It’s one of my all-time favorite stories to tell people. On a cold and rainy November night in 2010, I took the long haul up to Morgantown, West Virginia. My extended family owns some incredible season tickets right behind the bench, and I was treated to my first basketball game in over ten years in the WVU Coliseum. The trip was far from ideal, crammed in the back of a friend’s sedan with four other guys and who knows how many bags. I was dropped off a mile downhill from the Coliseum and had to walk uphill in a horribly misty rain carrying my stuff for the weekend. But as I walked into that arena, I had forgotten all that. I sat soaking it all in. As the warm-up ended and the national anthem started, I tried to savor every esoteric flavor of the moment, but one in particular stands out above all the rest.
“…and the home of the brave!” Loud applause. Cheers everywhere. And then, from just a couple rows behind us:
“BEAT THE HELL OUTTA PITT!”
That’s all well and good, but this was the home opener. We were there for a fall game against Oakland College. Pitt is always played in February, usually on or within about three days of my birthday.
It didn’t matter. Beat the hell outta Pitt. As West Virginia, we must beat the hell outta Pitt. It is our primary purpose of life.
Rivalries are the crack that makes college football so addictive. More people probably watch the NFL, with its top notch talent, wild personalities, and Superbowl winners. But everyone loves a good college football rivalry. From proximity-induced rivalries like the Iron Bowl to the how-did-this-even-become-a-rivalry rivalries like USC-Notre Dame, Thanksgiving week might be the only week of the year where college football is watched much more fervently than the NFL. Yet a seemingly unavoidable conflict seems to be moving through college football, hellbent on tearing rivalries apart. I am talking, of course, about the juggernaut that is conference realignment.
To say I’m sick of conference realignment stories would be an understatement. It has dominated the headlines of college football this year in an incredibly boring, ball-hog fashion. Nobody can talk about anything else but the Big East constantly escalating suckiness, the Big 12 having who-knows-how-many teams, and the ACC rising from low level mediocrity to mediocre mediocrity with the addition of Pitt and Syracuse. Will Texas A&M make it in the SEC? Who knows? Who cares? At this point, why don’t we just wait until they move and find out?
But to ignore conference realignment and the disbanding of prominent national rivalries in this context would be utter negligence on my part. Just yesterday, the Texas Longhorns played what looks like it might be their last game against the Texas A&M Aggies. They have played since 1894, and it is the 3rd longest running rivalry in division 1A college football. Common sense would probably dictate that they keep the rivalry going, but combine a little anger over a TV network with conference realignment, and wham. You’re looking at the end of a historic rivalry.
It’s certainly a sad trend to witness as a passionate fan first, journalist second. But apply that trend to West Virginia, the team I’ve been groomed to love just about all my life, and it’s downright depressing.
West Virginia-Pitt might be a mere regional rivalry, but it’s one of the most heated rivalries I’ve ever seen. Think Alabama-Auburn without the national title implications (though there’s an exception for every rule- my apologies, fellow mountaineer fans), except maybe even meaner. I don’t expect there to be any ESPN documentaries about my beloved Backyard Brawl any time soon, but it doesn’t mean the players aren’t out for blood. Last time the Brawl came to Morgantown, there were so many state troopers on the field that you could have robbed every bank in West Virginia blind and nobody would have been any wiser until you were three states away.
But like any good rivalry, a team is really defined by their rival. Try thinking about Auburn’s 2010 national championship year without reminiscing over that miraculous Cam Newton-led comeback over Alabama in Tuscaloosa. West Virginia and Pitt are no different. Penn State hasn’t played Pitt in years, and you can hardly call the Marshall-WVU series a real rivalry when the Thundering Herd has actually never beaten WVU. With a shocking absence of true rivalries around, the Backyard Brawl means more now than it ever has.
Here is the part of the story where realignment rears its ugly head. The athletic directors of both schools want the rivalry to continue. The fans and players all want it. I’m sure ESPN and the NCAA still want it. So if literally everyone still wants the rivalry, why on Earth would it be discontinued? Ahh, but with Pitt going to the ACC and WVU to the Big 12, it might just not be possible. WVU would have to play nine games in conference alone, and Pitt would have to play a similar schedule in the ACC. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for a big rivalry, especially when the strength of schedule is already so high with teams like Oklahoma/Virginia Tech, Texas/Florida State, and Oklahoma State/Clemson.
Conference change or no conference change, though, WVU and Pitt hate each other. Even more so, the fans hate each other. Hop on any messenger board and the vitriol spewed at opposing fans is downright filthy- and that’s coming from a college guy with an admittedly colorful vocabulary (Colorful here translates to “must remember to censor self in front of parents at all times.”). But despite all the hate, it’s really an incredibly twisted love. It’s a real, down-to-the-core love… to hate. What is WVU without eat shit Pitt? What is Pitt without Morganhole? The rivalry does indeed define the schools on more than one occasion.
So yeah, I hate Pitt. I have as long as I can remember, and I probably always will. But if we stop playing Pitt, I will be incredibly, incredibly angry. Because I love Pitt. I love to hate them. Pitt is the creepy neighbor down the street that you love making fun of. You can’t stand their weirdness, but who would you rag on if they moved out of the neighborhood? I need that creepy neighbor in my life. I need Pitt.
Tonight is the 104th Backyard Brawl. Here’s to hoping that it isn’t the last time these two teams meet on the football field. Here’s to the continued tradition of rivalries in college football. Here’s to the 105th Backyard Brawl.
Oh yeah. And eat shit, Pitt.
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