 Logo for the 2022 football game | |
| Sport | Multiple |
|---|---|
| First meeting | 1895 (football) |
TheBackyard Brawl is an Americancollege sportsrivalry between theUniversity of PittsburghPanthers and theWest Virginia UniversityMountaineers. While historically a rivalry between the two schools'football programs, the term "Backyard Brawl" has also been used to refer tocollege basketball games played annually or semi-annually and may also be used to refer to other athletic competitions between the two schools. It is a registered trademark for both universities,[1] and refers to the close proximity of the two universities, separated by 75 miles (105 km) alongInterstate 79. The football rivalry is the 14th oldest in the United States and is typically shown on national television. In the past, the Backyard Brawl has been seen onABC,CBS,ESPN, andESPN2.
| Sport | Leader | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Football | Pittsburgh | 63–42–3 |
| Men's Basketball | West Virginia | 102–90 |
| Women's Basketball | West Virginia | 30–19 |
| Baseball | West Virginia | 122–93 |
| Men's Soccer | West Virginia | 35–11–5 |
| Women's Soccer | West Virginia | 13–2–1 |
The football series was first played in 1895, and the game has historically been one of the more intense rivalries in the eastern United States. The rivalry between the two schools is due mainly to proximity. WVU's campus inMorgantown, West Virginia, is only about 70 miles south of Pittsburgh (viaInterstate 79), and the two schools often compete for the same recruits.
The 1921 edition of the Backyard Brawl was the first college football game broadcast on the radio when Harold W. Arlin announced the 21–13 Pittsburgh victory onKDKA.[2]
From 1962 to 2011, the series alternated between Pittsburgh and Morgantown on a yearly basis. Before that, the games were held in Pittsburgh on an almost regular basis, with Morgantown occasionally hosting the game. At one point, Pittsburgh hosted the game 11 consecutive years (1919–29) and also hosted eight straight contests between 1938 and 1948. (There were no matchups from 1940 to 1942.) In contrast, the most consecutive games West Virginia has hosted were four consecutive from 1895 to 1901, with one of those games held inFairmont, West Virginia, now the home toFairmont State University, and one inWheeling, West Virginia. The most consecutive games played in Morgantown, three, were held from 1932 to 1934.
West Virginia started out the series leading, 5–1. Pittsburgh won four consecutive games from 1904 to 1908 (there was no game played in 1905) to tie the series at 5–5. In 1909, the teams played to a 0–0 tie, making the series 5–5–1. The following year, Pittsburgh won 38–0, taking a 6–5–1 lead in the series, and has led ever since. Since the series began interchanging annually between Morgantown and Pittsburgh in 1963, the Mountaineers have held a 25–22–2 advantage over the Panthers.
Starting in 1904, the schools were considered as part of the "tri-state district Big Three" alongsidePenn State and competed for the "district Big Three championship" annually, a distinction earned by attaining the best record against the other two.[3][4] This became an annual round-robin and in 1951 theOld Ironsides Trophy was introduced and awarded to the champion of the three.[5] The trio played annually until West Virginia won its second outright title in 1984 and Penn State was unable to locate the trophy. With the loss of the trophy and deregionalization of college football, the three-team rivalry increasingly became three distinct head-to-head matchups with little to no connection.
On November 25, 2004, the Backyard Brawl series saw its 97th game, surpassing the 96–gamePenn State–Pittsburgh football rivalry as Pittsburgh's most–played rivalry game. Pittsburgh celebrated the event with a 16–13 win at Heinz Field.
On December 1, 2007, the100th Backyard Brawl took place. Pittsburgh upset WVU by a score of 13–9. Coming into the game, WVU was ranked first in theCoaches' Poll and second in both theBCS andAP Poll. The loss cost WVU a chance to play for a national title in the2008 BCS National Championship Game.
The Mountaineers and the Panthers wore Nike Pro Combat System of Dress, uniforms designed to pay respect to Pittsburgh's steel industry and West Virginia's coal mining industry, for the 2010 Backyard Brawl. According to thePittsburgh Tribune Review, West Virginia wore a shade of white "that looks as if it has a fine layer of dust on the jersey" and has accents in university gold that "references thecanaries used long ago to test toxicity in mines." The helmet has a thin yellow line, designed to look like "the beam of light emitted by a miner's headlamp." Meanwhile, Pitt wore smoky college navy and black jerseys and pants with metallic team gold numerals "to represent the brilliant glow of a blast furnace," according to a Nike website, and matching helmets with a gold stripe and logo "evocative of steel I-beams" and resembling a hard hat.[6] West Virginia won the game in Pittsburgh 35–10.
On September 18, 2011, Pittsburgh announced its departure from the Big East and was introduced as a member of theAtlantic Coast Conference (ACC).[7] A month later, on October 28, West Virginia accepted an invitation to join theBig 12.[8] With both universities now in different conferences, the Backyard Brawl was put on hiatus. The 2012 college football season marked the first time since1943 that the rivalry was not played in football, breaking a streak of 68 consecutive meetings.[9]
In September 2015, both universities agreed to a four-game series running from 2022 to 2025.[10][11] In April 2022, both universities announced the addition of four more games from 2029 to 2032.[12]
| Teams | |
|---|---|
| First meeting | October 26, 1895 West Virginia, 8–0 |
| Latest meeting | September 13, 2025 West Virginia, 31–24OT |
| Next meeting | September 8, 2029 |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 108 |
| All-time record | Pittsburgh leads, 63–42–3 |
| Largest victory | November 8, 1904 Pittsburgh, 53–0 |
| Longest win streak | Pittsburgh, 15 (1929–1946) |
| Current win streak | West Virginia, 1 (2025–present) |
The location of the Backyard Brawl has varied much throughout its history. The very first football game took place inWheeling, West Virginia, in 1895. The next meeting, in 1898, was held inFairmont, a short distance south ofMorgantown. The third and fourth contests were held in Morgantown. The year 1902 marked the first time the game was held inPittsburgh, atExposition Park, theNorth Shore home of thePittsburgh Pirates. 1910 was the first time the Backyard Brawl was held on the Pittsburgh campus, at brand-newForbes Field. The series was held here for eight of the next nine years, until the opening ofPitt Stadium in 1925 on the opposite end of the University of Pittsburgh campus. Pitt Stadium hosted 5 straight games, until in 1930, the Backyard Brawl found itself at yet another new location,Mountaineer Field, which had opened in 1924 on the campus of West Virginia University. Another change in location occurred in 1981, when the game was played at a newMountaineer Field in Morgantown. In 1998 and 2000, the game was played atThree Rivers Stadium. The most recent change took place in 2002, when the Backyard Brawl was played for the first time at Heinz Field (now calledAcrisure Stadium), the new, full-time home of the Panthers, a year after it was opened.
| Pittsburgh victories | West Virginia victories |
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| Teams | |
|---|---|
| First meeting | February 17, 1906 Pittsburgh, 30–25 |
| Latest meeting | November 13, 2025 West Virginia, 71–49 |
| Next meeting | 2026 |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 192 |
| All-time record | West Virginia leads, 102–90 |
| Largest victory | February 14, 1966 West Virginia, 103–63 |
| Longest win streak | West Virginia, 13 (1957–1963) |
| Current win streak | West Virginia, 1 (2025–present) |
The Backyard Brawl moniker is also used for the basketball rivalry between the two schools,[25][26] which dates to February 17, 1905. The teams began competing annually since 1918, and played each season continually until 2012.[27] Through the first 100 meetings, the teams were evenly matched both winning 50 games.[28]
Pitt began playing basketball in the Big East Conference in 1982–83, with the Mountaineers joining in 1995–96. The basketball rivalry has heated up over the last several years as each team has been among the best in the country and the games have taken on added significance. On February 9, 2006, for the first time in the history of the series, in the 169th edition, Pitt and WVU were both nationally ranked as they squared off in Pitt'sPetersen Events Center. Pitt won, but a few weeks later, the two ranked teams played atWVU Coliseum with the Mountaineers winning. In the 2008–09 season, the Panthers swept both games during the regular season and came into the tournament ranked No. 2, but were upset by the Mountaineers in the quarterfinals of theBig East tournament.
During a February 2010 game when Pittsburgh visited West Virginia, several times during the course of the game, West Virginia fans threw objects at the Pittsburgh team. A Pittsburgh assistant coach was injured when an object was thrown at him. The actions received widespread attention. During the second half of the game, coachBob Huggins used a microphone to address the fans. West Virginia University President Jim Clements issued an apology to the University of Pittsburgh community. Additionally, West Virginia vowed to address security, as the incident closing followed similar occurrences in games againstSyracuse andOhio State.[29][30][31] This game was followed with a rematch nine days later in Pittsburgh, and while there were no off-court incidents,[32] the game proved to be one of the most memorable in the history of the series as the 25th ranked Panthers upset the fourth ranked Mountaineers 98–95 in the first triple overtime basketball game to be played between the two schools.[33][34]
The 2011–12 season marked the end of the Brawl within Big East conference play. Pitt and WVU traded road wins, with Pitt winning in Morgantown 72–66, and WVU winning at the Petersen Events Center for only the second time ever 66–48. The rivalry was dormant for a few years as WVU began playing in the Big 12 in 2012, while Pitt moved to the ACC in 2013. However, the series renewed in non-conference play beginning in 2017, with WVU winning the last four recent matchups. In 2021, West Virginia sold out theWVU Coliseum for the first time ever in the month of November when it hosted the matchup, on its way to reaching 100 wins in the series.[35]
In women's basketball, West Virginia leads the modern series, begun in 1975, 30–19.
| Pittsburgh victories | West Virginia victories |
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| Teams | |
|---|---|
| First meeting | May 18, 1895 West Virginia, 13–6 |
| Latest meeting | May 6, 2025 Pitt, 10–9 |
| Next meeting | 2026 |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 215 |
| All-time record | West Virginia leads, 122–93 |
| Largest victory | May 8, 1897 West Virginia, 20–1 |
| Longest win streak | West Virginia, 8 (2022–2025) |
| Current win streak | Pittsburgh, 1 (2025–present) |
Meeting for the first time in May, 1895, even before the first football game between the two schools, the rivalry has now spanned 215 games with WVU leading 122-93. West Virginia plays its home games atWagener Field at Kendrick Family Ballpark, while Pitt plays at Charles L. Cost Field in thePetersen Sports Complex. The largest crowd in Wagener Field history and the largest crown in the all-time series was the Backyard Brawl on April 2, 2025 with an attendance of 4,629.[36] Over the years the game has also been played at the home of thePittsburgh Pirates. These sites includeExposition Park,Forbes Field,Three Rivers Stadium, andPNC Park.
| Pittsburgh victories | West Virginia victories | Tie games |
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West Virginia leads Pitt all-time with a 13-2-1 record.[38] The two teams have not played each other since they were both members of the Big East between 1996 and 2011.
Because neither school has an NCAA lacrosse program, the teams have had to compete annually at the club level. Despite that, they continue to play under the Backyard Brawl moniker.
From their team's respective foundings (1971 for West Virginia,[39] 1982 for Pittsburgh[40]) until 1990, they competed as independents. In 1990 both teams joined the National College Lacrosse League,[41] where they played in the Allegheny Division. In 2006, theMen's Collegiate Lacrosse Association was founded, which both teams joined. West Virginia competed in theSouthEastern Lacrosse Conference (SELC), while Pittsburgh competed in theContinental Lacrosse Conference (CLC). In 2021, West Virginia left the SELC to become a founding member of theAtlantic Lacrosse Conference (ALC), they were followed by Pittsburgh in 2022.
Due to their independent club status, many of the early games' scores were not documented.
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| Pittsburgh victories | West Virginia victories | Tie games |
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The "Backyard Brawl" memories are well worn and familiar to Bob Huggins. They stretch back decades, the highs and the lows of West Virginia's longtime rivalry with Pittsburgh coming back to him in a rush.
