The Backyard Brawl is critically important to the WVU and Pitt football programs and their fans. For the players, not so much.
Yet.
The players know the rivalry is important, but very few of them have a personal connection to the game that was so evident with players 10 or 15 years ago.
The 10-year hiatus from 2011-22 robbed this current generation of players from watching, feeling and really living in the rivalry. Current players don’t remember 2007 — they had either just been born or were still on the way.
Without that personal connection to the game and the rivalry, current players know they’re supposed to dislike one another, but the actual distaste between the two programs isn’t there like it used to be.
WVU right tackle Nick Malone has as much of a connection to this game as anyone. He grew up in Morgantown and was at one point committed to Pitt before eventually walking on at WVU. Even he admits that he didn’t really grow up hating Pitt.
“I think it’s the collective of West Virginia hates Pitt,” Malone said. “We don’t like each other, you could say.”
There are also a lot fewer local players on the teams than there used to be. WVU has 13 players from Florida, for example. Pitt has 21. Not only did they not grow up watching the Brawl, they didn’t grow up hearing about it. They don’t know the stories or the history.
The only way to rekindle the spark and get players to care as much about the rivalry as fans on both sides do is by actually playing in the game.
“When I got here last year and I got to play in the game, you can kind of feel it,” said WVU receiver Traylon Ray, a Florida native. “You feel it throughout the week and then once you step on the field, you feel it.”
By playing the games, seeing the passion in the 60,000-plus fans in the stands and living through the heartbreaks and triumphs themselves, current players will form their own connections with the rivalry.
“There is a lot of emotion that goes into this game and that’s something that I didn’t really realize when I transferred here,” said WVU kicker Michael Hayes, a South Carolina native. “After playing last year here at home, you realize what you’re getting into and what we’re getting into when we go up to Pitt this week. The energy is different, you can sense a different energy.”
Sooner than later, the players won’t dislike each other just because they know they’re supposed to, they’ll dislike each other because they actually do.
“Going back up there after what happened in ‘22, I think the whole locker room is looking forward to that,” WVU quarterback Garrett Greene said.
Greene didn’t even play in the game in 2022, but he was there on the sideline, he remembers watching MJ Devonshire return the game-winning pick-six and he doesn’t want to feel that way again.
The same thing happened on the other side when Pitt lost in Morgantown last season.
“That was my first rivalry game away,” Pitt linebacker Kyle Louis said. “We came in there, had a bad game and it’s definitely one game to remember. We’ve definitely got that chip on our shoulder this year going into this week.”
There’s also a feeling that players want to have a connection to this game. Neither WVU nor Pitt have true rivals in their current conferences and so the players are hungry for it. They want to buy in and have the game mean something to them.
“I’ve lived here for three years now, so I’ve kind of brought the culture on like I’ve lived here my whole life. I’m forgetting I’m from Miami,” WVU running back CJ Donaldson said. “How important this game is to the fans and the whole state of West Virginia, we understand that.”
Even though the Backyard Brawl has only been played twice since its return, both times have already made the rivalry deeper and more meaningful for the current players.
“I think every year adds to it; I think every year there’s a different flavor,” Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi said. “There’s another scar that has to be repaired, regardless of what it is. This game this weekend is why you play the game of football and why you coach the game of football. This is it.”
The Backyard Brawl needs to be played annually and yet after next season, it’s off the books again until 2029. Those four years off will mean that the players who are building their own connections and memories in the rivalry now will almost all be gone by the time the series rolls around again. We’ll be back at square one.
“We’ve got to get our schedule fixed and we’re in the process of doing that,” WVU coach Neal Brown said. “I think it’s a series that needs to be played. It’s important. I think Pitt wants to play it, we want to play it.”
Brown and Narduzzi have both publicly pushed for Backyard Brawl to be an annual series. WVU’s nonconference slate is already full for 2026 and 2027, but Brown said they’re in the process of “fixing” it. Whatever that means, the Backyard Brawl needs to continue and it’s clear both sides are willing to make that happen.
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