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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anon1649897183" data-source="post: 129310594" data-attributes="member: 472378">No.My first "Backyard Brawl" was my first Mountaineer game, in old Pitt Stadium, with Wyant, Huff, Bosley, Marconi, et al, beating them 17-7.I recall the 1975 game, won 17-14 on a last second FG.  The '94 game, won with Zach Abraham's last seconds heroics, is the only game in 40 years that I have never seen, not even on video.  The ominous 13-9 game got me banned forever from Pitt's web site.  They, nor Michigan, have any semblance of a sense of humor.The 2009 game, won 19-16 on Tyler Bitancourt's  FG with 0:00, was as memorable as the 2004 game at Heinz Field, lost 13-16 when Tyler Palko bounced a pass that the refs missed, leading to their winning TD.I was in Pittsburgh in 1996 when Amos Zereoue touched the ball for the first time and went 69 yards untouched. We won 34-0. All these and many more are indelible for the rest of my life, and beyond I hope.But for me, it's over.  For me, we can't return to the supercharged aura of that game.  The appeal was due to us playing them every year and looking forward from 0:00 to the next year's kickoff.  And it existed because our fathers and grandfathers had known of the game.   Jack Fleming's vitriol toward Pitt helped us to hate the bastards.  When we were routinely laying 52 points on them it just wasn't fun, because they were unworthy.   We've had close, nail-biting games against Big 12 foes with more recent cachet than Pitt can muster, and we've had similar games against lesser opponents that are fun for me (see East Carolina 1996).Their fans, collectively, are unimaginative, non-supportive of their team, and are few in number leaving the 'burgh.  Pitt fans are unengaging, unlike our Big 12 brethren, who are more like us.  Even ECU, FCS schools, or Marshall fans are easier to banter with.But just as Texas vs A&M is by the wayside, so is Pitt - WVU.  The four years since the last game seems, to me, more like 14.  By the time they could even schedule a game, the percentage of Mountaineer fans who could even remember 2011 will have further diminished.  Even now, to WVU fans under 30, Zereoue might as well be Jim Thorpe.If WVU were today announce a future game with Pitt, my reaction would be, "Aw, hell, there's an inter-sectional game chance lost - perhaps with a P5 school we've never played."  I just don't give a rat's about Pitt, nor about playing them, aside from a bowl game.</blockquote>

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