MetroNews Mindful of resurrecting “The Backyard Brawl,” West Virginia athletics director Shane Lyons said he plans to reach out to Pitt once the Panthers settle on their new AD. During an hour-long appearance on MetroNews “Sportsline” Monday night, Lyons said both programs could benefit from restarting the always-intense football series, which has been on hiatus since 2011 when conference realignment intervened. Lyons replaced Oliver Luck as the Mountaineers’ athletics director in February. Pitt has yet to hire a successor for Steve Pederson, who was fired Dec. 17. “That’s on my radar,” Lyons said, “Obviously at this point I’m kinda waiting to see who their athletic director is. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have a relationship with that individual to be able to work something out.” To that end, Pitt chancellor Patrick Gallagher told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he hopes the forthcoming AD gives “strong consideration” to scheduling West Virginia.

Alright Shane Lyons that toothpaste is out of the tube and there is no getting it back in.  You want some come get some.  Pitt should go ahead and name me the Athletic Director right now, there’s some open dates in 2018 and it would set up for an epic out of conference schedule vs. Penn State, at Notre Dame, and then against WVU somewhere.

The problem with Pitt football is their lack of a true identity. They have done one hell of a job creating NFL superstars between Larry Fitzgerald, Darrelle Revis, and Shady McCoy, but between their conference jumps and recent dip, they aren’t as big time as they could be.

Pat Narduzzi was a great hire to get this ball rolling. He made his living coaching up 2 and 3 star guys in East Lansing, building Michigan State into a household name and can swing that same stick here. Michigan State couldn’t do it all on their own however, and needed to conquer elite programs like “Big Brother” Michigan and Goliath Ohio State to complete their ascension.

While Penn State and West Virginia are nowhere close to elite, they are close in proximity to Pittsburgh. That kind of local rivalry fire turns everything up to the next level and teams like Florida/Florida state and Clemson/South Carolina have made rivalry week work across conferences so why can’t the Backyard Brawl return to its Thanksgiving Saturday post?

Side note, it would be great for this to become a full fledged real deal rivalry like Bama/Auburn and Ohio State / Michigan. Lets make it common place to openly take a shit on your Mountain Queer co-workers and question their academic background.

A few weeks ago I came across this hooptie in the Consol Energy Center parking lot…

This shouldn’t happen for all kinds of reason. Number one, nobody should be that proud to be affiliated with West Virginia.  Additionally, no car should be able to survive on their rivals turf all willy-nilly, there has to be at least the threat of a steel beam being dropped on this car.  Hopefully wherever this assclown works makes sure he knows they had to come back to Pittsburgh for their cushy job because Morgantown is a shit city, with shit jobs.

We’re just going to leave this here, I dare you not to get chills.

Follow @theyuppieyinzer