MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Yesterday, three more kickoff times were announced for West Virginia University's 12-game regular season football schedule this year and all of them will be played under the lights.
 
WVU's home opener against Duquesne will kick off at 6 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN+. The recently revived Backyard Brawl against Pitt will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ABC, while the Mountaineers' road date at Houston against former coach Dana Holgorsen will start at 7 p.m. and will be televised nationally on FS1.
 
Previously, it was announced that West Virginia's season-opening game at Penn State will get underway at 7:30 p.m. and will be televised nationally on NBC.
 
The Backyard Brawl, on Saturday, Sept. 16, marks the first time in five years West Virginia is playing a Saturday night game at Milan Puskar Stadium that will kick off after 7 p.m. The last time that happened was Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016, when WVU faced Oklahoma in an 8 p.m. game televised nationally on ABC.
 
Night games in West Virginia's official football record book supplement are regarded as those starting after 5 p.m., which means locally televised matchups against Youngstown State in 2018, Georgia Southern in 2015, Towson in 2014, Wofford in 2005, East Carolina in 2004 and Tennessee-Chattanooga in 2002 also fall into this category, as does the 5 p.m. season-opener against Ohio University in 1984.
 
That was the first year Milan Puskar Stadium, then known as Mountaineer Field, got lights during a time when ESPN was starting to become a major player in college football and was steering kickoff times into its prime-time window. Schools that didn't have lights in their football stadiums back then were using companies like Musco Sports Lighting to capitalize on the prime-time exposure.
 
According to former WVU sports information director Joe Boczek, then-athletic director Fred Schaus didn't want to rent lights at Mountaineer Field, so he worked them into the sports budget prior to the 1984 season, and they were used for the season-opening game against Ohio, a non-descript 38-0 win.
 
I was just a high school sophomore then, so I don't recall the game, nor do those I asked who worked in the department at the time.
 
Of course, the first night game at Mountaineer Field that everyone remembers is Penn State, played on Saturday, Oct. 27, 1984, and kicking off at 7:45 p.m. ESPN's Jim Simpson and Paul Maguire described the contest to a national television audience.
 
Some people confuse it with the Boston College game (it aired a week prior on ABC) as the first night game at the stadium, but the BC contest kicked off at 3:30 p.m. and finished under the lights. I was at that game sitting in the WVU student section and, yes, I did run on the field afterward looking forward to taunting Doug Flutie. 
 
And, no, I couldn't find him!
 
I watched the Penn State game on TV and the things I remember most about it were D.J. Dozier's long touchdown run, Paul Woodside's long field goal and Pat Randolph's 22-yard jaunt down the far sideline when guard Scott Barrows wiped out safety Ray Isom and Randolph followed him into the end zone.
 
I also remember Joe Paterno running across the field to shake Don Nehlen's hand and then hightailing it to the locker room with time still on the clock as the students began pouring over the walls to get onto the field. Think about this: many of those crazy WVU students celebrating that great Penn State victory on the Astroturf at Mountaineer Field in 1984 are now silver-haired retirees sipping umbrella drinks with their toes sticking out from underneath the sand somewhere!
 
Despite its premature ending - or maybe partly because of it - the 1984 Penn State win must be considered one of the most memorable night games in Mountaineer Field history.
 
There were others. 
 
West Virginia defeating 14^th-ranked Syracuse to conclude its first-ever undefeated, untied regular season in school history in 1988 ranks high on the list, as does the 1998 win over the Donovan McNabb-led Orange in 1998.
 
Completely dominating third-ranked Virginia Tech 28-7 while listening to the Mountaineer students chant "ACC, ACC, ACC" throughout, and then hearing Frank Beamer whine about being treated the same way Virginia Tech fans treat West Virginia whenever it lost games to the Hokies in Blacksburg, was certainly enjoyable.
 
Beating Pitt under the lights in 2003 and in 2005, when Panther coach Dave Wannstedt said his team needed to "run faster" during a halftime interview, were two big treats.
 
The triple-overtime victory to conclude the 2006 regular season against Rutgers with backup quarterback Jarrett Brown ruining the Scarlet Knights' BCS bowl hopes was a fond memory, as were the Maryland (2006), Louisville (2007) and Auburn (2008) wins.
 
Since joining the Big 12 in 2012, I would have to label West Virginia's 58-14 victory over Baylor on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, its most memorable under the lights, although last year's win against the defending Big 12-champion Bears was pretty sweet as well.

By the way, the 1993 Miami and 2005 Louisville games don't count as night games because they started before 5 p.m.
 
There have been some forgetful ones, too, including a couple against Pitt that I won't mention.
 
This year marks the 11^th time West Virginia and Pitt will be facing each other under the lights on network TV since 1989, including a run of five straight years from 2003-07.
 
The 2009 Pitt game played at night here ended on Tyler Bitancurt's 43-yard field goal and in 2011, also a night game, West Virginia overcame a 20-7 deficit to defeat the Panthers 21-20. 
 
Perhaps another classic WVU-Pitt game at Milan Puskar Stadium is in the offing.
 
To secure your seats for this year's Backyard Brawl and the rest of the home schedule, contact the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or log on to WVUGAME.com.