Majority of College GameDay Crew Picks WVU to Win Backyard Brawl

The College GameDay made its Backyard Brawl prediction, and if it’s a majority rule, it picked WVU to win the Brawl this season.

You knew Pat McAfee would pick West Virginia, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (who said that he took official visits to both Pitt and WVU when he was coming out of high school) picked WVU in support of McAfee and Lee Corso gave the pair the majority.

Desmond Howard and Kirk Herbstreit picked Pitt to shake off the loss to Cincinnati and pick up a win over West Virginia today.

College GameDay held a special show at Acrisure Stadium last season, spending an hour at the pregame of renewal of the Brawl as both teams kicked off their respective seasons.

There was a chance that GameDay would go to Morgantown this weekend, but with the rise of Deion Sanders and Colorado, it ultimately did not happen.

Both Pitt and West Virginia are entering the week at 1-1, with wins over FCS opponents, and neither side has looked particularly effective this season.

West Virginia lost a Week 1 matchup against Penn State in Happy Valley, falling apart in the fourth quarter against the Nittany Lions, before rebounding with a 56-17 win over Duquesne over the weekend.

Pitt had a lot of questions to answer heading into the Backyard Brawl today after a lackluster showing against Cincinnati last weekend, and there wasn’t a lot of time to answer those questions this week in practice. But Pitt is certainly excited to travel down to Morgantown.

“I told them after last, it’s another rivalry,” M.J. Devonshire said this week. “I’ll be walking around saying, ‘West Virginia doesn’t care. If you’re having a bad day, they don’t care. If you won or lost last week, they don’t care.’ They’re trying to beat you whether you won by 100 or lost by 100 the week before. That’s the type of team they are, and that’s the type of game they’re preparing to play. And you gotta be prepared for that.

“We’ve adapted to that, and we know that it is what it is, you gotta move on. The sun came up, and we got another opportunity to play football.”

There will be a lot on the line for both Pitt and West Virginia this weekend, and it should be a wild night in Morgantown. After all, it is the first Backyard Brawl in Morgantown since the 2011 season.

Pitt has a chance to shake off any lingering concerns from a bad Cincinnati loss by leaving Morgantown early Sunday morning with a win.