FILE - West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez walks the sideline late in the second half during a 13-9 loss to Pittsburgh in an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007 in Morgantown, W.Va. T (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner, File)

There’s a large “Beat Pitt” sign outside on the intersection of Chesnut Ridge Road and Don Nehlen Drive. The tickets for Saturday’s game are sold out, with the cheapest ticket going anywhere from $150 to $200, and batteries are being sold a lot more than usual.

It’s Backyard Brawl week in Morgantown for the first time since 2023, where the Mountaineers won 17-6. 2025 marks the first time Rich Rodriguez is back donning the Gold and Blue since he left in 2007. Over his years at WVU, Rodriguez is no stranger to the rivalry.

“I think it’s one of the greatest rivalries in sports,” Rodriguez said. “In all of our sports, against Pitt, and obviously, the location between the two is close. There’s a lot of intensity with it. There never seems to be any love lost between the fan bases. It’s always, to me, the biggest game on your schedule when you’re in West Virginia. I don’t know if Pitt will tell you that. That’s what they think, but I know, from our standpoint, and from our fans’ standpoint, it’s the biggest game you play.”

The last time Rodriguez coached against Pitt was one of the worst losses of his career. With a national championship berth on the line, No. 2 West Virginia lost 13-9 to Pitt in the 2007 Backyard Brawl up in Pittsburgh. The loss tarnished WVU’s national championship hopes and was the last game Rodriguez coached as the Mountaineers’ coach. He left for Michigan before the bowl game.

It was one of the low points of Rodriguez’s career.

“Is it a sore spot when it’s brought up?” Rodriguez said. “Yeah. It was the worst moment of my professional career from a game standpoint. I tried to move past it a long time ago, but in that regard, it would be good to get a win, and it’s not going to ease the pain for that. It’ll still always be there.”

Rodriguez is very familiar with the rivalry, but most of his new roster isn’t so familiar. They haven’t felt the highs and lows like Rodriguez. There are 80-plus new players and new staff members. Rodriguez hasn’t spent this week familiarizing his new guys with the rivalry because as soon as you step on campus, you feel different about Pitt.

“You hope they feel it,” Rodriguez said. “Not just this week, but probably since they’ve been here. Everybody would talk about the Pitt game. I’m sure they’ve heard it.”

Defensive tackle Devin Grant was one of the many transfers added in the portal, coming over from Incarnate Word this summer. From Texas, Grant is more familiar with the Red River Rivarly, and didn’t know much about the rivalries up north.

“It’s a crazy rivalry,” Grant said. “Obviously, growing up in Texas, I didn’t really hear about a lot of the East Coast stuff, but just as soon as I stepped on here, just knowing about that Pitt’s the rival that we play this year, and I’m just really excited to get ready for the kind of intensity that rivalry.”

There are a couple of returners who have played in the Backyard Brawl before. They’ve learned what it means to play against Pitt. One of their jobs was to inform the newcomers about the rivalry.

Wide receiver Rodney Gallagher grew up in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, which is in the middle of Morgantown and Pittsburgh, and has played in two Backyard Brawls. He knows what to expect.

“Whenever I did talk to guys a little bit about the game, I just told them, the experience that you’re going to get for this game is going to be something you’ve never had before,” Gallagher said. “Everybody cares about it. It’s the most cared about game that we have on our schedule. Just take it all in and take full advantage of the opportunity that we’re going to get.”

Some retuners aren’t from Pennsylvania or West Virginia, or from the country. Defensive linemen Eddie Vesterinen is from Finland. He didn’t grow up knowing anything about the Backyard Brawl, or any football rivalries for that matter. His biggest rival was Sweden because it was so close. Vesterinen’s dislike of Pitt came after a recruit he hosted from Germany chose Pitt instead of WVU. That gave him a little juice.

Vesterinen played in a couple of Backyard Brawls, and the only thing he could compare them to was the European soccer games.

“I think it’s very close,” Vesterinen said. “That’s the most close you can get. In Europe, the soccer team, they usually have fans out there. They meet up and fight before the soccer games. I don’t understand why, but the energy is there.”

Whether it’s newcomers, players who have played, or coaches who have experienced the worst, they’ve all put the Backyard Brawl up there as the biggest rivalry in college football. Saturday is the 108th meeting, and no matter the score or the player’s history with the rivalry, it’ll be intense and will feel a lot different than a normal regular-season game.

“I’ve told people everywhere I’ve been that I’ve been in a bunch of rivalries,” Rodriguez said. “There’s none that is more intense than this. I don’t know if it’s because the location is close or because there have been so many heated games in all sports against each other. It’s different.”