Week 14 of the college football season is about to be in full swing, and with that comes the pageantry of what is often referred to as Rivalry Week. It's the week when several of the largest rivalries in the sport take place, capping off the regular season with bragging rights and postseason implication both on the line between of the most antagonistic rivals out there. Whether you prefer The Game between Ohio State and Michigan or the Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn, you're usually guaranteed for some sort of showcase of the best and most passionate rivalries in college football.
Now this week, WVU enters Week 14 with an overall record of 4-7, with no shot at a bowl game, and they get to welcome a No. 5 Texas Tech to Milan Puskar Stadium to cap off the year. The Mountaineers do have some sort of motivation here, as the potential to knock off a top-ranked team and spoil their conference title and playoff hopes is always appealing. But this game doesn't pack quite the same punch as those other massive traditional rivalries.
There is one rivalry that does measure up for WVU though, and that's with non-conference foe Pittsburgh. The Backyard Brawl between the Mountaineers and the Panthers is one of most toxic rivalries in the sport, and the hate between the two programs is itself relatively unrivaled. It's sort of hard to describe if you're not a part of fan base, locker rooms, or media around one of the programs, and when you are exposed to it, you understand what it means.
Pitt and West Virginia used to share a conference in the Big East, and starting in 1997 the game was consistently played during Rivalry Week for a decade-and-a-half before the rivalry was put on pause when the two teams joined separate conferences. The rivalry was renewed from 2022-2025 and will be played again from 2029-2036, but it has been played in the first few weeks of the season in recent years.
This just doesn't suffice, though. Neither program has a bigger rival than the other, and it's only fitting it gets to happen during the week showcasing those rivals. It's easy for the excuse of confence scheduling to be tossed out there, but the fact of that matter is that the ACC makes such out-of-conference rivalry week games work for other members, as Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate between Georgia Tech and Georgia and the Florida-Florida State rivalry both will be played this weekend.
The Mountaineers won the Brawl this season in thrilling fashion, and it was an incredible win for the program. But it'd be nice to have that rivalry to play for this weekend. Even if the Panthers are a better team now than they were in September. It only feels right that the Brawl returns to it's rightful slot during Rivalry Week, where we can all feast on some leftover turkey and enjoy a Morgantown-style rendition of Sweet Caroline.