A Unique Rivalry
November 21, 2009 05:27 PM | General
November 21, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – At the time Robert Sands didn’t necessarily have a dog in the hunt, but he does remember watching Pitt’s 13-9 upset victory over West Virginia on television in the 2007 version of the Backyard Brawl played in Morgantown.
 |
|
| West Virginia's Jock Sanders gets in the open field against Pitt in last year's game at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh.
David Miller photo |
“I was at a hotel at a leadership conference (in Florida) watching the game with my assistant principal,” remembered Sands. “That next weekend I was getting ready to take my official visit to Pitt and Pitt ended up winning the game.”
It was when Sands arrived on his visit to Pitt that he began to get a much clearer picture of what the Backyard Brawl means to both schools.
“When I got there it was amazing,” said Sands. “They couldn’t stop talking about (the West Virginia win). They seemed like they had never beaten West Virginia in years or something like that.”
In a strange twist, the Pitt victory actually got Sands interested in West Virginia.
“I knew that West Virginia was a good school if Pitt would react like that to just one win,” he said. “I figured West Virginia must be something if they were going to overreact to one win like that.”
Sands eventually wound up committing to the Mountaineers when Doc Holliday joined the WVU staff.
Pitt also reaped recruiting benefits from that 2007 victory. Two top Pittsburgh prospects visiting West Virginia for the game, Cameron Saddler and Shayne Hale, could be seen celebrating with the Pitt players on the field afterward.
Today those two guys are wearing Pittsburgh Panther uniforms.
These two schools compete against each other 365 days a year - once on the football field and 364 more times in recruiting.
North Braddock’s Wes Lyons first started watching Pitt games in the eighth grade when his older brother Devon was being recruited by the Panthers. Like Devon, who went to Ohio State, Wes wanted out of the city.
“I feel like those that leave Pittsburgh are the ones that want to grow up and get away from their mothers and fathers – get out from their wings and go and play for a different program,” said Lyons.
Weirton linebacker Zac Cooper remembered going to a Pitt football camp when Walt Harris was still coaching the Panthers.
“For me, the University of Pittsburgh is closer to my house than Morgantown is,” said Cooper. “A lot of people from Weirton will say they are from Pittsburgh. I don’t do that, but I know a lot of people who do. It’s very close. I went to Pittsburgh long before I ever went to Morgantown because of the shopping and the restaurants.”
When Cooper committed to West Virginia, his Weir High coaches would no longer take phone calls from college recruiters. Some of those calls were coming from Pitt.
“I’m pretty sure they offered my senior year,” Cooper said. “I didn’t know about any of (the other offers) until signing day when one of the assistant coaches told me about them.”
When Parkersburg’s Josh Jenkins de-committed from West Virginia after Rich Rodriguez took the Michigan job (just days following the Pitt loss) Pitt was one of the first schools to get Jenkins on the telephone.
“I started talking to them late and I was supposed to take a visit but at the last minute some things came up,” explained Jenkins.
Talk about trying to scratch someone’s eyeballs out. In a rivalry as emotional as the Backyard Brawl, the temptation is sometimes simply too hard to resist.
West Virginia couldn’t.
Last winter defensive end Will Clarke made an early commitment to Pitt and then decided to wait it out after signing day. He wound up taking a trip down to West Virginia and opted to switch his commitment to the Mountaineers.
Dave Johnson, who recruits Pittsburgh for West Virginia, also talked with some satisfaction last spring about prying Thomas Jefferson (Pa.) High School product Pat Eger away from the Panthers. Thomas Jefferson has long been considered a Pitt pipeline.
That is just one of the reasons why the West Virginia-Pitt rivalry is so unique. The two campuses are just 75 miles apart. News coverage overlaps. The two schools use the same airports; West Virginians often go to Pittsburgh for shopping and entertainment.
“I flew into Pittsburgh the other day coming off the road recruiting and I'm wearing my West Virginia stuff sitting on the plane,” said Lockwood. “Wouldn’t you know it some guy comes up to me and says, ‘Oh man, that West Virginia-Pitt game is next week. Morgantown is going to be hopping!’”
Lockwood’s introduction to the Backyard Brawl came just hours after West Virginia’s loss to Maryland when he was a freshman defensive back for the Mountaineers in 1984.
“I’ll never forget after the game we’re going downtown later that night and already hanging out of the dorm windows were sheets reading, ‘Eat Blah-Blah Pitt!’” Lockwood laughed. “That’s when I realized this game has got to be something a little different than the other ones that we played.”
Since 1963 when the Backyard Brawl finally became a true home and home series, West Virginia has won 22 times and Pitt has won 22 times. There have been two ties.
How is that for competitiveness? Right now folks up in Ann Arbor would gladly settle for a three-for-one with Ohio State.
West Virginia assistant head coach Steve Dunlap pointed out that both coaching staffs are well versed in the tradition of the Backyard Brawl.
“We have so many coaches on our staff that either played at West Virginia or are from West Virginia, and (Dave) Wannstedt has Pitt guys up there,” noted Dunlap. “We’re West Virginia guys and they’re Pitt guys and that’s what makes it even better because we know the history.”
Because of that, it doesn’t take long for players such as Selvish Capers from Louisiana to learn how much this game means to its participants.
“I remember some of the coaches talking about Pitt, especially Doc Holliday. The way he was talking about them … I can’t even say some of the things he was saying but you could see the passion and emotion he had and how much this game means to him,” Capers said.
It now means so much to Chris Neild (an Eastern Pa native) that he can’t even bring himself to talk about the 2007 loss to the Panthers that cost West Virginia an opportunity to play in the national championship game against Ohio State.
“There is nothing about that game that I want to talk about, plus it was on my birthday,” he said. “It was bad – I’ve totally erased it from my memory. That is exactly how I feel about it.”
More than thirty years later, Steve Dunlap, a linebacker on the 1975 team that upset Pitt 17-14 in Morgantown, is still ticked off about a late Pitt touchdown pass in a 31-14 Panther victory in Pittsburgh in 1974.
“They threw a bomb at the end of the game and they were already winning,” said Dunlap. “That made me hot.”
Hardened West Virginia veterans of the Backyard Brawl are convinced that the Mountaineers perform best when they have a chip on their shoulders with something to prove.
 |
|
| It doesn't take players on either team long to realize the importance of the Backyard Brawl.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“We go back and tell kids how West Virginia got to be where it is today, how it’s always been a struggle and it hasn’t been easy,” said Dunlap. “We tell them about the work ethic and what it takes to be successful today. We’ve always had guys who really believed in what we were doing and worked extremely hard and they were mentally and physically tough.”
“You’ve got two blue-collar type of places and guys who go to work in the morning and they put that hard hat on and they’re not done until the day is over,” added Lockwood. “They work for everything that they earn. To me that’s what it’s all about.”
Oftentimes the coaches don’t even have to say a word to the players.
“Everybody keeps asking me, ‘When are you going to beat Pitt?’” said Neild. “That is the first question I receive sometimes from people.”
Sands got a reminder the other day. It came, from all places, in class from his professor.
“Our teacher was making examples about Pitt this or West Virginia that … the Backyard Brawl this,” Sands laughed. “I mean it’s crazy when you’ve got teachers in the class room giving examples during a lecture about the Backyard Brawl. It definitely means a lot to the people here and hopefully we’ll go out and everyone finally gets to see this complete game that we need to have.”
“Just the fact that West Virginia is kind of like my home now you see how people look at this game and it kind of makes you feel the same way,” added Capers. “You don’t want anybody coming into your home and messing it all up. You have that protective area and you want to defend it.
“I guess this is a game where we have to go out and defend West Virginia.”
Now isn’t that what college football rivalries are all about?
