Sitting down with Lyons: Scheduling
It might take a few more years but the Backyard Brawl, the once-annual meeting between West Virginia and Pittsburgh, is set to return. And if director of athletics Shane Lyons has his way it will be happening more often than not in the future as well in both major sports.
The two teams have played a total of 104 times but have not met on the field since West Virginia defeated Pittsburgh 21-20 in November of 2012. A casualty of the re-alignment carousel, the one-time conference mates parted ways with the Mountaineers heading to the Big 12 and the Panthers the ACC.
That will change when the two renew their long-standing rivalry with a four-game series beginning in the 2022 season in Pittsburgh and then rotating between the two locations for the next three years. Getting that game back on the schedule was paramount for Lyons who as a state native grew up around the rivalry and knows its importance to the fan base.
“Pitt is important by all means. I understand it. I grew up with it. I lived it. It’s what college football in my opinion is all about is these rivalries,” Lyons said.
“It’s important to college football. It’s something that is great. It’s great for both fan bases. We’re 60 miles away from each other,” Lyons added.
Lyons would have liked to get the game back on the schedule sooner but college football schedules are often done well ahead of time and that was the first opening between the two schools. The decision to renew the series in Pittsburgh was simply one that made the most sense given the situations of both.
“I know we’ll take a lot of people to Pittsburgh. I’m not worried about us selling tickets,” Lyons said.
Lyons has been in discussions with Pittsburgh athletic director Scott Barnes about even more potential matchups in the future and hopes that it is something the two can work out down the road. There is even the potential for an annual meeting but that is well into the future if at all, Lyons said.
“It could be a long time from now that you could get it annually but I’d like to play it more often than not. That’s what I’ll try to do,” Lyons said.
And it doesn’t just stretch to the football field either.
West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins has been in discussions to possibly resume the Brawl on the hardwood as well. Due to the basketball schedule being more year-to-year in nature as opposed to the long-term nature of football scheduling, Lyons has been observing from afar on that front but is hopeful that series will be returning as well.
“It’s pretty high on our radar that we need to get that back in basketball too,” Lyons said.
From a big picture perspective, Lyons said he has set the non-conference schedules for the football program through the 2025 season and will begin working on the 2026, 2027 and 2028 years over the course of the next six months to a year. Along with potential meetings with Pittsburgh he also wants to keep other rivalries such as Virginia Tech, Penn State and Maryland as priorities as well moving forward.
Lyons said he is not against scheduling FCS programs in the future and points to how challenging his non-conference scheduling has been in recent years as a reason to not shy away from those games.
He had no updates on a potential meeting with Florida State in 2020 in the Chick-fil-A kickoff game in Atlanta.