The Wide World of Dirt

If you know me, you know I love my Philadelphia sports.

I live and die with my teams in the 215; however, 6 years ago I decided to live and die with a particular university in the 304. I’m of course talking about the ‘Ole Gold & Blue…the West Virginia Mountaineers.

I wasn’t born into this fandom like many of my fellow Mountaineers (Dirt included), but I have a ton of pride in the fact I chose to dive head-first into this fandom when I received my acceptance letter back in 2018. 

Being a Mountaineer fan, a few requirements are: knowing Country Roads, going hard in Blue Lot, know how to deal with heartbreak and pain (because there will be a lot of it), and hating the University of Pittsburgh. 

My first experience with the University of Pittsburgh was the Backyard Brawl in 2018, a basketball game at the Colosseum.

The 2018-2019 WVU men’s basketball team was not that good that year, though the intensity of that game made you believer this was an old-school Big East matchup with conference standings in play.

That was my first taste of Backyard Brawl bitterness, and I was hooked,

Flash-forward to 2022: after a disappointing 2021 season (they should have won in Norman against Oklahoma, and I will never get over it), the Mountaineers got busy in the off-season hiring Graham Harrell and getting highly-touted QB JT Daniels.

To add more sizzle to an already-simmering rivalry, the Panthers and Mountaineers reignited their football feud to start the 2022 season.

I will never forget the countdown to that game; it was at the front of my mind all summer long. That Thursday night game on September 1, 2022 was one of the most important games of my life.

I felt like that was the day I finally became a “true” WVU fan. I finally got to hate Pitt with all my being.

For 55 minutes, I was on top of the world…then, it all came crashing down.

JT threw a back-breaking pick, and Neal Brown decided to not go for it on 4th down. What followed was one of the most depressing football seasons I can remember. 

I’m writing this to say that this is a must-win game for the Mountaineers. Them losing to Pitt to kick off 2022 derailed their season before it started. 

Yes, there were a multitude of issues that caused the Mountaineers to fail that year, but if they beat Pitt to begin the year, do things go the same way that year?

Does Shane Lyons get fired as the Athletic Director? While I’m not sure, it definitely couldn’t have gone worse.

Flash-forward to this year, the situation is eerily similar even as we enter week 3. WVU had the biggest home opener in years when they hosted the Penn State Nittany Lions in week 1.

Pat McAfee show, Fox Big Noon Kick-Off, all this juice and free publicity for WVU, and they dropped a stinker. They came out flat and looked completely fazed by a Penn State team that they knew from the prior season.

This wasn’t a brand new Mountaineer team either. This was a tenured coaching staff commanding a bunch of returning players including senior QB Garrett Greene. 

It wasn’t expected for WVU to beat Penn State. It was expected for the Mountaineers to give them a fight and look like they belonged on the same field.

That wasn’t the case. They were essentially run off of the field for being unprepared. A theme all too common in the Neal Brown era.

On the other hand, 2023 was great. A 9-4 campaign is great any way you cut it, though we were no doubt helped by an extremely favorable schedule.

In fact, there were two games WVU should have won that would have granted our school their first Big XII championship appearance. 

As for 2024, this season feels like it’s already teetering.

An embarrassing loss to Penn State hurts morale. A loss to Pitt dooms the entire season like 2022 and puts Brown back on the hot seat after he spent all of 2023 to get off it.

I like Neal Brown. He has done a great job connecting with the people of West Virginia. He is a good recruiter. He says the right things and has been really good with the fans and students at WVU.

But, it really seems like the most important aspect of his job is his worst. 32-30 in six years isn’t cutting it. 

This is a must-win game. They can’t lose to Pitt; they just can’t.

If they do, 2023 looks like an outlier in a rather unspectacular era of WVU football. If they win? The season is ahead for you to take and maybe, just maybe, we can get an appearance in Arlington at Jerry’s World.

Don’t lose. Eat Shit Pitt.