Here's one for strange recruiting stories: A high school football player from Pittsburgh is headed to the University of Colorado.

Lamont Smith, a junior running back-defensive back at Central Catholic, made a verbal commitment to Colorado this past weekend. It's not strange that Smith is headed to a Division I school, even though he is 5 feet 9, 165 pounds. He also had a few other scholarship offers.

The strange part is Colorado hasn't recruited in Western Pennsylvania the past few decades. You never hear Colorado's name come up when area players talk about their recruitment.

"I realize they don't recruit here," Smith said. "But I just saw an opportunity there and grabbed it."

Actually, it was Colorado that saw Smith first. He attended a Nike combine at Penn State earlier this spring. Coaches from numerous Division I colleges were on hand, and Colorado's coaches apparently liked what they saw of Smith. They started showing interest, and assistant coach Darian Hagan visited Central Catholic earlier this month.

The Buffaloes offered Smith a scholarship a few weeks ago and recruited him as a defensive back.

"They lost six defensive backs from last year, so I thought there would be a chance to come in there and play early," Smith said.

Smith also had offers from Arizona State, Toledo and Temple. What's also a little strange about his decision is he never has visited Colorado.

"Everybody tells me it's beautiful," said Smith. "I'm going to make a visit there in July."

Central Catholic coach Terry Totten said, "I credit Lamont for knowing what he wants to do. I think it takes some guts to get up and choose a place like [Colorado]. ... We've had a lot of Central kids play at a lot of different places. But we can't remember ever having a kid play in the Big 12 Conference."

Rick Capretta, Central Catholic's defensive backs coach, met with Hagan at Central.

"I saw the Arizona State offer and I was kind of pushing Lamont there, telling him to go to the desert. But then Colorado came along. They did a great job selling themselves," Capretta said.

Smith made a name for himself this past season, rushing for 2,070 yards on 280 attempts in his first year as a starter. He rarely played defense, though, and most likely will play defense this season only as a nickel back.

"He's too valuable for us on offense," Capretta said.

But Smith likes the idea of being a future defensive back.

"I went to a lot of camps and combines the last two years and played defensive back at all of them," Smith said. "It won't be a big transition."