Backyard Brawl: WVU players ‘recognize their legacy could be authored on Thursday night’
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Jed Drenning knows how West Virginia football fans talk about the Backyard Brawl. He was a backup quarterback for the Mountaineers, and he has been part of their game-day broadcast crew for 20 years.
Those games are spoken about in snapshots. In individual moments. In specific final scores.
“Where were you when (in 1975) Bill McKenzie kicked the field goal? Where were you (in 1983) when Jeff Hostetler ran the bootleg? Where were you (in 1994) when Chad Johnston hit Zach Abraham?” Drenning said during Tuesday’s “Breakfast With Benz” podcast.
How about “Where were you (in 2007) for Pitt 13 West Virginia 9?” Is that talked about like “Where were you when Sid Slid” in Pittsburgh?
“I’m a Pirates fan too. You’re zinging me twice,” Drenning joked. “What are you trying to do to me?”
Good memories or bad, in Morgantown or Pittsburgh, none have been forged into Backyard Brawl lore lately because the rivalry has been dormant for 11 years, with West Virginia winning the last three contests from 2009-11.
Thanks to constant conference realignments, scheduling excuses, administrative politics and college football economics, the Panthers and Mountaineers have just stared at each other up and down I-79 with flared nostrils. But no games have been played.
Much to the dismay of both fan bases.
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That, in a way, has made the absence of this rivalry even more irritating than the fact that Pitt versus Penn State is also no longer played on an annual basis. In that rivalry, part of what has kept it simmering is the standoffish nature of part of the Nittany Lion fan base (especially those living east of State College) and its administration towards Pitt. As if Penn State doesn’t need Pitt and is doing their neighbors to the west a huge favor any time they schedule the Panthers.
We can all debate to what degree that is truth or Blue and White hubris. It exists in Pittsburgh towards WVU to a certain extent as well. But for the vast majority of Pitt fans I come across, they want the WVU game back. And they want it bad.
Drenning says it’s the same in the Mountain State.
“West Virginia has missed this game. The Mountaineer fans have missed this game. Growing up, so many stories revolve around (the rivalry),” Drenning said. “That is what makes a rivalry. For all the things that you do over the balance of your career. The kids on the team right now recognize their legacy could be authored on Thursday night by what happens in this football game. What you do against a rival the magnitude of the Pitt Panthers really, really matters in terms of what you are going to leave behind as a legacy in West Virginia as a player.”
Also in the podcast, Drenning and I talk about the state of the Mountaineer program under Neal Brown in his fourth year, new starting quarterback J.T. Daniels and why the Backyard Brawl is a unique departure on West Virginia’s schedule.
Tomorrow on the podcast, we look at the rivalry from Pitt’s perspective with former Panthers defensive lineman Chris McKillop.
Listen: Tim Benz talks with Jed Drenning about the WVU perspective on the Backyard Brawl