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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (蝌蚪视频 News) 蝌蚪视频� 蝌蚪视频 the buildup to the renewal of the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pitt was just starting up, someone asked Dante Stills just what the game meant to him.

The game, which will be played at 8 p.m. Thursday in Pittsburgh before a sold-out crowd and a nationwide ESPN audience with that cable network's GameDay crew in attendance, is so much more than just a game.

To call it such is to call Ali and Frazier's three fights just boxing matches. The records don't matter. The weather doesn't matter. The arena doesn't matter. It is a blood feud as bitter as the Hatfields and McCoys, a shootout each year as memorable as the old West showdown at the OK Corral.

It has 104 previous renewals and an 11-year gap during which football fortunes of both have ebbed and flowed but emotions about the game have not waned.

True, players from sides had not experienced playing in the Backyard Brawl, but they have heard about it now since the final tackle of last season and they have childhood memories that have stayed with them.

That was what brought on the question to Stills, 蝌蚪视频U's All-American defensive tackle, whose brother, Darius, played as a Mountaineer with him and whose father, Gary, played in the event in 1996 and 1998, having two sacks and five tackles for loss in the '98 game.

"I've been waiting on this my whole life," Stills answered. "This game is big for all of us. This isn't a team thing; this is a state thing. 蝌蚪视频 a whole state we're looking forward to this game. Me and my guys, we're amped up."

Why would West Virginians dislike their neighbors to the north? Maybe in part because, as historian John Antonik points out, Pitt public address announcer Don Ireland once made a pregame announcement that there was no smoking allowed in the stadium including "corncob pipes" and followed that up by announcing "there's a tractor in the parking lot with West Virginia license plate E-I-E-I-O. Your lights are on!"

It's all in good fun, of course, and the fun flows both ways, as when 蝌蚪视频U fans interrupt the playing of "Sweet Caroline" with the verse "EAT S--T PITT!"

The truth is, things are always on the boiling edge.

"I was at the 2007 game," 蝌蚪视频U placekicker Casey Legg, recalled, that being the infamous 13-9 Pitt upset of a 蝌蚪视频U team favored by four touchdowns and needing only to win to get a shot at the national championship. "I was a 7-year-old, and it's still vivid to me.

"I remember leaving that game and people throwing rocks at our car. I remember how emotional people were about it, and I was 7. That's what I'm coming into it with, the remembrance of how important it is to the people of West Virginia."

It's no different 80 miles north of Morgantown on the Panthers' campus.

Take Pitt outside linebacker Bangally Kamara, who grew up in Akron but has learned that there is more to rivalries than Ohio State-Michigan.

"I'm from Ohio, so this rivalry is not the thing over there," Kamara was quoted as saying recently in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "What I've learned is really that it's a very deep, deep, deep rivalry between West Virginia and Pittsburgh. And the rivalry is there, back from a long time.

"There's a lot of hatred between these two teams."

Emotions run deep, and hatred certainly is one of the strongest emotions you can feel.

Jared Wayne, a Pitt wide receiver, grew up in Petersburg, Ontario, and has heard the talk among his teammates.

"We've developed some of that hatred, I guess you can say," he did say.

Not a whole lot of West Virginians head north to play at Pitt. Stills was offered by them, but there was no chance of them getting him.

"I was in high school, so I was like, this is exciting," Stills recalled. "But at the time I knew about the rivalry, so I wasn't going to go there."

蝌蚪视频U offensive guard James Gmiter is from Bethel Park, a Pittsburgh suburb, but he never had Pitt on his radar thanks to his grandfather, who was a Notre Dame fan, a school that often battled with the Irish.

Does facing Pitt now inspire him?

"One hundred percent," he answers. "Even if they would have offered, I wouldn't have given it a thought."

On the other hand, 蝌蚪视频U quarterbacks Major Harris, who played his way into the College Football Hall of Fame, and Rasheed Marshall came south to play for the Mountaineers, among so many others.

Juices always flow on opening day, but not like this. Both coaches have done all they can to educate their teams of the rivalry 蝌蚪视频� and there are many reasons to dislike each other going both ways.

Among 蝌蚪视频U coach Neal Brown's invited speakers was former Don Nehlen defensive line coach Bil Kirelawich, a native of eastern Pennsylvania who never had any love for Pitt and who can really get that point across.

"He pumped us up," Legg admitted. "It was great to hear him. I joked with him and told him we needed to have him come speak to us 15 minutes before the game."

There have been uplifting wins on both sides as well as heartbreaks.

For 蝌蚪视频U, there was quarterback Chad Johnston hitting Zach Abraham deep after a scramble for the winning touchdown with 15 seconds left; there was Bill McKenzie's game-winning field goal; there was Amos Zereoue's first collegiate carry that went 60 yards for a touchdown, Garrett Ford Sr.'s huge day of 341 total yards.

But there was that 2007 loss and blowing a 31-9 lead in the fourth quarter of what became a 31-31 tie and Bobby Bowden's 蝌蚪视频U team that had a 35-8 lead in the second half only to lose 36-35 in what Bowden called the toughest loss of his Hall of Fame career.

It is a series made up not only of great moments but great players. Antonik tells us there have been 36 first-team All-Americans, 37 College Football Hall of Famers, 12 Pro Football Hall of Famers and more than 450 future NFL players to play in the game.

Names like White and Harris, Zereoue and Slaton and Cobourne and Huff and Howley and Curtis and Irvin on the 蝌蚪视频U side and Marino and Dorsett and Ditka and Fitzgerald on the Pitt side have turned this border war into a national event that hopefully will not have go through any more interruptions as college football reshapes itself in the modern era.

MORGANTOWN 蝌蚪视频� If you don't know the history, West Virginia's journey to Birmingham, Alabama, for a 5 p.m. Saturday meeting with UAB in the Legacy Arena at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, an off-campus site but certainly not expected to be a friendly site to the Mountaineers, makes no sense.

With Christmas break looming and with Big 12 ready to begin along with the new year, why would a Power 5 team travel to face a dangerous opponent?

There's reasons, to be sure, and the first is not to see what the Mountaineers will do in a hostile environment for the first time this season, although that is something that will play into the outcome.

See, this game grew out of a friendship between Mountaineer coach Bob Huggins and UAB coach Andy Kennedy, a friendship that went back to when Huggins was head coach at Cincinnati and Kennedy one of his assistants.

Kennedy, in fact, replaced Huggins when he left Cincinnati, then moved on to Ole Miss, where he won 20 games in 11 of his 14 seasons there. Huggins, however, did beat him both times they played.

Why take this game 蝌蚪视频� even with a later return game to face Huggins and the Mountaineers in Morgantown?

"Because he asked me," Huggins said. "I have over the years ... why did I go to Youngstown to play Jarod Calhoun? Because he was a very good assistant for me. A.K. was terrific. We played him. He played Frank (Martin). We went to Kansas to play him (at Kansas State). My assistants, if they ask me to play, we'll play."

It's the kind of loyalty upon which Huggins was raised, to say nothing of the fact that he and Kennedy and Martin do like hanging out together and can be seen out on the clinic and scouting trail both at the gyms and in more social atmospheres, telling tall stories of their adventures.

Games like this aren't easy to schedule and there was some work that went into putting together these two games, just as it has with Calhoun and Youngstown State, who is the last non-conference match up for 蝌蚪视频U this year in Morgantown before conference play.

"I told him I didn't want to play on campus," Huggins said.

True road games in campus gyms can be death traps for big-time teams, as Huggins has learned the hard way.

"I have terrible memories of playing there." Huggins said. "We were No. 1 in the country and went in there and I'm telling you what, if those guys weren't on the take, it was unbelievable."

He was, of course, talking of people on the court, not in the stands, but not playing the game but having a huge effect on its outcome.

In fact, Huggins caught a big break in scheduling this game, for it will be played while the UAB football team is playing a bowl game, which probably will take most of the biggest Blazer rooters out of the stands.

"Just a bad break," Huggins joked.

But this game is no joking matter, for this is a team that was 22-7 last year under Kennedy with a roster filled with transfers.

What's more, UAB ranks ahead of West Virginia in the NCAA's new NET rankings, standing 33rd while 蝌蚪视频U is at No. 56.

West Virginia brings a 9-1 record into the game, riding Taz Sherman's scoring and a strong defense that is giving up only 60 points a game.

Of course, they will face an offensive challenge against Kennedy's UAB team.

"We'll probably see every defense invented. He'll try everything. He's probably invented some in his sleep," Huggins said. "He'll put a guy over the ball, he'll probably run a triangle and two and put one guy on Taz and one on Sean (McNeil). He'll play 1-2-2, he'll play 2-3,

"It could be anything. He likes changing up. I think he does it because when he was a player he didn't guard at all."

UAB is 9-2 and is led by Jordan Walker, a former Seton Hall player who also played at Tulane before transferring in. Just 5-11 and 170 pounds, Walker averages 16.4 points per game.

The game can be seen on CBS Sports Net.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (蝌蚪视频 News) 蝌蚪视频� Think back a few weeks, back to when Pitt's men's basketball team came to the Coliseum to renew the Backyard Brawl in that sport, to the pregame business around town, to the sold-out arena, to the excitement it generated everywhere.

Now multiply it five-fold, for next season's football schedule will open with the renewal of that sport's Backyard Brawl, according to the schedule that was released by West Virginia and the Big 12 on Wednesday.

Now, it's true the game is going to be played at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, but anyone who knows anything about West Virginia's trek north for that game knows that it figures to be like a home crowd for the Mountaineers.

Despite a very attractive schedule that also includes a game at Black Diamond rival Virginia Tech, the Brawl will be the cornerstone upon which the season will be built.

蝌蚪视频淚 know our fans will be excited to have two rivalry games that they can drive to at Pitt and Virginia Tech,蝌蚪视频� Lyons said.

The schedule begins with the Pitt game on Sept. 3. There are no times or television schedules yet available for any of the 12 games.

The season begins with the 105th playing of the Backyard Brawl, the longest-running series in 蝌蚪视频U history. It marks the first time 蝌蚪视频U and Pitt have played since 2011 and the first time since 2010 at Heinz Field. The Mountaineers have won seven of the past 10 games in the series, dating back to 2002, including the last three.

The Virginia Tech series was renewed this season for the 52nd time with the Mountaineers stunning the 15th-ranked Hokies, 27-21, on Sept. 18 in Morgantown.

The other non-conference game other than Pitt and Virginia Tech matches 蝌蚪视频U with Towson on Sept. 17, a week after opening the conference season at Mountaineer Field with Kansas, a resurgent team 蝌蚪视频U defeated to end this regular season.

The schedule also offers up an assurance that both Oklahoma and Texas will remain in the conference in 2022, as each is included on the conference schedule.

The Mountaineers will travel to Texas on Oct. 1 to face the team it loves to beat and will entertain a new-look Oklahoma team on Nov. 12 with whomever the jilted Sooners name to replace coach Lincoln Riley, who stunned everyone by jumping to USC right after Oklahoma State stunned them in the regular-season finale.

This figures to be Oklahoma's final trip to Morgantown, and the Mountaineers would like to give them nothing more than their first conference loss to 蝌蚪视频U as a going away gift on Mountaineer Week.

Other key home dates include Oct. 29 against TCU with its new coach as the celebration of Homecoming; a Thursday, Oct. 13, revenge game against Baylor, which plays Oklahoma State in this year's Big 12 Conference title game and another revenge game against Kansas State on Nov. 19.

Road conference games are Texas (Oct. 1), Texas Tech (Oct. 22), Iowa State (Nov. 5) and Oklahoma State (Nov. 26).

The top two finishers in the regular-season standings will compete for the conference title in the Big 12 Football Championship Game, which is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 3, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

College Football Hall of Fame Coach Bobby Bowden, a 2006 College Football Hall of Fame inductee who led programs at Samford, West Virginia and…

College Football Hall of Fame Coach Bobby Bowden, a 2006 College Football Hall of Fame inductee who led programs at Samford, West Virginia and…

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (蝌蚪视频 News) 蝌蚪视频� On the surface, it has always seemed so simple, the job that Matt Wells had as senior associate athletic directo…