I admit to something of a continued fascination with the football recruiting class of 2004. Not the players Pitt got, but all the ones that got away. It was the absolute culmination of a football season of complete disappointment. From the Big East breaking apart, to the on-the-field collapse, and then to have the highly ranked recruiting class lose blue-chipper after blue-chipper. The last was most painful as several went to teams that were hated — Penn State (Morelli) and Miami (Bryant and Johnson) — or to new foes — USF (Peyton).

Of course, time balanced a bit as all of them had disappointing careers, major off-the-field problems or injuries. There was one other, though, that got away. Alphonso Smith at the very last minute signed with Wake Forest. That one was lost in the shuffle of the time and relatively minor by comparison. He was a Florida kid — not local — and he wasn’t signing with a team that had won in decades.

Smith redshirted and actually has become the best of the bunch as an all-ACC, potential all-American cornerback in his senior year. So, this is what happened.

Smith committed to Pittsburgh before his mother and two Pahokee (Fla.) High School teammates talked him into changing his mind on National Signing Day.

He was about to sign the letter-of-intent with Pitt and was sitting between Pahokee classmates Antonio Wilson and Demir Boldin – two Wake Forest recruits – when his mother arrived at the high school holding a phone. Wake Forest recruiting coordinator Ray McCartney was on the other end of the line.

Smith said he intentionally had left his Wake Forest letter-of-intent at home. When he mentioned to his mom that he didn’t have the Wake Forest letter with him, she promptly reached into her purse and pulled it out. When he pointed out that he didn’t have a Wake Forest hat, she immediately gave him one.

“She’s on the phone with Coach (McCartney) saying, ‘Yeah, I think he’s going to sign,’ ” Smith recalled. “And Antonio and D.J. are on me (saying), ‘Come on, man. We’ll have fun. We’ll turn this thing around.’ ”

Smith finally gave in and signed with Wake Forest. Then he had to make one more call.

“I had to call the Pitt coach and say I signed with Wake,” Smith said. ‘He was like, ‘What?!?’ “

Given the day Harris and the rest of the coaching staff was having that was likely the cherry on top of a crap sundae.