Quarterback Nicco Marchiol hitting tight end Grayson Barnes in the end zone to tie the Backyard Brawl against Pitt was one of the top moments from West Virginia’s 2025-26 athletic year. Everyone remembers just an hour later, Rich Rodriguez getting hit with Gatorade, and yelling on ESPN that the “West Virginia Mountaineers never quit,” after the Mountaineers knocked off the Panthers in overtime, completing a 10-point comeback.
It was iconic, and another page in the classic Backyard Brawl rivalry book on the gridiron.
It’s a book that won’t be opened for quite some time, though. WVU and Pitt won’t square off again until 2029, creating a three-year hiatus for one of the top rivalries in the sport.
Rich Rodriguez took the podium for Big 12 Media Day on Wednesday, July 8, in Frisco, Texas, which was his first open media appearance since the Gold Blue Spring Festival on April 18. Rodriguez was asked about the situation regarding the three-year break from the rivalry.
“We tried, Rodriguez said. “We got Pitt coming back in three years. That’ll be great. We should be playing them every year. We’ll get them back.”
Rodriguez was the head coach of the Mountaineers in multiple Backyard Brawls — eight to be exact — with most of them coming in his first tenure in Morgantown. Rodriguez was the head coach in the infamous 2007 rivalry game, where WVU lost a heartbreaker 13-9 in Milan Puskar Stadium. He holds a 5-3 record against Pitt.
The Backyard Brawl was a lot more common when Rodriguez was first coaching because both teams were in the Big East. Now, Pitt is in the ACC, which it joined in 2013, and WVU is in the Big 12, which it became a member of in 2012. Since both teams are in separate conferences, it’s harder to schedule the rivalry game because it counts as one of the few non-conference games. The ACC plays nine to eight conference games, and the Big 12 plays nine.
“I think all that’s happened in college athletics, part of the conference expansions and breakups, or whatever, has caused a lot,” Rodriguez said. “Some of those traditional riders go by the wayside.”
Rodriguez wants the regional rivalries to return, not just for the Backyard Brawl. There are a lot of local rivals for the Mountaineers, including Penn State, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Marshall and Cincinnati. He thinks everyone in college football should come together and create some regional non-conference games, renewing some of those rivalries.
“It’d be nice to have some regional, us all come together,” Rodriguez said. “Can we all get together and shake hands and give each other a group hug? And then have an Eastern Regional, a South Regional, a North Regional, and then everybody shares the money. There’s money for everybody. We all can get along, like 60 of us or so. I think that would be great. I don’t know. Did anybody else say that? Probably not. They might be afraid. I don’t care. I think that would be good.”
There are a lot of issues with the regional rivalries. The non-conference schedule is put together years in advance. The Mountaineers have their three non-conference opponents set until 2030. As Rodriguez said, there’s a lot of money involved and massive television deals to figure out as well. It doesn’t seem like it’ll happen anytime soon.
After this three-year break, WVU and Pitt are slated to play seven times from 2029 to 2036, so there will be plenty of Backyard Brawl games in the future.
But, Rodriguez, who turned 63 in May, is on the back end of his career and wants to make sure he can coach in as many regional rivalry games as possible.
“I got all the ADs out there shaking their heads like I’m nuts,” Rodriguez said. “I got more time behind me than ahead of me. I want to get this thing right before I leave.”
