National Signing Day 2010: Optimism Running High in Pittsburgh

Today is basically Christmas for all fans of college football.  It’s national signing day, and I know a few people who are refreshing their favorite sports website a dozen times every few minutes to see what top prospect has signed with their beloved school of choice.

Of course with western Pennsylvania being a highly recruited area, you will likely see a lot of local kids go to the usual schools of choice around here.

I myself am excited to see what kind of talent Pitt can pull in, and then speculate how awesome they can be a year from now.  Dion Lewis, a guy that wasm’t even looked at, wound up at Pitt, and the rest so far is history in the making. 

These are the kinds of guys you get excited for.  Come spring training, you literally have no idea whose bodies changed for the better/worse, who’s learned faster than others, or who’s even going to be starting.  It’s almost a fresh slate every year for certain schools, and that’s what makes this day so much fun.

Moving on to actual WPIAL signings, a few of them have signed letter of intents for Penn State University:

Penn State already has received letters of intent this morning from all of its WPIAL recruits. Offensive linemen Miles Dieffenbach (Fox Chapel High School), Tom Ricketts (North Allegheny), and Luke Graham (Penn-Trafford) faxed in their paperwork, along with linebacker Mike Hull (Canon-McMillan), according to FightOnState.com , a recruiting website.

A fifth WPIAL recruit, quarterback Paul Jones (Sto-Rox), was one of seven players who graduated from high school early and enrolled in the spring semester classes last month. The Nittany Lions’ class of 2010 is expected to have a total of 20 recruits.

All good news for the Lions. Here’s to everyone having a great signing day and hopefully the players you had in mind actually sign with the college you’re following! 

Moving on to another college sport, basketball, we have a huge match up tonight.  Pitt will be playing West Virginia in another intense battle.  Both teams are ranked, which is the first time in a long time this has happened supposedly.  So the hype is just that much more.

Here’s a little information on the rivalry from the Tribune Review :

The No. 22 Panthers (16-5, 6-3 Big East) will try to snap their two-week funk when they visit No. 6 West Virginia (17-3, 6-2) at 7 p.m. tonight in Morgantown, W. Va.

“We enjoy the experience of being in a hostile environment,” center Gary McGhee said. “It gets you pumped up and gets your adrenaline going. That’s something good for us.”

While West Virginia’s current ranking matches its highest in 28 years, Pitt has dropped three of its past four games and is trying to avoid equaling its worst five-game stretch since 2000-01.

Help is on the way. Dixon practiced Tuesday afternoon, his first full-speed workout since he suffered a sprained right ankle early in the second half of Pitt’s 63-53 victory over St. John’s on Thursday.

The injury forced Dixon to sit out Pitt’s 70-61 loss at South Florida on Sunday. With the defensive stalwart out, Bulls star guard Dominique Jones scored 37 points, matching the most by an opposing Big East player against Pitt in the past 19 years.

Dixon, who missed the first eight games with a right foot injury, will likely draw West Virginia’s all-Big East senior guard Da’Sean Butler (16.5 ppg). Dixon’s defense against high scorers such as Wes Johnson, Lance Stephenson and Jerome Dyson was a big part of Pitt’s three-game road winning streak last month.

Today/tonight is surely going to provide a ton of entertainment for fans of the collegiate level sports.