His whole life, Dion Lewis was saying yesterday, has been an affirmation.

His whole life, being now 10 days short of 19 years, Pitt's instantly notable freshman running back has seen achievement defined primarily by his hunger for it.

"I've been making plays my whole life," he says if you ask whether he's surprised to be the third-leading ground gainer in America after his first two college football games. "You should always expect to do well, always expect to make plays. The important thing is never being satisfied. You have to stay hungry. If you're not hungry, you're not going to be successful."

Lewis said all this in a tone native Pittsburghers generally use in confessionals, as the distance from his whispery confidence to anything like bombast is greater than his typical Saturday performance, longer than the 137 yards he gained against Youngstown State, longer than the 190 he sprinted to on the road at Buffalo, longer by rhetorical miles.

He's quiet.

Serious.

"Mature," said offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, who finds himself associated, after two games at Pitt, with a team averaging 46 points in large part because of Dion John Lewis of Albany, N.Y., by way of New Jersey's Blair Academy by way of general recruiting indifference by almost everyone.

Except Pitt.

That he is 5-8 and yesterday was 3 pounds under his listed playing weight of 195 likely had something to do with that, but that strain of compartmentalization seemingly would discount the impact of a player like Lewis' hero, Jacksonville Jaguars punisher Maurice Jones-Drew, who is of like dimensions. Lewis had offers only from Tulane and Miami of Ohio, and was only reported to be of some interest to Wake Forest, Connecticut and Temple. Tell me, in whom would Temple not be interested?

"I had choices but I never got the feeling from anywhere that I got from Pitt," Lewis said as the Panthers prepared for their Saturday night home appointment with Navy. "When I came here the first time, I was surprised at how beautiful it was, but I was comfortable because I'm a city person. I'm real comfortable in Oakland. People are starting to talk to me. They say 'good game', or 'are you Dion?' "

This would happen to anyone who scored five touchdowns and averaged most of 160 yards rushing in the opening fortnight of any season, but what Pitt's fans and students will learn to appreciate about Lewis is that special hunger. He is insatiable when it comes to yardage, because, as he said, he has routinely swallowed great helpings of it "his whole life."

At Blair Academy, he gained 250 yards four times as a senior. You can roll that up into a 1,000-yard month with some imaginary license. The typical handoff to Dion Lewis in the fall of 2008 there gained better than 14 yards. At Pitt, he is struggling along at 7.2 yards per carry. Clearly, the embittered Big East Conference defenses that lie ahead, and those of non-conference hurdles such as North Carolina State and Notre Dame, will modify that figure significantly.

If they don't, Lewis won't be terribly surprised.

"It makes me feel good that people notice what I've done, but I just want to stay quiet about it," he said. "It's just the way I was taught to do things. My parents always made sure they were on me, helping me make the right choices, helping me hang out with the right people, helping me not stay out late, helping me make the right decisions."

He felt he made the right one when he decided to play for Dave Wannstedt, even when a waterfall of boos roared out of the Heinz Field stands at senior quarterback Bill Stull in Lewis' first minutes as a Panther.

"I was surprised," Lewis said.

Oh, so he can be surprised.

"I mean, that's our starting quarterback. That's not polite. You should root for everyone on the field. He's a good man. He adjusted and stayed focused. I mean, that was crazy."

Crazy world, college football. Similar convulsions are appearing all over the country, but it's a football map with only two freshmen among the top-10 rushers in America, and Pitt has one of 'em.

Long may Dion run with these Panthers, but it's a delicate arrangement. As we learned from Shady McCoy, Pitt's last freshman sensation, the longer you run, the shorter you'll stay.