Going all the way back to Todd Graham’s opening press conference at Pitt. Graham uttered one statement that should be remembered.

“Kids sign with coaches. I really believe that.”

So, it should come as no surprise, then that kids who committed to Tulsa when they thought Graham would be their coach would look at Pitt.

Yesterday, Jakeem Grant, a receiver from Mesquite, Texas, decommitted from TU and is interested in Pitt, the Dallas Morning News reported. Grant’s coach calls his player the fastest man in Texas.

Today, I’m told by one of our TU beat writers, another Hurricane receiver commitment now has Pitt on his list. TU commitment Keyarris Garrett, a 6-4 receiver from Daingerfield, Texas, is taking visits. (Mike Brown is working on a story for Sunday’s paper about the impact Graham’s departure has had on recruiting.)

Garrett’s high school coach told Brown that Garrett has added Pitt to his list in the last few days. Garrett plans to visit TU this weekend, but he also will visit Pitt and Louisiana Tech in the next couple of weeks, according to his coach.

Garrett has 40 career TD receptions and is a member of a three-time state champion team. He’s a three-star recruit, according to Rivals.com, which also is reporting Garrett’s interest in Pitt.

Although evaluating recruits is never easy, these arguably are TU’s two best receiver commitments.

These two, plus Jason Frimpong are all coming to visit Pitt next week.

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Time to get through some browser tabs and media reactions and stories relating to Head Coach Todd Graham, the hire by Pitt and anything else that I decide fits in this post.

As I said when the hire happened, the hiring process may seem like the easy part compared to all that has to follow. I’m sure Graham is going to make a public appearance at Pitt’s basketball game soon. I’m hoping it will not be until Monday. Bigger impact on a nationally televised game, and a much bigger crowd since there won’t be the conflict/overlap of Saturday night with the Ravens-Steelers at 4:30. (For those wondering why Pitt can’t/won’t change it. The time is locked in with Fox Sports Pittsburgh to televise, and the Big East since the women’s team is playing ND at 2 pm at the Pete.)

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If you haven’t gotten the e-mail. Here’s the message from new football head coach Todd Graham. It appears to be nearly verbatim from his opening press conference, but still good stuff.

I’m re-posting it below the fold.

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Judging by the Tweets and comments, new Pitt Head Coach Todd Graham made a lot of people feel more than really good about the hire. Excited, thrilled, juiced. His energy was palpable. Apparently it also extended to some of the players as there are reports that Cameron Saddler and Ray Graham both phoned into The Fan to express their own excitement over Todd Graham.

There is no way to avoid the comparisons to the Mike Haywood presser last month. Where Haywood was really brief — the whole press conference clocked in at 25 minutes with AD Steve Pederson speaking for more than five minutes, this one went a bit over 35 minutes with a very short intro by Pederson.

Where Haywood was stoic (stone-faced?) and spoke only of discipline and molding young men; Graham was animated and spoke openly of wanting to win championships.

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