JEANNETTE, Pa. -- If there was a clear winner on national signing day, it was a cantankerous octogenarian with a tendency toward road rage.

The world peeked in on this humble small town outside Pittsburgh to find out which school the nation's No. 1 prospect was going to attend. It got a lesson just how damn good, energetic and relevant Joe Paterno still is.

Terrelle Pryor is on his way to class after the news conference. (AP)

"I had my mind set last night where I was going to go," Pryor said. "(But) Penn State, they've been hitting hard. I just don't think I gave them a fair chance."

A week ago Penn State wasn't on Pryor's list of finalists. The world was breathlessly waiting for the 18-year-old to choose between blood rivals Ohio State and Michigan. Since then, Paterno called a blitz -- visiting Pryor along with defensive coordinator Tom Bradley and quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno, schmoozing the Jeannette staff and, for now, getting his white-socked foot in the door on the biggest talent in the country.

All at age 81.

"Joe sort of commands situations," said Jeannette coach Ray Reitz, still wide-eyed from last week's visit. "When we sat down, it was like The Godfather."

Paterno had the opening he needed for what coaches told media was to be his first in-home visit in two years. Reitz's wife made cavatelli, meatballs and salad for the coaches last week.

A coaching legend in a small town. Italian pasta for an Italian coach. Perfect.

"He was talking about growing up with Vince Lombardi," Jeannette assistant Jim Ward said. "Talking to someone who knew Vince Lombardi was a big deal."

"You hear rumors, 'He ought to get out,'" Jeannette quarterbacks coach Roy Hall said of Paterno. "After meeting the guy, he can stay there another 10 years. He knows what he's talking about. He's very sharp, very intelligent."

Hall had his doubts when Paterno offered a scholarship to Hall's nephew Jordan, a Jeannette tailback. What happens, Hall asked, if Pryor doesn't come to Penn State?

"Coach," Bradley said, "right now this isn't about Terrelle."

The best news Paterno could have gotten was that his class of 2008 might not be complete. At an elaborate Wednesday news conference here that was televised nationwide, Pryor said he wanted to take more time to weigh his choices. The deadline for signing a letter of intent is April 1. Pryor seemed to figure that out after a whirlwind existence that allowed him only two days off between a 16-game state championship football season and the beginning of basketball season.

"It's hard to be a kid," Pryor said. "The phone has been ringing non-stop."

It's clear Paterno is focusing not only on Pryor but his father, Craig, who is wheelchair-bound with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neuromuscular disorder similar to multiple sclerosis. Penn State just happens to be closer to Jeannette than the three other schools in the running.

"I feel real comfortable with Penn State," Pryor said.

And with Oregon, where he now plans to take an official visit, and Michigan and Ohio State. Still. But whatever happens, this annual recruiting holiday proved that JoePa is not going go mumbling to himself into the sunset.

Here's an inside look at what has Paterno and the other finalists drooling:

The phenomenon

If it wasn't for the 2-year-old snapshot that Bob Murphy is eagerly whipping out, you'd think the Jeannette High athletic director had been overexposed to YouTube.

Nothing can be that good without visual evidence, and all this guy has is a cheap 4x6.

"Look, see that?" Murphy said. "He's jumping."

In this case, Pryor jumping is like asking the Empire State Building if King Kong was merely climbing.

"We were playing against Washington, Pa.," Rietz says, picking up the story. "Terrelle goes back to pass, the protection breaks down. He comes out of the pocket. He gets down to the 6-yard line and a kid from Washington comes up to hit him. Terrelle leaps from the 6, over the kid's head and lands 5 yards deep in the end zone."

Poll Which school will Terrelle Pryor choose? Oregon Michigan Ohio State Penn State

Reitz later asked officials why they didn't immediately signal touchdown.

"We were stunned," they told him.

Do the math. That's 11 yards -- 33 feet -- the observers are claiming was covered in the air by the nation's No. 1 high school recruit. Even that requires forgetting the law of gravity, but we've been sucked in this far by the Pryor phenomenon, which hasn't peaked yet.

Why not, um, jump in with both feet?

Pryor -- like prep superstars Reggie Bush and Joe McKnight before him -- has his high school highlights posted all over the Internet. Glance at Pryor's highlights for a few minutes and you don't have to ask the obvious question on signing day: How good is he?

Good enough to score 56 touchdowns last season, reported to be once every four times he touched the ball. This at a school that has long played up a class in football-mad Pennsylvania.

Good enough to score 2,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds in his almost-as-impressive basketball career. Good enough to have committed to Pittsburgh in hoops as a 10th-grader before football intervened. Everyone agrees that Pryor could play both sports in college, but one might take away from other, especially when he could be a short-timer in football.

"What they tell the kid is, 'You'll be making $30 million in three years if you let us coach you and teach you,'" Reitz said.

Good enough to make a mockery of the game plan.

"There was a time when we had a 10-play script (to start the game)," Hall said, "and we scored on the first seven."

Good enough for the, uh, ladies.

"He's doing pretty good, believe me," Reitz said. "I always tell him, 'I don't want to know.'"

Good enough for Dick Hoak, Jeannette class of 1957 and previously the best player in school history.

"He's the best I've ever seen," said Hoak, 68, who played at Penn State and was a player and coach for the Steelers for 45 years. "He's done some things on the field that amaze you."

Pryor has established that with the fawning coach Magi flashing their championship rings; with the recruiting gurus who had the kid's cell phone number tattooed onto their brain stems; with Pennsylvania, which is making room for Pryor in its football firmament beside Dan Marino, Joe Montana, John Unitas, Joe Namath and Jim Kelly.

Pryor's ascendance is a convergence of modern college football factors. Unlike those other quarterbacks, his greatness does not usually radiate, statue-like, from the pocket. In this age of the spread option, his is the perfect form, 6-feet-5½, 230 pounds. A quarter-century ago, Pryor would have been Marino's tight end. Now, he is the new Vince Young.

"That's where it's going now," said Charlie Batch, the Steelers' backup quarterback. "It's kind of hard to defend someone who has the ball in his hands every play."

Jeannette won the Class AA state championship with 14 of 16 games going to the mercy rule. (If a team is up by at least 35 points at halftime, the clock runs in the second half.) Because of the blowouts, Reitz estimates that Pryor played the equivalent of only seven full games last season while both throwing and passing for 4,000 yards.

"Terrelle gets bored if he's not going against good competition," Reitz said. "I honestly believe he has a lot more left in him to prove. I believe he has a lot more potential we haven't seen yet."

Pryor's parents are divorced. He picked Batch as a recruiting mentor because a relationship they struck up in Pittsburgh. Batch sponsors a youth basketball league as part of his foundation. Until Wednesday, it looked like the only two official visits taken by the best player in the country would be Michigan and Ohio State.

"He really hasn't had a fair shake," Batch said. "There's still questions he has for himself. I think that's the part that bothers him. ... He can wait until April."

Michigan's Rich Rodriguez offered an immediate starting spot. Jim Tressel no doubt dangled the image of Troy Smith's 2006 Heisman Trophy. Paterno just kept talking, to the point Tuesday that Pryor finally had to cut off the Penn State coach during a last-minute recruiting phone pitch and get to class.

It has been more than that, though. Sleazy collectors tricked Pryor into signing balls that immediately went up on eBay. The quarterback didn't particularly mind, but the school did get a security guard to escort him after games.

"I grew as a man," Pryor said. "It made my mind think and explore."

His coach has had his bull---- meter out from the beginning. Reitz is the tough, hard-bitten type who moonlights working for the Iron City Brewery in Pittsburgh.

"I filter the beer," he said. "You can teach a monkey to do that."

He also knows that a kid this good and this innocent could have been a target for something more than a back slap.

"It's actually sickening," Reitz said. "I've got a big problem with exploiting kids, people that want to hang around them for the wrong reasons. It gives you a shallow feeling about what goes on in this country."

Without mentioning any names, Batch said he had concerns about Pryor's recruiting: "I'm not going to go into detail. That's not my job. All I can do is bring (things) to his attention. .... When I bring it up, people get defensive."

Pryor's mother, Thomasina, says she has been offered nothing. All she has to do is point her car, a Ford Tempo that her son calls "a piece of crap."

The end?

These are high times in Jeannette and the drama isn't over yet. Four of the city's 14 policeman showed up to provide "security" in the Jayhawks gym for the news conference. Pretty impressive considering that, officially, nothing happened.

Pryor is still uncommitted. His coaches are still star struck, which means there might be higher times in State College. Remember his incredible, unbelievable, unfathomable 33-foot leap?

"I think Joe Paterno has the picture up at Penn State," Reitz said.