They've been saying for some time that Jeannette's Terrelle Pryor just might be the best high school football player to come from Western Pennsylvania. I laughed. I grew up in Beaver Falls and know of the legend that was Joe Willie Namath. I watched Hopewell's Tony Dorsett and wouldn't believe his greatness if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I saw Penn Hills' Bill Fralic, the only player I know who might have been able to make the jump from high school to the pros. I marveled at North Hills' LaVar Arrington.

But I'm not laughing any more.

One play did the trick for me yesterday in Jeannette's outrageously easy 61-12 win against Beaver Falls in the WPIAL Class AA championship game. Pryor ran a simple quarterback sneak and turned it into a 61-yard touchdown. At the end, he just ran away from Beaver Falls' Todd Thomas. That's noteworthy because Thomas isn't typical of the often lower level of talent at the Class AA level. He was offered scholarships this week by West Virginia and Penn State.

The run was Dorsett-like.

Almost as fascinating as the play itself was the reaction from those involved on the field and sidelines.

"What that play tells you," Beaver Falls coach Ryan Matsook said, "is that the kid deserves to be the No. 1 recruit in the country."

Gushed Thomas, "I think he's the next Vince Young."

Contrast that with the more subdued Jeannette perspective.

"I saw [Thomas]. I just turned on the jets and it was lights out," Pryor said, fairly shrugging.

"Not even close to the greatest play I've seen him make," Jeannette coach Ray Reitz said, citing his favorite -- a touchdown run two years ago against Washington when he said Pryor leaped over a would-be tackler at the 5-yard line and landed 3 yards in the end zone.

"Time stopped after that play," Reitz said. "We all needed a minute to ask ourselves, 'Did he just do what I thought he did?' "

Pryor has been heavily hyped -- not to mention intensely recruited by the Ohio States and West Virginias of college football -- since that day. It is the rare young athlete who not just can shrug off extraordinary expectations but actually exceed them. Pryor has done it in these WPIAL playoffs.

It wasn't just his long touchdown run yesterday or his 55-yard run earlier in the game or his 14-yard scramble for a touchdown or the fact he completed five of six passes for 81 yards and two touchdowns, the one incompletion coming when his pass from the Beaver Falls 23 sailed on him and carried wide-open running back Jordan Hall just out of bounds. It was the way he lined up at safety and knocked Beaver Falls receiver Kendall Dreher 5 yards out of bounds with a big hit. It was the way he left the Tigers' Alex Wiltse on his back, looking at the sky, with a block on a kickoff return. The Wiltse boy, just a sophomore, deserves all the credit in the world for having the nerve to take on Pryor, who's 6 feet 6, 227 pounds and must have looked like a monster coming at him.

You know, the way the great Fralic used to look when he was pancaking guys.

"This wasn't his best game," Reitz said of Pryor. "He's so unselfish. He was trying to get the other kids more involved."

Unlike the playoff game a week earlier against Aliquippa.

"You have to understand they were chanting, 'Overrated,' at him," Reitz said. "He came to the sideline and said, 'Give me the ball.' "

So Reitz did.

Pryor had 22 carries for 331 yards and five touchdowns in Jeannette's 70-48 win.

"You have a horse, you've got to ride it," said Reitz, whose mother clearly didn't raise a dummy.

One day soon, Pryor is going to make a college coach -- Ohio State's Jim Tressel? West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez? -- a very happy man when he settles on his school.

"Here's the amazing thing about the kid. He has at least 50 percent more talent in him," Reitz said. "Once he gets to a college and gets that coaching and plays on just one side of the ball ...

"He's like an iceberg. There's just so much more underneath that you don't see."

Before Pryor makes his big decision, he has business to tend to. His immediate goal is a PIAA championship for Jeannette; the Jayhawks fell one point short to Wilson in the title game last year. After that, he'll try to lead Jeannette to WPIAL and PIAA basketball championships, goals that Aliquippa interrupted last year.

You know what's coming next, don't you?

They'll be saying Pryor is the greatest high school athlete -- period -- to come from our little corner of the world.

I'll immediately think of Swissvale's Dick Groat, who was an All-American in basketball at Duke and a National League MVP for the Pirates, and Tom Clements, who had to choose between a football scholarship to Notre Dame and a basketball scholarship to North Carolina.

But I won't laugh. I definitely won't laugh.