Rodriguez Looks to Bury 13‑9 Ghosts as WVU Faces Pitt in Backyard Brawl

Nearly eighteen years ago, the Pitt Panthers came into Morgantown as 28.5-point underdogs, looking to pull off a stunning upset of No. 2 West Virginia and knock them out of the national title game. They did exactly that.

It was a weird night where Pat McAfee missed a couple of chip-shot field goals and one of the nation's most explosive offenses looked like the unit we saw last Saturday in Athens against the Ohio Bobcats. It was weird. Quarterback Pat White left the game early with an injury to his non-throwing hand and didn't return until late in the fourth quarter.

Still, West Virginia's defense was able to keep the game in reach, and White had an opportunity to lead a late scoring drive to survive the upset. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and Pitt got the ball back, chewing out the majority of the clock before lining up to punt. The Panthers wisely ran around for a few seconds before the punter ran through the back of the end zone as time expired, resulting in a stunning 13-9 win.

That would be the last game Rich Rodriguez would coach at West Virginia before leaving for Michigan. That loss, coupled with his messy departure, is something that has stuck with Mountaineer fans to this very day. They'll never be able to get that 2007 result back, but this offseason, Rodriguez did make his return to Morgantown for a second stint that virtually no one thought would ever be possible.

His first meaningful home game at Milan Puskar Stadium? The Pitt Panthers, on 9/13. You just can't make it up.

“If it were two or three years ago, it would probably be a little bit more on my mind, but that was such a lifetime ago," Rodriguez said earlier this week when asked if he thinks about that loss to Pitt. "Is it a sore spot when it’s brought up? Yeah, so thanks for that. It was the worst moment of my professional career from a game standpoint, and I tried to move past it a long time ago. From that regard, it’d be good to get a win. It’s not going to ease the pain from that. It’ll still always be there, but that’s part of life.”

This afternoon, Rodriguez will have a shot at redemption. No, Pitt isn't ranked second in the country, or at all for that matter, so it's difficult to deliver true payback when they're not (and haven't) been in a similar position, but a win would certainly make things feel a lot better about the past and, more importantly, the present.

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