Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi makes passionate plea to play rivals Penn State, West Virginia every season

Conference realignment and College Football Playoff expansion put multiple longstanding rivalry series in peril, but Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi went against the trend and voiced his support for cementing annual matchups with West Virginia and Penn State onto the Panthers’ schedule. The close proximity between the schools made their rivalries mainstays on the college football calendar for about a century. Changes in conference affiliation over the last three decades, though, threw a wrench into the schedule-making process and brought the tradition to a halt.

Pittsburgh and Penn State went 15 years without a matchup before they held a four-game series from 2016-19. The Panthers and West Virginia put the Backyard Brawl on pause when they left the Big East and are set to close a four-year renewal this fall.

“Let’s get it [Backyard Brawl] going again next year,” Narduzzi said on 93.7 The Fan. “I mean, there’s gotta be a way. You schedule around. Let’s put this game back on the schedule. I’d love to get that done and not have a layoff for two years before we bring it back. I know Coach Rodriguez pretty darn well. He was at Michigan when I was at Michigan State.”

The Backyard Brawl renewal has been nothing short of a hit. None of the three matchups have been decided by more than 11 points, and Pittsburgh’s victories in 2022 and 2024 came in one-possession thrillers. Those nonconference battles brought immense pageantry to the early September slate the last three years.

Pittsburgh-West Virginia last five meetings

“This rivalry goes probably right at the top or near the top of rivalry games I’ve played in,” Narduzzi said. “If the people of Pittsburgh have never been to the Backyard Brawl, it is one of the best, if not the best in the country, in my opinion. What makes a great rivalry? There’s a lot of hate in this rivalry. I’ve been around a lot of rivalries, but the hate West Virginia has for Pitt, the disrespect, to me, that makes a rivalry. Sometimes it’s not clean. I know there’s a lot of Pitt fans that don’t want to travel down to Morgantown because of that. But it’s right up there at the top.”

Penn State controlled the latest batch of in-state clashes with a 3-1 record in a 2016-19 series dubbed The Keystone Classic. The Panthers have traditionally been highly competitive against the Nittany Lions, though, with a modest 54-43-3 deficit in the all-time series.

“That Penn State-Pitt one — which we’re still trying to figure out why we don’t play that game still — we should be playing West Virginia and Penn State every single year,” Narduzzi said. “I’ll go on record saying I’m ready to go right now. Let’s line it up. Especially these two next years we have here where we’re not playing anybody.”

Pittsburgh-Penn State last five meetings

Narduzzi’s plea to reinstate the Penn State series and renew the Backyard Brawl comes as one of college football’s most storied rivalries hangs in the balance. Notre Dame and USC have just one meeting left on their contract, and reports indicate that USC is hesitant to commit to a long-term extension. Fighting Irish coach Marcus Freeman, however, is insistent that the squads should square off against each other “every single year.”

Nonconference rivalries, particularly those between College Football Playoff hopefuls, are under the microscope as programs seek to stack as many wins as possible outside of their daunting league schedules.