Sunday, November 12, 2006

It's That Time of Year Again

Everyone has their big rivalry games coming up this week or the next. Michigan vs. Ohio St., Auburn vs. Alabama, Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, etc. That game for West Virginia is without a doubt Pitt. With the new Big East, we really don't have too many rivalry games now that Virginia Tech, Boston College, and Miami are gone. There will always be a rivalry with Syracuse. The annual games with Louisville look promising. Marshall just plain sucks, and will suffer many a drubbing at the hands of the Mountaineers.

But Pitt is that game that you just don't care what the record is, you want to win and you want to win big. Given the proximity of the two schools, a mere 75 miles apart, this is a game that earned the nickname "The Backyard Brawl."

The first meeting between these two schools was in 1895, and they have played almost every year since then. In total, the two teams have met 97 times with Pitt winning 58, WVU winning 36, and three ties. Just to make it look as good as I possibly can, West Virginia has won 10 of the last 15 meetings. But the Panthers are on their way back to respectability. Yesterdays overtime loss to UConn doesn't back me up on that, but the Panthers look to be headed for their second straight top 25 recruiting class and should be a formidable opponent in the near future.

As usual, I will have most of my game analysis over at the WVU Fanhouse, but check back here for all the things I can't post over there.

3 comments:

John Radcliff said...

No doubt! I think we'll be ok if we can get any kind of rush on Palko.

Bic said...

I wish I could say I think it could be close but White and Slaton will run all over my boys. We haven't stopped a decent rushing attack all year (including the last 3 weeks) and our d-coordinater isn't making any adjustments to help us out.

Basically we're screwed. Go Pitt anyways.

John Radcliff said...

Thanks for stopping by Dennis. Besides this week, best of luck to you the rest of the way. Win whatever bowl you guys go to.