The Backyard Brawl is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. this weekend. It was 7:30 p.m. last season. It could be played at 10 in the morning for all Pat Narduzzi cares; it doesn’t matter. The Backyard Brawl is the Backyard Brawl.
“It doesn’t matter when this game gets played; it’s the Brawl, it’s the Backyard Brawl,” Narduzzi said Thursday during his weekly presser. “It doesn’t matter when it gets played.”
But Narduzzi does have an idea of when exactly he would like the Brawl to be played — in terms of the time of year.
The Brawl has been played early in the season since the series resumed in 2022. It was the season opener in 2022, one of the first games of the college football season. It’s been in Week 3 in each of the past two seasons and will remain in Week 3 next season. But the series comes back in 2029 after a brief hiatus, Narduzzi would like to see the Brawl at a later date.
“But I believe the next time we pay them, it’s going to be later in the year, it’s going to be Thanksgiving Day, how about that? Why not? …
“It’s gotta be on the schedule, when you schedule these things, you schedule way in advance, so I think the next four games that we have with them, I think we’ve tried to get it in November sometime. But we’d like it to be back like it used to be back in the old days.”
The 107th Brawl is the third installment of a four-game series, which was previously scheduled for 2022-25, and after a three-year pause from 2026-28, the series will resume in 2029. And with the resumption, another four-game series. Narduzzi would like for the series to be played every season.
“I believe that the game should be played all the time,” Narduzzi said. “I don’t think there’s any — this is why you coach football, this is why you play the game.”
The Brawl, when it’s on the schedule, is one of the most eagerly anticipated games on the Pitt schedule — especially when it’s in Pittsburgh. And with the Panthers coming off a historic comeback victory, Panther Nation will be out in full force this weekend.
Pitt is 2-0, coming off a come-from-behind win against Cincinnati this weekend, and is looking to improve to 3-0 for the first time since 2020.
West Virginia is 1-1, rebounding from a season-opening loss against Penn State with a 49-14 beatdown against Albany. WVU quarterback Garrett Greene and the Mountaineers’ offense are looking to continue their ascent.
Pitt leads the all-time series with West Virginia 62-41-3. It’s a series that initially kicked off in the 1800s, with an 8-0 WVU win 1895, but the two sides played every season from 1943-2011 — and just about every season since 1900 before that. It’s grown into perhaps the greatest rivalry in college football in the years since.
The series stopped for 10 seasons due to both teams leaving the Big East, with Pitt going to the ACC and West Virginia to the Big 12, following the 2011 season.
But it resumed in the 2022 season. Pitt knocked off WVU, 38-31, to open the season at Acrisure Stadium, and WVU returned the favor with a 17-6 win at Milan Puskar Stadium last season. After last season’s embarrassing showing, with three interceptions from then-quarterback Phil Jurkovec, the Panthers have a lot to prove this time around.
back in the 70s, i thought the Pitt-Penn St game always was the day after thanksgiving, not the brawl. maybe my memory isn’t correct.