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DAVE WANNSTEDT NEEDED his group to do some learning.
The Pitt soccer coach was main the 4-7 Panthers into the 2007 version of the Yard Brawl towards No. 2 West Virginia in Morgantown as a 28.5-point underdog.
However he wasn’t involved with exhibiting his gamers blitzes or display screen passes. As an alternative, he confirmed them photos of the bus Pitt would experience into West Virginia and informed them tales of the group bus getting pelted with beer bottles and rocks on earlier journeys to Morgantown.
“I used to be simply attempting to inform our gamers, ‘We higher prepare for what we’re driving into right here. That is greater than only a faculty soccer sport,'” Wannstedt stated.
Star operating again LeSean “Shady” McCoy was prepared.
“So we’re driving in on the bus, and it is quiet,” Wannstedt recalled. “And hastily … Bang! Bang! Right here it comes. And Shady form of stands up and says, ‘Hey, Coach, identical to we noticed on the tape!’ after which the entire bus simply comes alive.”
Issues had been simply getting began. On the primary play of the sport — a 12-yard run from McCoy — West Virginia defensive finish Johnny Dingle and Pitt sort out Jeff Otah had been referred to as for private fouls after getting right into a scuffle after the whistle.
“Each these guys dropped their gloves and simply began wailing on one another, and the whistles had been blowing,” Wannstedt stated. “And I am standing on the sidelines, I ruptured my Achilles [a month earlier] and I am on crutches, laughing to myself.
“I stated, ‘Nicely, these guys get it. We’re within the Yard Brawl.'”
TO UNDERSTAND THE ardour of the Yard Brawl, one should perceive the area and demographics by which the age-old rivalry exists. The groups first met in 1895 however, largely due to convention realignment, the sport has been on maintain since 2011. It returns Thursday night time in Pittsburgh (7 ET, ESPN and ESPN App), and the depth that constructed up over 104 conferences (Pitt leads 61-40-3) cannot be erased by an 11-year pause.
West Virginia’s in-house historian, director of athletics content material John Antonik, provides a good, overhead description of the rivalry.
“The factor is, we’re all mainly the identical individuals,” he stated. “The individuals in West Virginia are coal miners, and loads of the those who supported Pitt are metal staff. So you’ve got acquired the mills and the mines. So from that respect, it is comparable. However culturally, [Pitt] is an city campus, West Virginia’s a rural campus, though we’re solely 75 miles away.
“You understand, the best way it was portrayed to me from the individuals in Pittsburgh, the Pitt individuals all the time considered Penn State as the sport that they wished to win most. West Virginia was the sport they did not wish to lose. There is a massive distinction there.”
Former Pitt sports activities data director Sam Sciullo does not disagree. “Pitt followers take a look at West Virginia as extra of a nuisance or an annoyance. Like a bit gnat flying round your ear once you’re in mattress in the summertime,” he stated.
“Pitt simply thinks they’re higher than us,” added former West Virginia quarterback Marc Bulger.
Not surprisingly, there isn’t any lack of in poor health will between the 2 sides. That has been clear just about anytime Pitt has ridden into Morgantown.
“They could be beating on the bus, they could be rocking the bus or they could be throwing stuff on the bus,” stated Jackie Sherrill, Pitt’s head coach from 1977 to 1981.
“[Former Pitt head coach Johnny Majors] used to inform us to maintain our hats on as a result of some projectiles are going to be coming down,” stated Tony Dorsett, who performed at Pitt from 1973 to 1976. “You did not know what was going to occur.”
Thirty-one years later, in 2007, the Panthers and freshman quarterback Pat Bostick rode into Morgantown and had almost the identical expertise.
“We didn’t get nickels and quarters and dimes thrown at our heads … however we did have full beer cans thrown at our buses. We did have males, ladies, youngsters, flipping us the hen, saying, ‘Eat s—, Pitt!’ All these issues had been actual,” he stated.
The hate for Pitt is engrained early for these in Morgantown. “Any good West Virginia dad or mum that is a WVU grad raises their child to have the ability to say ‘Eat s—, Pitt’ throughout ‘Candy Caroline,'” Antonik stated of the Neil Diamond anthem.
The commonest retort from the Pitt devoted to Mountaineers followers is to make references to West Virginia being from “the nation.” Probably the most notorious instance of that got here in 1994.
Throughout the sport, Pitt public handle announcer Don Eire made a number of bulletins making enjoyable of West Virginia. In a single, Eire stated there was a tractor within the parking zone with its lights on with a West Virginia license plate that learn “EIEIO.” He additionally stated the stadium’s smoking ban included corn-cob pipes.
Bulger, the previous Mountaineers QB who grew up in Pittsburgh, stated his first reminiscence of the Yard Brawl was listening to Eire make the “EIEIO” crack, which brought about a little bit of a firestorm. Pitt athletic director Oval Jaynes apologized to West Virginia officers for the bulletins by Eire, who briefly resigned within the aftermath however was reinstated.
“Trying again, I am going, ‘That is so disrespectful.’ And we’re 70 miles from Morgantown,” Bulger stated. “I am [from] inner-city Pittsburgh. We’re not far; we’re the identical individuals. I do not get the entire redneck factor. That is the factor that bugs me essentially the most.”
The depth of the rivalry can lead individuals to do issues they sometimes would not.
Sherrill all the time had a priest journey with the group to steer the Lord’s Prayer and provides a blessing on the street. The 1977 journey to Morgantown was no totally different.
“So he referred to as everyone up and so they stated the Lord’s Prayer and gave a blessing,” Sherrill stated. “And the nickname of West Virginia at the moment was ‘the snakes’ — that was what the Pitt individuals referred to as West Virginia. And shortly after he gave the blessing, he stated, ‘OK, laddies, now’s the time to exit and kick the s— out of the snakes.’ The gamers checked out one another. They could not imagine that he stated it.”
Pitt gained the sport 44-3.
The proximity of the colleges, that are a bit greater than an hour’s drive aside on Interstate 79, provides gasoline to the hearth.
“A part of the attention-grabbing dynamic is, should you go to West Virginia, you go to Pitt, you are getting recruited by each faculties for essentially the most half, whether or not you are from Florida, Texas or Pittsburgh,” Bostick stated. “So our coaches knew their gamers, their coaches knew our gamers.
“[In 2007] Vaughn Rivers fumbled a kickoff return, Lowell Robinson stripped him. And I keep in mind a coach of ours speaking to Vaughn on the sideline, saying, ‘You need to have come to Pitt — this would not have occurred.'”
The recruiting wars brought about some onerous emotions and put a chip on many shoulders.
Bulger went to Central Catholic Excessive Faculty, lower than a mile from the College of Pittsburgh. Dave Havern, Bulger’s quarterbacks coach at Central Catholic, ran right into a Pitt assistant coach in the future and tried to persuade him to check out Bulger.
“I stated, ‘Hear, dude, what’s up? I imply, you possibly can stroll down and see this child,'” Havern stated. “I stated, ‘He is actually good! And I am not simply saying that. I imply, you understand, I need you guys to do nicely.’ In order that they stated, ‘We do not suppose he is a D-I participant.'”
“It wasn’t Johnny, me and Coach Majors turned mates after,” Bulger stated, “however his coordinators informed me I would not play Division II, not to mention Division I. And I stated, ‘OK.’ Coach [Don] Nehlen got here in and wished me and so I went down there.”
Regardless of Nehlen giving Bulger an opportunity at West Virginia, the QB had one gripe together with his coach.
“Coach Nehlen was the perfect ever. I really like the man,” Bulger stated. “I am simply mad he pulled me within the third quarter. We’re enjoying in Three Rivers [Stadium] in ’98. I had six touchdowns. I wished to get to love eight or 9, and after the third quarter he pulled me. I am going, ‘I wished to remain in!’ and there isn’t any means another person is gonna throw 9 or 10 touchdowns in a sport, even these days. However he did not wish to get me harm as a result of it was all the time a day after Thanksgiving and the bowl was coming.
“However I would have cherished to throw 10 TDs on Pitt, that’d have been so nice … As a result of I knew the coaches had been nonetheless there that informed me I wasn’t ok.”
THERE ARE GAMES that assist outline the rivalry. There are some which might be merely nice video games. After which there are some which might be each.
In 1955, West Virginia was 7-0 and ranked No. 6 within the nation going into the Brawl earlier than shedding to Pitt, ruining the Mountaineers’ Sugar Bowl bid. The Panthers had been chosen as an alternative.
West Virginia knocked off Pitt in what is named the “Garbage Game” in 1961 after one in every of Pitt’s gamers stated the Mountaineers had been rebuilding their program with “Western Pennsylvania rubbish.”
In 1975, Mountaineers walk-on kicker Invoice McKenzie made the go-ahead area purpose within the closing seconds to offer West Virginia a win over No. 20 Pitt. Because the Panthers had been leaving Morgantown for the drive again to Pittsburgh, they might see couches being set on hearth alongside the best way.
“It was in all probability the largest celebration Morgantown has ever had,” Sherrill stated.
Pitt would get revenge the next season in a sport by which Dorsett set off an precise brawl on the finish.
“As the sport went on, there have been guys, you understand, they’d sort out me after which be within the pileup pinching me, punching me, or on this specific scenario was after they tackled me and the one defender as I used to be getting up, he pushed my head into the turf,” he stated. “I misplaced it at that time.”
Dorsett was ejected for the primary time in his faculty profession. He would go on to win the Heisman Trophy that season and assist Pitt win its ninth nationwide championship.
When it comes to capturing the depth, ardour and spirit of the rivalry, it is onerous to prime 1970, when West Virginia opened a 35-8 lead within the first half.
“The whole lot that we did within the first half labored,” former West Virginia linebacker Tom Zakowski stated. “We simply scored landing after landing. Got here in off the sector at halftime within the locker room, you understand, loads of pleasure, loads of happiness, loads of again slapping.”
The environment within the Pitt locker room, not surprisingly, was fairly totally different, however not in the best way one may anticipate.
“We went in at halftime and it was like, jeez. No one was yelling and screaming and the coaches weren’t berating us for the rotten half we had performed,” then-Panthers quarterback Dave Havern stated. “However I keep in mind it was a child, a man John Stevens. He was an enormous defensive sort out from Sharon, Pennsylvania, up round Youngstown. And an enormous, powerful man, you understand?
“So Stevens will get up and he is a brawler, he says, ‘Hey, I don’t give a rattling what occurs the remainder of this half, however I am beating the s— out of my man.'”
West Virginia did not get a single first down within the second half, whereas Pitt switched to a Energy-I offense and ran the ball your entire half, successful the sport 36-35.
After the sport, West Virginia followers had been banging on the Mountaineers’ locker room door, livid at then-head coach Bobby Bowden.
Invoice Hillgrove, who has been the voice of Pitt athletics since 1974, stated, “The vivid reminiscence there was that the press field had a microphone down close to the locker room to get gamers’ quotes. And you possibly can hear the West Virginia followers chanting for Bobby Bowden’s head due to the best way the sport went.”
“There are individuals alive at present that keep in mind that sport that also are satisfied that Bobby Bowden is a horrible soccer coach,” Antonik stated. “From that second on, nothing might persuade them in any other case.”
West Virginia had its personal enormous comeback in 1983. The yr prior, No. 2 Pitt and No. 14 West Virginia performed one of many rivalry’s largest video games from a nationwide perspective, with Dan Marino sealing the Panthers’ win with a 6-yard landing cross with 3 minutes, 24 seconds to play.
West Virginia quarterback Jeff Hostetler needed to be helped onto the bus after the sport due to the bodily play of Pitt’s ferocious protection.
Nehlen’s groups had been chipping away at Pitt since he took over in Morgantown in 1980, and whereas the Mountaineers got here shut in 1982, Hostetler helped him kick the door down in 1983.
“A variety of issues had been predicated on the yr earlier than,” Hostetler stated. “That Pitt group had, I believe, 9 or 10 drafted gamers within the NFL — they had been loaded. And that is a sport that we must always have gained, we had the chance. We performed rather well, and we let it slip away on the very finish towards an especially gifted group. And in order that style by no means left any of my teammates and I. We wished this sport.”
West Virginia trailed 21-17 with 12:27 to play and began what can be the game-winning drive by itself 10-yard line.
“I can keep in mind stepping into the huddle and saying, ‘Ninety yards. Right here we go, guys. We’re going. We’re scoring,'” Hostetler stated.
At one level in the course of the drive, Hostetler scrambled out of bounds and was once more hit by the Pitt protection that had tormented him the yr earlier than.
“The stadium was packed, the sidelines had been packed,” Hostetler stated. “I am laying on the sidelines simply having gotten hit, and hastily I am being lifted up by two or three guys. And I look, and so they’re my brothers. In some way they acquired down onto the sector, and so they’re yelling, ‘Again in there — let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!'”
Hostetler acquired up and completed the drive. With the ball on Pitt’s 6-yard line, Nehlen referred to as for a bootleg that Hostetler stated he had been asking for your entire second half.
“I knew it might work, and I could not get Coach to name it,” Hostetler stated. “After which we’re down there on the 6, and he calls it, it is identical to, ‘I do know we’re scoring.’ It was an superior, superior feeling. Particularly being at house, and particularly towards Pitt.”
Antonik stated the sport was a defining one for Nehlen’s tenure as Mountaineers coach.
“It snapped a seven-game shedding streak,” Antonik stated. “And from that time on, it utterly modified. The entire stability of the sequence modified.”
Because the Hostetler-led, 24-21 comeback win, West Virginia leads the sequence 18-9-2.
“I believe that on this rivalry to actually get a full view and understanding of this sport is once you lose it,” Antonik stated. “That is once you actually really feel the total impact of this soccer sport.”
PITT WAS A four-touchdown underdog going into Morgantown in 2007. The week earlier than, the 10-1 Mountaineers put up 66 factors and 624 yards towards No. 20 UConn. The ultimate sport of the common season was anticipated to be a tuneup.
Within the week main as much as the sport, Wannstedt was involved with how the Panthers had been practising defensively.
Standing with offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh, Wannstedt seemed over to the defensive facet and noticed the group doing tackling drills. Extra time handed, and about midway by the observe, Wannstedt seemed over once more. The protection was nonetheless doing tackling drills.
“Paul Rhoads was our defensive coordinator,” Wannstedt stated. “So I stroll over, I say, ‘Paul, come right here. What are we doing?’ And he says, ‘Coach, the extra movie I take a look at, if we do not sort out these guys, it do not make any distinction what scheme we have now. We won’t cease them. They’re that athletic and that quick.’
“Lengthy story quick, on the finish of the sport, we had eight missed tackles for your entire sport. In years previous, we might have eight missed tackles on one play.”
The sport went precisely the best way Pittsburgh wanted it to with a view to win — 5 West Virginia turnovers, a thumb harm to Mountaineers quarterback Pat White, two missed kicks by WVU’s Pat McAfee. Pitt was capable of stick with its sport plan and never ask an excessive amount of of Bostick, giving McCoy as many touches as attainable.
Pitt gained 13-9, and West Virginia’s probability to play for the nationwide championship was misplaced.
“You understand how when individuals undergo like traumatic cases and so they kinda attempt to neglect all the pieces that occurred round it?” White stated. “Aside from me dislocating my thumb and the final play of the sport, I could not inform you what occurred. I’ve but to look at it. I do not know if I can.”
“They already had the banner hanging out in entrance of the Hilton down in New Orleans,” Wannstedt stated. “‘Welcome Mountaineers!’ They had been gonna play the nationwide championship sport. It was achieved.”
“I keep in mind postgame,” Bostick stated. “I’ve by no means been in a locker room like that. You could possibly hear us in (then-West Virginia coach) Wealthy Rodriguez’s press convention. Like they’re on lockers, there are guys crowd browsing. There’s a lot that night time that is such a blur. As a result of, you understand, for me, it was gonna be the fruits of a reasonably powerful season. Nevertheless it simply occurred and was one of many issues that you possibly can not have predicted would occur.”
On the opposite facet, Rodriguez and his group had been in shock.
“I had a really temporary discuss with them after which went again to the coaches’ locker room — and puked a bit bit,” he stated.
THE BACKYARD BRAWL was historically performed on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This season, the sport will function faculty soccer’s opening act for Week 1.
Each head coaches and their gamers can be getting their first style of the Brawl. West Virginia coach Neal Brown stated simply because this yr’s sport is totally different than in years previous, that does not make it any much less significant.
“You begin desirous about it, we’re a reasonably younger group,” he stated. “Our guys had been 8, 9, 10, 11 years previous final time this sport was performed, so there’s not a complete lot of recall, even from the blokes which might be from the state of West Virginia. …
“However man, you wish to deliver out actual ardour within the West Virginia fan base — our alumni or our former gamers — you discuss concerning the Yard Brawl, and also you get it. You play ‘Candy Caroline’ one time at a West Virginia occasion, and then you definately get an thought of what this rivalry means. So the significance of the sport will not be misplaced on myself or our group or employees.”
Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi stated, “The those who had been right here 10 or 15 years in the past that acquired spit on, they acquired rocks thrown or beer dumped on them, these are individuals that basically get into rivalries. However I do know sufficient about rivalries that I wish to embrace it for our children as a result of it is essential to us. And if it is essential to our followers within the Panther nation, it is essential to me. That is what we do, is go combat for one another, and so that is what it is all about.”
West Virginia redshirt senior extensive receiver Bryce Ford-Wheaton will turn into the third era in his household to take part within the Brawl. His grandfather performed in it within the Sixties, and his uncle performed in it within the late Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties.
“I simply by no means actually really thought I would have my very own crack at Pitt,” Ford-Wheaton stated. “So for it to come back full circle — I simply keep in mind all of the brawls in the course of the sport or the fights I’d see, the chippiness and, I imply, there’s actually a hatred for Pitt. So simply to lastly expertise that myself and be capable of play within the sport goes to be a loopy factor.”
West Virginia senior defensive lineman Dante Stills, whose father performed within the rivalry within the mid ’90s, stated, “My dad informed me it is a tough sport, it is gonna be backwards and forwards, it is gonna be very bodily. So I am simply getting that mindset the place I am simply going to put down on the road.”
Pitt and West Virginia have a home-and-home settlement that runs by the 2025 season, with Pitt internet hosting this yr and 2024. After a three-year hiatus, the groups are scheduled to fulfill every season from 2029 to 2032.
Whereas that is all nicely and good for the followers, the gamers’ main focus stays Thursday night time.
“So many individuals are so keen about it, when individuals discuss it, I really feel it of their voices,” Pitt redshirt senior defensive lineman Deslin Alexandre stated. “I believe it is massive for Pittsburgh, it is massive for West Virginia simply to have this Yard Brawl again.”