Trying to keep some perspective on some positive publicity.

Sports Illustrated listed it’s pre-season All-American Team. It included Greg Lee.

As mentioned last week, H.B. Blades is on the Butkus Award Watch list. Here’s the Pitt press release.

The new commits Pitt got on Sunday seems to have impressed Scouts, Inc/ESPN Director of Recruiting Tom Luginbill (Insider Subs.):

Dave Wannstedt and the Pittsburgh program have done a great job of securing many top players in Pennsylvania, but these two verbal commitments show the Panthers have the ability to recruit in both the Northeast and Florida.

While Ricky Gary lacks ideal size, he has explosive ability on the perimeter and can be a threat for Pittsburgh in the return game. Gary, currently the 17th best cornerback in the nation, along with recent verbal commitment Aaron Smith, currently the 32nd ranked cornerback in the nation, will form a quick and athletic secondary. Smith plays quarterback in high school, but we project him at either the cornerback or safety position in college.

Kevin Collier is Pitt’s first verbal from a running back and has the potential to blossom into a great player at the next level. Collier is a playmaker who is especially effective bouncing runs to the outside and catching screens on the perimeter, and although the competition he’s playing against isn’t the greatest, we feel he has all the tools to be successful at the next level.

Now it’s just a matter of getting to Saturday and doing the work on the field. All of this stuff is nice, but going out there and beating the Irish will really be the way to help the program. National stage, debut game, lots of recruits on hand. It’s big.