ramon, John DeGroat and freshman Trevor Ferguson — probably will see the ball more and shoot more.

Krauser had a terrific run at Pitt and a lot of great memories. But, in the days ahead, he should be looking forward to his professional future, not reveling in his collegiate past.

I mean, sure I made a lot of the same points a week and a half earlier, but that is why I actually agree with him this time.

Back in April I noted an article about college basketball coaches whining about the length of time players have to decide to stay in the draft. Now the National Association of Basketball Coaches are pushing a completely draconian change (Insider Subs.):

College coaches are pushing for a new NBA draft declaration date to be set on the Monday after the Final Four ends, a move that clearly would be advantageous for Division I coaches.

Jim Haney, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, told ESPN.com that the proposal would also allow the players only 72 hours to decide whether they were staying in the draft. This plan is being modeled after the football version, which makes college players declare shortly after the end of the bowl season. The NABC has been discussing this for quite some time and will address it again at its annual summer meeting before the Nike Camp begins in Indianapolis on July 6. Haney said he is optimistic that this will be a part of the new collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and its players association.

If the NBA adopts this proposal, it would be a stark contrast to the current state of affairs. College underclassmen and high school seniors have until mid-May to declare for the draft and then get until a week before the draft to withdraw. College coaches have long thought this rule hamstrings their program as they wait for a player to make up his mind in late June.

The NBA would then only be working out players in their respective cities and at the predraft camp who actually were in the draft. There wouldn’t be any testing of the draft process. You would either be in or out.

“That would be great,” Arizona State coach Rob Evans said of the proposal. “We end up sitting there wondering if we can recruit. This idea would be much better for us.”

Yeah, screw the players. It’s all about the coaches. This shows just how much they actually care about the kids they recruit.

Unlike the NFL which has hard limits on how many players are draft eligible, the NBA even with a 19-year old age limit, doesn’t.

Think they wouldn’t howl long and hard about the unfairness and restraint upon them if the college presidents and ADs instituted rules and stipulations into their contracts restricting the coaches from interviewing for other jobs except within certain timeframes? Give them only limited windows to make choices? Surely such moves would be good for the schools. Give the schools some certainty for the program. Either the coach is in or he’s out.

Wait. You mean that would be unfair to make a grown man make such a hard decision that impacts his family in a short, pre-determined time frame? Something that effects his livelihood, his future? Well, gosh, you’re right.

Hypocritical asshats.

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.

Chris Taft is the complete wild-card in the NBA Draft. In Chad Ford’s breakdown of players by position, Taft has slid to #9 for Power Forwards, where once he was at the top of the list (Insider subs.)

On potential, he’s a lottery pick. On heart and desire, he’s a second-rounder. Right now, most teams seem to be down on him, but we’ve heard his name everywhere from Golden State at No. 9 to the second round. I’m not sure anyone in the history of the draft has had such a dramatic gap in the draft range. Draft range: 9-40.

In his latest Mock Draft, he has Taft just out of the 1st round, but still possible to be picked.

To confirm the unpredictability of Taft’s draft status:

Each year the Green Room list is a pretty good indication of who the NBA is hearing will likely be taken in the first 15 picks of the draft. Every year the NBA misses one or two surprises and there’s usually one guy in the room who slips (making for great TV).

Villanueva and McCants have had some of the most volatile stock of anyone in the draft, though (as you’ll read below) there’s talk that both could be in the lottery.

Here’s this year’s list: Bogut, Felton, Frye, Granger, Green, Yaroslav Korolev, Sean May, McCants, Paul, Spain’s Fran Vazquez, Villanueva, Hakim Warrick, Webster, Deron Williams, Marvin Williams and Antoine Wright.

I guess Taft’s nice new suit will look great on the telephone. Having said all that, I don’t see how Charlie Villanueva is picked over Taft. You want to talk about a guy lacking heart. Sure the guy has major talent — possibly more than Taft — but he has shown minimal desire or heart. Taft may have teased and tantalized, but it has been sighted.

Hello visitors from the USC message board. Since it’s the paid subscription protected board, I have no idea what is actually being said. Nothing bad, I hope.

I’m guessing it regards Dorin Dickerson.

Which brings me to the topic of spin. Dickerson had narrowed his choices to Pitt or Michigan. The final choices were noted yesterday in an article in the Trib.

So, you have to enjoy this headline post from a PSU blog.

The post even uses the same article, but selectively avoids the mention that it had been down to Pitt and Michigan. Still, there is some sense of reality in the post:

The miss of Dickerson alone is tough for Nittany Lions fans to swallow considering he was ranked as the 82nd-best prospect in the nation by Rivals.com. But what’s even more disheartening is the strong possibility that Pittsburgh is about to clamp down on the WPIAL under new coach Dave Wannstedt.

But don’t worry, as he points out, Pitt isn’t a rival with Penn St.

Dorin Dickerson just really liked the coaching staff.

“I just liked the way they talked to me and I was able to talk to them,” he said.

Dickerson said Pitt receivers coach Aubrey Hill has become “like a big brother.”

“We had a camp at our school a few weeks ago where some college coaches came,” Dickerson said. “I went off to the side and talked with coach Hill for about an hour-and-a-half. We talked about everything and not just Pitt football. I just said to myself, ‘I want to play for this guy and coach Wannstedt.’ “

Hill has been working his way into the coaching ranks for the last 10 years since graduating from Florida. I figured he’d be a big help for recruiting down there, but he is having a big impact overall.

As is now the trend, the hot commit looks to get other kids to come along for the ride.

Dickerson believes a few more Western Pennsylvania players might commit to Pitt soon, including Baldwin defensive lineman Jason Pinkston.

“I talk to him all the time,” Dickerson said. “I think he could be close [to committing].”

It is expected on Monday.

Dickerson’s commitment could have an immediate domino effect on the remainder of Pitt’s WPIAL recruiting efforts. Two Baldwin players — defensive linemen Jason Pinkston (6-5, 275) and Justin Hargrove (6-4, 245) — will announce their college decisions Monday at South Hills Country Club. The club is hosting Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt’s second annual golf outing. Both are expected to choose the Panthers.

Yeah, it could just be a coincidence that they will be announcing at the site of Coach Wannstedt’s golf outing. Nothing more.

Meanwhile here’s some audio from Rivals.com Radio. An interview with Tyler Palko, and a nearly half-hour discussion about Pitt. The latter is definitely worth listening to.

Declares Pitt. I’m sure there will be more about this tomorrow. Michigan fans have taken the news well.

On Monday, it is rumored/reported that two more kids could announce their commits to Pitt: Justin Hargrove and Jason Pinkston. Again, Michigan fans dealing.

All these are players that Pitt has been targeting. I think that is the most encouraging thing. Pitt has zeroed in on players and got them. Not just offering, but going hard, and already closing the deal.

I almost feel giddy over it.

Andy Katz at ESPN.com seems to think Krauser might lean towards going overseas because despite graduating, Krauser still needs to be taking classes. Krauser has been in NYC for the last couple of weeks.

Coach Dixon, though, says that Krauser is fine.

Earlier yesterday, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon appeared on national television, discussing such things as the new NBA agreement and Krauser. Dixon acknowledged that Krauser, who participated in a walk-through at Pitt’s recent graduation ceremonies, is attending summer school to finish course work as part of his degree requirements and is expected to be eligible to play for the Panthers if he chooses to do so.

Andy Katz also points out that if Krauser comes back, Pitt stands to be on national TV more.

Everyone Blogs.

Until Dorin Dickerson makes it as official as a non-binding verbal commit can be.

Pitt showed how far coach Dave Wannstedt’s recruiting reach extends by beating Michigan to the punch for one of the WPIAL’s most heavily recruited players.

West Allegheny star Dorin Dickerson, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound receiver, will announce today at a 5 p.m. news conference his oral commitment to Pitt.

Dickerson’s decision became obvious when he spent Tuesday taking a boxing class at Pitt with a pair of West Allegheny graduates: Panthers quarterback Tyler Palko and incoming offensive lineman C.J. Davis.

The article picks up on the hope of a domino effect I mentioned yesterday (I’m not taking credit for that hardly original thought, though).

The Panthers are hoping that Dickerson’s commitment has a domino effect on other WPIAL recruits. They also are in hot pursuit of Baldwin defensive linemen Jason Pinkston and Justin Hargrove, Gateway receiver Aaron Smith, Woodland Hills cornerback Darrin Walls and linebacker Greg Webster and Seneca Valley quarterback Kevan Smith, who was offered a scholarship yesterday.

“Dorin has that personality,” Lichtenfels said. “Kids actively recruit each other. It’s going to have the same kind of effect that Justin King and Derrick Williams had for Penn State. Plus, it’s a moral victory for Pittsburgh. Think of how many battles they’ve won with Ohio State and Michigan.

“This is only Wannstedt’s first year recruiting. If that’s the start, it’s going to be something special.”

Heck, the hope is that the domino effect for a top national player should be beyond just Western PA. Pitt has a lot of offers out to kids down in Florida and across Pennsylvania.