Backyard Brawl breakdown: Pitt’s top 5 wins in the series vs. WVU
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The football teams of Pitt and West Virginia started playing each other in 1895. The Mountaineers won the first three games by scores of 8-0, 6-0 and 6-5.
They decided to keep playing, anyway.
In 1904, after scoring a total of 29 points over six games, Pitt won 53-0, starting a string of seven consecutive shutout victories by the Panthers. In fact, Pitt shut out WVU 20 times from 1901-1945.
Touchdowns were worth four points, Pitt was known as the Western University of Pennsylvania and the game would not be known as the Backyard Brawl until the 1960s. In fact, Pitt and West Virginia did not play on an annual basis until 1943.
After 2011, the schools moved into the Big 12 and ACC, and the rivalry was dormant for 10 years. The first rematch since that night in Morgantown, W. Va., kicks off at 7 p.m. Thursday at Acrisure Stadium in an nationally televised (ESPN) 2022 opener for both teams. Wisely, Pitt and WVU officials have put their heads together and scheduled seven more games through 2032.
Here are five of the most memorable Pitt victories in the Brawl. Many thanks to Pitt author and historian Sam Sciullo Jr. for his considerable help in compiling this list.
Pitt 26, WVU 7, Nov. 12, 1955, Pitt Stadium
Before 13-9, there was 26-7.
More than a half-century before Pitt ruined West Virginia’s national championship hopes with the 13-9 victory in Morgantown in 2007, the Panthers beat undefeated and sixth-ranked West Virginia.
The Mountaineers had not lost a game since losing to Pitt, 13-10, in 1954 in Morgantown. WVU was undefeated before the ’54 game, too.
In 1955, Sugar Bowl representatives sat in the press box in anticipation of extending an invitation to West Virginia. Quarterback Fred Wyant and linebacker Sam Huff, who had helped defeat Pitt as freshmen in 1952, were seniors now. But Wyant was injured early and left the game.
Pitt almost recorded a shutout for first-year coach John Michelosen. In the closing seconds, Pitt was leading 26-0 when West Virginia scored its only touchdown.
Pitt fans already had been circling the field, and when WVU scored, they couldn’t wait any longer. Officials were unable to clear the field for the extra point, and the seventh point was simply awarded to West Virginia.
Who went to the Sugar Bowl that year? The following week, Pitt secured the bid WVU fans were counting on with a victory against Penn State at Happy Valley. It was a historic Sugar Bowl whose significance carried far beyond the 7-0 Georgia Tech victory.
That year, Pitt fullback Bobby Grier became the first Black player in the Sugar Bowl.
Pitt 36, WVU 35, Oct. 17, 1970, Pitt Stadium
In the days before the game, Pitt’s Black players threatened a boycott because of perceived racial inequalities on campus.
The boycott didn’t take place, and as the game unfolded, West Virginia, under first-year coach Bobby Bowden, stormed to a 35-8 halftime lead.
Without the help of any WVU turnovers or big special teams plays, Pitt scored four touchdowns on drives of 50 or more yards. Quarterback Dave Havern, who later coached at Shady Side Academy, started for injured John Hogan. Employing coach Carl DePasqua’s Power I formation, Havern handed off to running backs Denny Ferris, Dave Garnett and Tony Esposito. Tight end Joel Klimek caught a pair of 2-point conversion passes.
The game-winner was Havern’s 5-yard touchdown pass to Bill Pilconis with 55 seconds left in the game.
In the aftermath, enraged WVU fans pounded on the team’s locker room door inside Gate 3 at Pitt Stadium.
Pitt 16, WVU 13, Oct. 2, 1982, Pitt Stadium
Many inside and outside the program believed coach Foge Fazio’s first Pitt team had enough talent and experience to win a national championship.
Pitt finished 9-3 in Dan Marino’s final season, but the Panthers opened 7-0, including a victory that almost didn’t happen against the Mountaineers.
With quarterback Jeff Hostetler in his first season since transferring from Penn State, West Virginia already had defeated Oklahoma in Norman, and was leading Pitt entering the fourth quarter on the strength of two Paul Woodside field goals.
Suddenly, WVU led 13-0 after Darryl Talley blocked Greg Ganzer’s punt, chased it into the end zone and fell on it for a touchdown. The special teams catastrophe was enough to make the Pitt players mad.
“I’ve never seen Bill Fralic so mad,” Fazio said. “Dan Marino bit his lip and gave me a look like he knew it was now or never.”
Pitt rallied behind two Marino touchdown passes and a safety, but it wasn’t vintage Marino: He completed only 20 of 41 passes that day.
The game ended when Woodside’s field-goal attempt on the final snap grazed the crossbar and fell short.
“Maybe I was taught that in the heat of the battle, you don’t quit until the last whistle, or like a boxer that you hang in there until the 15th round for a last-second knockout,” Fazio said. “I never doubted that we would come back.”
The victory was Pitt’s seventh of a seven-game winning streak against West Virginia.
Pitt 41, WVU 38 (3 OTs), Nov. 28, 1997, Mountaineer Field
In the 1990s, it was the Mountaineers who put together a winning streak in the Backyard Brawl: five in a row before the regular-season finale in Morgantown.
Walt Harris was in his first season as Pitt’s coach, trying to inject life in a program that had become stale.
Fifth-year quarterback Pete Gonzalez flourished under Harris, and he hit two back-to-the-wall passes to win the game.
First, he converted a fourth-and-17 pass to Jake Hoffart before he threw the winning touchdown pass to Terry Murphy.
The victory propelled Pitt to its first bowl game in eight years — a Liberty Bowl date with Southern Mississippi.
Pitt 13, WVU 9, Dec. 1, 2007, Mountaineer Field
Pitt was 4-7 and a 291⁄2-point underdog. West Virginia fans assumed their team was on its way to the national championship game, but Pitt recorded perhaps the most stunning upset in school history.
How did that happen? Here are three keys to the victory:
• Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt leaned heavily on running back LeSean McCoy, who carried 38 times for 148 yards.
• WVU caught a bad break when quarterback Pat White injured his thumb early and missed most of the game.
• Pitt’s defense under coordinator Paul Rhoads held WVU to 183 total yards. After the game, an emotional Rhoads sat by himself, sobbing quietly.
“I don’t think this result was as shocking as it appeared that night,” Sciullo said. “It was the final regular-season game, and Pitt had improved steadily during the season. If this game had been played in September, I think West Virginia would have won easily. But Pitt won the battle up front on both sides of the ball.”
After the game, offensive lineman Mike McGlynn said he received an obscene gesture from some West Virginia fans, but he admitted, “We were egging them on as much as they were dishing it out to us.”