The West Virginia University football program had humble beginnings. WVU Senior Director of Athletics Content John Antonik writes in his book The History of the Mountaineers that a team was loosely organized in 1891.
“In order to raise funds necessary to pay off the team’s debt from the first game, the team used proceeds from the Shakespeare play ‘Richard III’ to come up with the $160 to purchase a football, canvas jackets, canvas pants, shin guards, toboggans, and visors.”
Four years later, the “team put together the best season in the young program’s history to date, going 5-1,” according to Antonik. That season included an 8-0 victory over Western University of Pennsylvania, later to become the University of Pittsburgh, and a rivalry was born.
The teams would play 106 times over the next 128 years as the series evolved into The Backyard Brawl. That rivalry will be renewed Saturday afternoon at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh. The two teams are scheduled to play next year in Morgantown, and then a four game home-and-home series starts again in 2029.
Hopefully, the series will continue annually after that.
Pitt is West Virginia’s biggest rival in any sport. A ten-year hiatus from 2012 to 2021 did nothing to dampen Mountaineer Nation’s enthusiasm for the game, and that will be evident Saturday where a sold-out crowd will be evenly split between Mountaineer Gold and Blue and Pitt Royal Blue and Gold.
Conference re-alignment has interfered with traditional rivalries. West Virginia and Pitt fans know that better than anyone. The shuffling may make financial sense and satisfy television networks, but it fails to consider the very thing that drove the sport’s popularity—regional rivalries.
West Virginia has a home-and-home series with Alabama in 2026 and 2027. That game may have made sense when state native Nick Saban coached the Crimson Tide, but not anymore. WVU Coach Neal Brown made clear this week he would rather play The Backyard Brawl.
“We need to get our schedule fixed. We’re in the process of doing that. It’s a game (the Pitt game) that needs to be played,” he said at his press conference this week. “We got Alabama, that ain’t fixed.”
WVU has a non-conference game with Tennessee in Charlotte in 2028. Maybe that game makes sense because of the many Mountaineer fans in North Carolina, and it’s an easy drive from West Virginia, but would Mountaineer fans rather have that game or the Pitt game? Don’t say both, because no other Big 12 team plays two power four teams in their non-conference schedule, nor should WVU.
Pitt is different from any other opponent. The game has a profound significance for individuals whose identity as Mountaineer fans is intertwined with history and tradition. The Backyard Brawl is emblematic of why college football fans are so passionate about the sport.
Tomorrow’s game will have a winner and a loser, one school’s fans will celebrate while the other will suffer the disappointment that comes with losing to their rival. Another chapter will be added to the historic series. However, when The Backyard Brawl is not played, fans of both schools lose.