Baker Eying Annual Backyard Brawl

West Virginia University athletic director Wren Baker wants the Pitt series to continue

In the new world of college football, rivalries are falling to the wayside, while West Virginia is looking to return one of the oldest rivals in Pitt, known as the Backyard Brawl, back to the forefront.

A year ago, the two met for the first time in 11 years and kicked off the 2022 season in front of the biggest Thursday night audience on ESPN in five years and set the attendance record of 70,622) at Acrisure Stadium, the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

West Virginia University head coach Neal Brown has been vocal about the rivalry in the hopes that it continues in the future. Pitt is on the schedule through 2025 before returning for the start of another four-game series in ’29. Of course, Brown’s sentiment is not alone.

Going on ninth months onto the job, WVU Vice President and Director of Athletics Wren Baker has quickly learned the importance of the Backyard Brawl to Mountaineer fans, stating Wednesday afternoon,” [It] didn't take very long to figure it out that's a very important game to our fan base and to theirs and to this area and this region.”

West Virginia is also looking to ease out of the brutal non-conference schedule. Playing two Power Five opponents along with nine conference games has given the Mountaineers one of the toughest schedules in the country, but keeping an old rival on the schedule is a priority.

“I think having a power five regional rival on the schedule every year is important. We would probably prefer that be Pitt that game,” said Baker.

The past two seasons, the Mountaineers recently rekindled an old, heated rivalry with Virginia Tech in a home-and-home series with WVU claiming both games, but it's currently not on the future schedule. Along with Pitt, WVU meets Penn State to open the season. Baker is open to the possibility of cycling through regional rivals to fill the void of the program’s rivalries but not in the same year. 

“In the years when it's not Pitt, who's another regional rival that we could take on,” he said. “Is that Virginia Tech? This year we have Penn State, and then can we get a meaningful group of five FBS opponent that either we pay some money to come in here or we do some type of two for one scenario, but you would like for it to be a game with some kind of regional meaning meaningfulness. So, you know, one of the MAC schools, you know, maybe a Sunbelt school.”

Marshall has been trying to get WVU annually on its schedule and political pressure obliged the series for seven games from 2006-12, where the Mountaineers were forced to go to Huntington twice. Naturally, WVU won all seven games, and the current AD has no ambition to travel to Huntington.

“We're not eager or probably willing to go to Huntington, but we, you know, I don't know that we would say no to Marshall, if they want to come here,” said Baker.

As far as future schedules are concerned, Brown and Baker are on the same page, one Power Five opponent, an FCS school and preferably Pitt in ideally a schedule that sees seven home games. 

Baker noted he’s known Pitt Athletic Director Heather Lyke for eight to nine years and had a conversation with her over the summer regarding the basketball series, although football didn’t come up.

“I know there’s a willingness to extend in pretty much every sport with our series with Pitt, I believe that’s the case on their end,” said Baker. “She was pretty positive when I talked to her, but we probably need to follow back up and circle up and see what that really looks like."

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