MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Before West Virginia football coach Neal Brown or Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi conducted weekly media sessions Monday ahead of the 107th edition of the Backyard Brawl, major news surfaced from within the Panthers’ athletic department.
Pitt announced Heather Lyke had been relieved of her duties as director of athletics following a seven-year stint.
“As we enter a new era in college athletics, one that seems to change by the day, we need a new vision and a new leader of our athletics department,” Pitt Chancellor Joan Gabel said.
Lyke, whose contract ran through 2024, had been at Pitt since 2017 and just last year, she received AD of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. She recently was a finalist to become Northwestern’s athletic director and had also been involved in Ohio State’s recent search for a new AD.
Before Narduzzi discussed his team’s quest to improve to 3-0 later this week, he touched on Lyke’s dismissal. Now in his 10th season as Panthers’ football coach, Narduzzi has spent the majority of his Pitt tenure to this point working under Lyke.
“Grateful and appreciative of the last seven years working with Heather Lyke. She’s done a great job and has great energy,” Narduzzi said. “I appreciate everything she’s done and I wish and her family all the luck personally and professionally as far as her next move. She’s a strong person and will land on her feet. I know Chancellor Gabel is committed to excellence in athletics and committed to excellence and championships in football, so I have a ton of trust in her and what she’s going to do in the future at Pitt.”
Lyke’s predecessor was Scott Barnes, and it was during Barnes’ tenure in September 2015 when Pitt and West Virginia announced a renewal of the Backyard Brawl for four consecutive years starting in 2022.
The series had been played annually from 1943-2011, but went dormant for 10 straight years when the schools moved on from the Big East Conference to join other leagues
In April 2022, with Lyke leading Pitt athletics, another four-year extension of the series was announced from 2029-2032. There will be a three-year hiatus between the 108th and 109th editions of the Backyard Brawl.
“We have to get our schedule fixed and we’re in the process of kind of doing that,” Brown said. “But it’s a series that needs to be played. It’s important. I think Pitt wants to play it. We want to play it. College football is so up in the air and nobody really knows what the future looks like.
“But if we stay on this where you play nine conference games and another Power 4, I don’t want to speak for them, but it makes sense for us to play the game — close proximity, great TV audience, fans excited on both sides are excited about it. Moving forward, as soon as we get done with this run, to me, it’s non-conference games are Pitt, a FCS and a Group of 5, and preferably the FCS and Group of 5 need to be at home. That gives us an opportunity to have seven home games every year, which is what we need to do.”
As for what he meant by West Virginia needing to fix its schedule, the Mountaineers’ sixth-year head coach referenced an upcoming home-and-home set for the 2026 and 2027 seasons with one of the storied programs in the sport.
“We’re in the process. We have Alabama,” Brown said. “That ain’t fixed.”
Starting next season, West Virginia is slated to face 10 Power Conference opponents (Pitt and nine Big 12 games) in favor of 11 for the first time in a full season under Brown. In addition to welcoming Pitt, WVU is to play host to Robert Morris and travel to Ohio.
In 2020, the Mountaineers played Eastern Kentucky and eight league games in the regular season as a result of the COVID pandemic.
While scheduled to play Alabama in 2026 and 2027, West Virginia does not have another Power Conference non-league opponent lined up for either season. The Mountaineers are to play UT Martin and East Carolina in 2026 and VMI and Ohio the following year.
A 2028 game against Tennessee in Charlotte is WVU’s only non-league game scheduled that year to this point.
As a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Pitt plays eight league games, leaving the Panthers more room for adjustments in a four-game non-conference schedule.
Following the decade-long break in the series, the home team has won on both occasions since it resumed. Narduzzi hopes that will again be the case come 3:30 p.m. Saturday as his team looks to continue its unbeaten start to this season and hand the Mountaineers (1-1) a second loss.
A week ago, Pitt rallied from a 21-point second-half deficit to nip Cincinnati 28-27, giving the Panthers a victory over another nearby program that was once a member of in the Big East, and like WVU, has since joined the Big 12.
“A really big rivalry game here and there’s maybe not many more important rivalry games in the country,” Narduzzi said of the Backyard Brawl. “You can talk about the River City Rivalry [Pitt-Cincinnati], and we all know that’s not really a rivalry. This is the one that people in Pittsburgh live for and people down south live for.”