Barking Carnival · Oct 3, 2019
No, West Virginia, We Are Not Your Rival
Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesThe game week hype by West Virginia media and fans to anoint Texas as their new rival is an interesting insight into a fanbase casting for identity in a conference where they are the geographical and cultural outlier and have seen their only authentic rivalry fade into memory: the Mountaineers last played the Backyard Brawl with Pitt in 2011. That was an underrated college football rivalry. Separated by only 75 miles of blacktop, the schools were from different planets, but shared the same “Oh, you think you’re better than me?” ethos that they could turn towards each other. This resulted in intense games and enthusiastic fan brawls.