Also known as, “We don’t need no stinkin’ rankings.”

The snap judgments are out. Good news. Pitt wasn’t the worst recruiting class in the Big East.

Scout.com, put Pitt’s at 6th (55th nationally), ahead of USF and UConn. Rivals.com said 5th ahead of USF, UConn and Syracuse. UConn’s recruiting class was last in all rankings. This, despite losing only one good player (to Penn State) after Edsall departed. Given the position of UConn’s class, there might be a correlation to that.

Not that Todd Graham is taking a lot of heat for that in both local or national coverage.

Mike Farrell of Rivals.com said, “The circumstances he entered into, he has to have a free pass this year. You can’t ask anybody to do better than he did with the situation. We have him fifth in the Big East.

“I think he finished ahead of three other schools in the Big East. Considering what he had left when he arrived, and the kids he lost, he did as good of a job as you can expect.”

This sentiment was echoed by other recruiting guys the story quoted.

An interesting comparison by Zeise in post.

Just in case you were wondering, Dave Wannstedt’s first class (the class he put together in about two months after he was hired) had 23 players. Of those 23, there were ten – Conredge Collins, CJ Davis, Rashad Duncan, Cedric McGee, Shane Murray, Gus Mustakas, LaRod Stephens-Howling, Bill Stull, Oderick Turner and Mick Williams – who became consistent starters and productive players during their careers. And those guys became the backbone of the program over the first four or five years. I thought that was pretty good and given how quickly this staff had to put together a class — if there are ten players in this class who form the backbone of this program over the next four years it will be an overwhelmingly successful class.

Wannstedt had two months to recruit and retain. Graham had two weeks.

Naturally, as you expect when a class is ranked as average or not outstanding, Coach Graham dismissed rankings.

Todd Graham and company dismissed recruiting rankings as being irelevant because of Pitt’s “unique approach” to football. He said few teams do the things that Pitt will do – schematically – and thus they are looking for specific players. That makes a lot of sense to me and he would know because he was at West Virginia under Rich Rodriguez and the Mountaineers were never really highly rated in recruiting but for a while seemed to win the Big East every year. Of course, if that is the story hopefully they are sticking to it — and that means next year, or the year after, when they have the highest rated class in the Big East, we won’t be hearing about it, either.

He may be somewhat right, but bullshit is bullshit. Just as in the NFL Draft teams always claim to get exactly the guy the wanted all along, a college coach will talk up his signing class as being what they wanted for the style they play. Plenty more to read in Zeise’s post, but you probably already knew that.

While the cold reality of this class is that it is exceptionally mediocre in terms of overall talent compared to other schools, but Graham’s efforts were exhaustive.

Good thing Graham, who runs a speedy no-huddle offense, works fast. He covered so much ground at his signing-day news conference that he even thanked the two pilots who flew him across the country. “I don’t know if I want to do that again for a long, long time,” Graham said.

Pitt’s class of 20 includes linebacker Nicholas Grigsby from Trotwood, Ohio, rated the No. 15 prospect in Ohio and the USA’s No. 16 outside linebacker by Rivals.com.

Graham said he was able to sign recruits from eight states plus Washington, D.C., because of the tradition at Pittsburgh and players’ geographical open-mindedness.

“Kids nowadays, if it’s the right fit, will get up and move,” he said.

Finally, Chris Gates has an interview with OC Calvin Magee after the signing day press conference.