The Backyard Brawl's return to Morgantown, the first of its kind since 2011, had a significantly different feel from the last time the teams met on Milan Puskar Stadium's Mountaineer Field.
For starters, neither team is a part of the Big East — the conference that held together the formerly annual meeting. Pitt has made a return to its fan-favorite color scheme. The Mountaineers wore a limited, custom "Country Roads" uniform. Sections of gold and blue "Striped the Stadium" in a way it only has since the Mountaineers' first Big 12 game in 2012. The Mountaineers now arrive at the stadium via the Mountaineer Mantrip.
Really, the only consistent from the meeting in 2011 was that the Mountaineers won the rivalry match over the Panthers, just as they did in the 2011 meeting.
It was a significant weekend in Morgantown as a sum of those parts. Add in the narrow Panthers win from 2022's Backyard Brawl shootout in Pittsburgh, and the Mountaineer faithful were primed for revenge in prime time. For the first time in nearly 12 years, the Backyard Brawl would be played in Morgantown. And, for the first time in nearly 12 years, we — the photography team at WVU — were able to document one of the NCAA's best rivalries in one of NCAA football's best atmospheres.