Pitt-WVU ‘Backyard Brawl’ returns after 11 year hiatus | College Football Enquirer

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss 17 Pittsburgh’s highly anticipated matchup with West Virginia, and debate which former USC quarterback, Kedon Slovis or JT Daniels, will come out on top in the first ‘Backyard Brawl’ in 11 years.

Video Transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

DAN WETZEL: Looks like the Backyard Brawl, West Virginia-Pitt is really going to be a USC quarterback depth chart battle.

PAT FORDE: Yes.

DAN WETZEL: Kedon Slovis starting for Pitt. JT Daniels starting for, we presume-- it has not been announced-- West Virginia. Thoughts on the Californication of the Backyard Brawl.

PAT FORDE: Yeah, it's wild. I mean, the QB diaspora from USC where you had JT Daniels transfer to Georgia and then to West Virginia. Slovis ends up at Pitt. And Jaxson Dart ends up at Ole Miss where he will probably be the starter. I don't know whether that's been announced there yet. All these quarterbacks, at one point in time, looked great, right? I mean, JT Daniels had a phenomenal freshman year at USC, and then he hadn't been able to stay healthy.

Slovis replaced him after Daniels got hurt the first game of his sophomore year. He looked great. Then he had some arm issues and some other injury stuff. And then Jaxson Dart stepped in and showed some real flash last year too. So Clay Helton did a lot of things wrong there, but recruiting quarterbacks was not one of them. Because they had three different guys that could play.

ROSS DELLENGER: It's hard not to get a good one in southern California, man. If you're in Southern California, you should have-- you would think you should have a good quarterback. The intriguing thing about this game, too, away from the quarterbacks is, obviously, the rivalry series, which I'm in the middle of writing about and will be at that game.

But it is just-- they haven't played in 11 years, Pitt-West Virginia. And obviously it's the 15-year anniversary of the 2007 game, which has still left everyone in that state of West Virginia scarred forever. And that game brings out quite a bit of emotion.

So this one will be slam packed. It's sold out. I heard that they had just 200 or 300 standing room only tickets that sold within-- they told me within three minutes of the game selling out. So it it'll be quite a scene in not Heinz Field, but whatever it's called now.

PAT FORDE: Yeah, right. I'm so glad they're playing, and I think it's awesome as a season opener.

ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah

PAT FORDE: First time in 11 years. And that's one of those rivalries where they do not like each other. And there are legitimate cultural differences between Pitt students and West Virginia students and the fanbases and everything. So these are the kind of games that I am glad to see being played.

ROSS DELLENGER: The Pitt people tell me that in order to get to Morgantown, you have to swing by vines.

[LAUGHTER]

Country versus city. I love the rivalries of--

PAT FORDE: Yeah.

ROSS DELLENGER: --of country versus city. It's great. The city folk and the country folk.

DAN WETZEL: Well, look, the big thing to me with this is Pitt and West Virginia have a similar problem is they're basically located in Big Ten country, and they need local kids to want to play at their schools. And those local kids have not just options, but Penn State and Ohio State options. And particularly West Virginia is basically Western PA. They need to play and make these events that some kids are going to say, I want to be a part of that.

ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah.

DAN WETZEL: Because both programs are desperate to keep Western PA kids home. And Pitt, obviously, has done an outrageous job at high-end talent staying, Aaron Donald, Darrelle Revis, stuff like that. And just recently. I'm not going to go through the whole list. I mean, you go to Marino and all that.

But both programs have to get that, and this is how you build that up. It's going to be an event, right? It's just imperative when you're basically crunched between these two behemoths of Penn State and Ohio State. So not that they're going to beat those schools for top top-five stars, but maybe you get those guys that pop up for you.