Periodically, I’ve read some comments or gotten e-mails about the 2003 recruiting class — specifically how those players that changed their minds about coming to Pitt have been busts. I’ve been aware of it, but not wanted to say anything. Not because it would be petty or cheap shots (believe me that isn’t it). Mainly because their careers aren’t over at this point.

The last thing I’d want to do is be premature or, um, un-jinx things by smirking too early. Especially for a certain QB going into his senior year at a state university. Afterall, it just takes one great season and suddenly a couple wasted years and a sub-par season becomes irrelevant.
The other reason is that it, to a now receding degree, scarred me and plenty of Pitt fans about verbals and signing day. There’s still a part waiting for the last minute change of mind, and a big loss of a player. Why bring back all that anxiety?
Of course, now I have to discuss it because Kevin Gorman in the Trib has a pretty good story on it.

When running backs James Bryant of Reading and Andrew Johnson of North Hills signed with Miami, Penn Hills quarterback Anthony Morelli with Penn State, Pahokee (Fla.) cornerback Alphonso Smith with Wake Forest and Dade City (Fla.) Pasco receiver Johnny Peyton with South Florida, a devastated Walt Harris was left searching for answers of how Pitt’s potential top-25 class went astray.

“That class,” national recruiting analyst Tom Lemming said, “might have cost Walt Harris his job.”

It didn’t cost him his job — directly. What it did was further erode a lot of remaining support. The 2003 football season did more damage to Harris’ job security. The loss of the recruiting class key players essentially removed the safety net that had been there.
The implosion of that recruiting class had a decent amount to do with the swirling uncertainty of the Big East’s status in the BCS mix. Still, there was the fact that the whole thing was a disappointment on top of disappointment and Harris fell back into a defensive crouch and it was widely perceived as a “Not my fault, Walt” move.

There’s actually a comment from Andrew Johnson that, well, is bizarre.

Yet, the five who didn’t sign with Pitt proved that the grass isn’t always greener: Where Smith is the nickel back at Wake Forest, which won the Atlantic Coast Conference, Peyton played immediately at USF, but was dismissed from the team in December 2005. Where Bryant plays fullback at Miami, Johnson saw limited playing time after tearing his ACL and transferred to Akron earlier this month.

“It’s hard to tell how everything would have worked out” if the five would have signed with Pitt, Johnson said. “I don’t regret the decision I made. It made me a better football player, being down there with better athletes. If I would have gone to Pitt, I might have just been handed the job and I would have been the same type of back I was in high school. When you get with the type of athletes and competition at Miami, you have to raise your game.”

I get not looking back with regret, but even before tearing his ACL, he wasn’t doing much with the ‘Canes. If that raised his game, then his game must never have been much before — despite his rankings by the recruiting sites.

Of course, the better thing regarding recruiting is that better days are not only here now, there’s just as much promise for next year.

The Panthers already have a head start on 2008 with commitments from Johnstown cornerback Antwuan Reed and Jones, a 6-foot-2 1/2, 325-pounder who was offered a grayshirt, meaning he would enroll full-time in January. There is a possibility he will start in August if Sheard chooses to go elsewhere, but Jones isn’t banking on it.

“They told me it’s a grayshirt unless a scholarship comes open this fall,” said Jones, who will sign a national letter of intent today. “I think it will be real beneficial. It will give me time to grow and lose more weight.”

The best day about NLI day and recruiting stuff — blind optimism.