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One of the oldest college football rivalries will be played again Saturday afternoon.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” If there is a real worry to come out of West Virginia's 38-31 emotion-sapping Backyard Brawl loss to No. 17 Pitt, it is about whether the loss could be shucked aside and the emotional gas tank upon which football teams are powered could be refilled for this week's Kansas meeting.

Logic would discount such worries, this being the home opener as well as the Big 12 opener, to say nothing of the first night home game in four years for the Mountaineers, but logic never does seem to enter the equation where WVU is concerned.

However, this season's group believes it is spun from a different kind of straw than the most recent other Mountaineer teams and that it has an aura about it that could turn it into something special.

Coach Neal Brown hinted at that when he said Tuesday that despite the loss he went from thinking this team would be good to being convinced that it would.

His players, during their Tuesday media session, explained why this is so.

Tight end Mike O'Laughlin, perhaps, put it best when he took his memory back into the locker room in the immediate moments after the loss, to a time when the seeds of defeatism could have been sown.

Instead, though, O'Laughlin had a special feeling about what he and others believe is a special team.

"This football team is just hungry," he declared. "That was the best I felt ever after a loss. I knew these guys would have my back, and I've got theirs. That's just kind of the team this is."

Think about what this WVU team is made up of to understand from where O'Laughlin is coming. You can begin with him, a tight end whose season ended last year with injury, who underwent offseason surgery, who missed the spring and most of the summer rehabbing.

He wasn't sure if he would get back. He had only 10 or 12 practices in summer camp to prove himself ready for the season, getting back in nine months and a day when they told him the rehab would take 11 months.

Think of the key players and what they are made of. Quarterback JT Daniels having had an injury-filled career, playing at his third school. He knew greatness at a young age but never could attain it in college, now driven and being a driving force for his new team.

"From a leadership perspective, he really rallied the troops," O'Laughlin said. "He was excited. He was energetic. Every time they went down and scored, we were right there ready to go on the field, just excited to play. That shows a lot about this team, this offense and what we are going to do this year."

On the defensive side there is Dante Stills. Like the others, he is in overdrive. He bypassed the NFL draft last year to return because he felt he hadn't reached his potential, that he had things to improve upon and people to impress.

His first game was the best he's played as a Mountaineer, and he offers the same kind of inspiration.

This isn't a team of stars. It is a team of transfers and junior college players, a team with a middle linebacker like Lee Kpogba, who left Syracuse after a couple of years to play in junior college and now is back, driven to succeed.

It is Taijh Alston, a defensive end who has battled injuries his whole career but now is fully healthy and trying to leave his legacy.

There are foreign players living out an American dream alongside young Americans who have become their brothers.

"There's like something different about this group," WVU defensive tackle Jordan Jefferson said. "It's special. [Against Pitt] we didn't lay down, we didn't give up until the zeroes hit the clock. I know for sure if we do what we did last week and continue to prepare and continue to get better every week, we'll be just fine."

In many ways, he felt the same way O'Laughlin felt in the locker room.

"Obviously, we were a little hurt that things didn't go our way," Jefferson admitted. "But at the same time, we knew it was only the first game. This game, we'll be a little more hungrier and we'll try to get a little bit better by working harder.

"That loss was tough, but at the same time we move on, correct our mistakes and we'll be just fine."

In fact, there was this feeling in the locker room that the sooner they could get back at it, the better it would be. They really didn't need recovery time.

"If we could have suited up the following day or the next day, we would have," O'Laughlin said. "We were antsy to play the next day. Guys were beat up, they were hurt, they weren't feeling so good, but if someone said, 'Let's go play tomorrow,' you'd have had hands everywhere."

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” If there is a real worry to come out of West VirginiaÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s 38-31 emotion-sapping Backyard Brawl loss to No. 17 Pitt, it is whether the loss could be shucked aside and the emotional gas tank upon which football teams are powered could be refilled for this weekÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s Kansas meeting.

Logic would discount such worries, this being the home opener as well as the Big 12 opener, to say nothing of the first night home game in four years for the Mountaineers, but logic never does seem to enter the equation where WVU is concerned.

However, this seasonÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s group believes it is spun from a different kind of straw than the most recent Mountaineer teams and that it has an aura about it that could turn it into something special.

Coach Neal Brown hinted at that when he said Tuesday that despite the loss, he went from thinking this team would be good to being convinced that it would.

His players, during their Tuesday media session, explained why this is so.

Tight end Mike OÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™Laughlin, perhaps, put it best when he took his memory back into the locker room in the immediate moments after the loss, to a time when the seeds of defeatism could have been sown.

Instead, though, OÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™Laughlin had a special feeling about what he and others believe is a special team.

ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œThis football team is just hungry,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥� he declared. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œThat was the best I felt ever after a loss. I knew these guys would have my back, and IÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™ve got theirs. ThatÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s just kind of the team this is.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥�

Think about what this WVU team is made up of to understand from where OÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™Laughlin is coming. You can begin with him, a tight end whose season ended last year with injury, who underwent offseason surgery, who missed the spring and most of the summer rehabbing.

He wasnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t sure if he would get back. He had only 10 or 12 practices in summer camp to prove himself ready for the season, getting back in nine months and a day, when they told him the rehab would take 11 months.

Think of the key players and what they are made of. Quarterback JT Daniels having had an injury-filled career, playing at his third school. He knew greatness at a young age but never could attain it in college, now driven and being a driving force for his new team.

ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œFrom a leadership perspective, he really rallied the troops,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥� OÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™Laughlin said. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œHe was excited. He was energetic. Every time they went down and scored, we were right there ready to go on the field, just excited to play. That shows a lot about this team, this offense and what we are going to do this year.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥�

On the defensive side, there is Dante Stills. Like the others, he is in overdrive. He bypassed the NFL draft last year to return because he felt he hadnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t reached his potential, that he had things to improve upon and people to impress.

His first game was the best heÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s played as a Mountaineer, and he offers the same kind of inspiration.

This isnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t a team of stars. It is a team of transfers and junior college players, a team with a middle linebacker like Lee Kpogba, who left Syracuse after a couple of years to play in junior college and now is back, driven to succeed.

It is Taijh Alston, a defensive end who has battled injuries his whole career but now is fully healthy and trying to leave his legacy.

There are foreign players living out an American dream alongside young Americans who have become their brothers.

ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œThereÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s like something different about this group,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥� WVU defensive tackle Jordan Jefferson said. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œItÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s special. [Against Pitt] we didnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t lay down, we didnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t give up until the zeroes hit the clock. I know for sure if we do what we did last week and continue to prepare and continue to get better every week, weÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™ll be just fine.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥�

In many ways, he felt the same way OÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™Laughlin felt in the locker room.

ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œObviously, we were a little hurt that things didnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t go our way,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥� Jefferson admitted. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œBut at the same time, we knew it was only the first game. This game, weÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™ll be a little more hungrier and weÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™ll try to get a little bit better by working harder.

ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œThat loss was tough, but at the same time we move on, correct our mistakes and weÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™ll be just fine.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥�

In fact, there was this feeling in the locker room that the sooner they could get back at it, the better it would be. They really didnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t need recovery time.

ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œIf we could have suited up the following day or the next day, we would have,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥� OÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™Laughlin said. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œWe were antsy to play the next day. Guys were beat up, they were hurt, they werenÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t feeling so good, but if someone said, ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥˜LetÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s go play tomorrow,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™ youÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™d have had hands everywhere.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥�

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” As the buildup to the renewal of the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pitt was just starting up, someone asked Dante Stills just what the game meant to him.

The game, which will be played at 8 p.m. Thursday in Pittsburgh before a sold-out crowd and a nationwide ESPN audience with that cable network's GameDay crew in attendance, is so much more than just a game.

To call it such is to call Ali and Frazier's three fights just boxing matches. The records don't matter. The weather doesn't matter. The arena doesn't matter. It is a blood feud as bitter as the Hatfields and McCoys, a shootout each year as memorable as the old West showdown at the OK Corral.

It has 104 previous renewals and an 11-year gap during which football fortunes of both have ebbed and flowed but emotions about the game have not waned.

True, players from sides had not experienced playing in the Backyard Brawl, but they have heard about it now since the final tackle of last season and they have childhood memories that have stayed with them.

That was what brought on the question to Stills, WVU's All-American defensive tackle, whose brother, Darius, played as a Mountaineer with him and whose father, Gary, played in the event in 1996 and 1998, having two sacks and five tackles for loss in the '98 game.

"I've been waiting on this my whole life," Stills answered. "This game is big for all of us. This isn't a team thing; this is a state thing. As a whole state we're looking forward to this game. Me and my guys, we're amped up."

Why would West Virginians dislike their neighbors to the north? Maybe in part because, as historian John Antonik points out, Pitt public address announcer Don Ireland once made a pregame announcement that there was no smoking allowed in the stadium including "corncob pipes" and followed that up by announcing "there's a tractor in the parking lot with West Virginia license plate E-I-E-I-O. Your lights are on!"

It's all in good fun, of course, and the fun flows both ways, as when WVU fans interrupt the playing of "Sweet Caroline" with the verse "EAT S--T PITT!"

The truth is, things are always on the boiling edge.

"I was at the 2007 game," WVU placekicker Casey Legg, recalled, that being the infamous 13-9 Pitt upset of a WVU team favored by four touchdowns and needing only to win to get a shot at the national championship. "I was a 7-year-old, and it's still vivid to me.

"I remember leaving that game and people throwing rocks at our car. I remember how emotional people were about it, and I was 7. That's what I'm coming into it with, the remembrance of how important it is to the people of West Virginia."

It's no different 80 miles north of Morgantown on the Panthers' campus.

Take Pitt outside linebacker Bangally Kamara, who grew up in Akron but has learned that there is more to rivalries than Ohio State-Michigan.

"I'm from Ohio, so this rivalry is not the thing over there," Kamara was quoted as saying recently in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "What I've learned is really that it's a very deep, deep, deep rivalry between West Virginia and Pittsburgh. And the rivalry is there, back from a long time.

"There's a lot of hatred between these two teams."

Emotions run deep, and hatred certainly is one of the strongest emotions you can feel.

Jared Wayne, a Pitt wide receiver, grew up in Petersburg, Ontario, and has heard the talk among his teammates.

"We've developed some of that hatred, I guess you can say," he did say.

Not a whole lot of West Virginians head north to play at Pitt. Stills was offered by them, but there was no chance of them getting him.

"I was in high school, so I was like, this is exciting," Stills recalled. "But at the time I knew about the rivalry, so I wasn't going to go there."

WVU offensive guard James Gmiter is from Bethel Park, a Pittsburgh suburb, but he never had Pitt on his radar thanks to his grandfather, who was a Notre Dame fan, a school that often battled with the Irish.

Does facing Pitt now inspire him?

"One hundred percent," he answers. "Even if they would have offered, I wouldn't have given it a thought."

On the other hand, WVU quarterbacks Major Harris, who played his way into the College Football Hall of Fame, and Rasheed Marshall came south to play for the Mountaineers, among so many others.

Juices always flow on opening day, but not like this. Both coaches have done all they can to educate their teams of the rivalry ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” and there are many reasons to dislike each other going both ways.

Among WVU coach Neal Brown's invited speakers was former Don Nehlen defensive line coach Bil Kirelawich, a native of eastern Pennsylvania who never had any love for Pitt and who can really get that point across.

"He pumped us up," Legg admitted. "It was great to hear him. I joked with him and told him we needed to have him come speak to us 15 minutes before the game."

There have been uplifting wins on both sides as well as heartbreaks.

For WVU, there was quarterback Chad Johnston hitting Zach Abraham deep after a scramble for the winning touchdown with 15 seconds left; there was Bill McKenzie's game-winning field goal; there was Amos Zereoue's first collegiate carry that went 60 yards for a touchdown, Garrett Ford Sr.'s huge day of 341 total yards.

But there was that 2007 loss and blowing a 31-9 lead in the fourth quarter of what became a 31-31 tie and Bobby Bowden's WVU team that had a 35-8 lead in the second half only to lose 36-35 in what Bowden called the toughest loss of his Hall of Fame career.

It is a series made up not only of great moments but great players. Antonik tells us there have been 36 first-team All-Americans, 37 College Football Hall of Famers, 12 Pro Football Hall of Famers and more than 450 future NFL players to play in the game.

Names like White and Harris, Zereoue and Slaton and Cobourne and Huff and Howley and Curtis and Irvin on the WVU side and Marino and Dorsett and Ditka and Fitzgerald on the Pitt side have turned this border war into a national event that hopefully will not have go through any more interruptions as college football reshapes itself in the modern era.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” If you hang around this West Virginia football facility and the team it houses for any amount of time these days, you can sense something different in the air.

Yeah, it's still 17 or so days before the Sept. 1 opener in Pittsburgh, the renewal of the Backyard Brawl after an 11-year hiatus, and everyone knows it. It's on the coaches' minds and they, in turn, are making sure it's on the players' minds.

The fans? It's been on their minds since the end of last season.

The Brawl is many things to many people, but to the WVU offensive line, it's nothing less than the moment that figures to define its season.

It is an experienced line, with all five starters returning, but also a young line. It is a line that took its bumps and bruises, to say nothing of criticism, over the past few years, but now, it's a line that brings high expectations with it into the new year.

But its coach, Mike Moore, wants to make sure it knows just what they are up against to open the season.

This is no ordinary opener. It's a September bowl game. It's a conference championship game without the championship at stake, and Moore sat down with his players on Monday and let them know this was the matador against the bull, David against Goliath, Ali against Liston and, most of all, West Virginia against Pitt, the defending champions of the ACC.

"They are really good up front and they play really hard. Their linebackers are downhill players. Their defensive coordinator does a phenomenal job of stopping the run. He does a great job of blitzing the run. Once he gets you in third and long, he runs all kinds of crazy blitzes," Moore told the media on Monday.

Defensive tackle Calijah Kancy is an All-American and probably Pitt's best defensive player overall, a player around whom defensive coordinator Randy Bates has built what was the No. 6 rush defense in the nation last year, allowing just 89.3 rushing yards a game.

The Panthers also ranked No. 5 in the nation in tackles for a loss at 7.9 per game.

All of that would seem to indicate WVU will have to rely heavily on its passing game, but the offensive line had better be airtight, because Pitt was second in the nation a year ago with 3.86 sacks per game.

We will know right out of the chute just where the offensive line stands.

"It's one of those things where it's going to be a challenge. There's going to be almost 70,000 people in there, you better be ready because you are going to be going against some of the best people you are going against in your whole career," Moore told his offensive linemen.

"We have to be great. We can't make mistakes. We can't put our eyes in the wrong spot. We can't overset. We can't get our hands outside the blocker," Moore said. "We're going to have to play our best to stay in the stadium with them. That's where the pressure is. That's where they're the best, so that's where we have to step up and play really well."

Certainly, WVU would love to have an easier opener to get ready and work out the kinks before such a crucial challenge, but you have to play the hand you are dealt and play the opponent on the schedule.

"A lot of times when you play (an FCS) first game, it's you want to do what you should do. But now, it's like every snap there's pressure," Moore noted.

That is what they trying to do by pressuring them every day in practice.

"You can't go out there and go through a period where you're thinking, 'Hey, I'm just got to get through.' No, you go out there and I tell them, 'Hey guys, this is the opening drive against Pitt right here. You better have butterflies.' You try to put them in the situation where they know they are going against really good people and they better be ready to go right from the start.

"Pitt is going to play hard, they are going to play fast and they are going to be really, really good."

Physically, Moore says, they are ready for the challenge.

"Physically, we're way better than we were," Moore said. "Wyatt (Milum)'s strong, (Zach) Frazier is stronger, Doug (Nester) has got himself in better shape. The whole room is getting toward what we are trying to get to.

"Now it's about attention to detail, your hand placement, your eyes, not having holding calls. We've had too many of those the last couple of days. Offsides calls, we had a couple of them in the scrimmage. Can't have it.

"Playing hard, we're putting that at a premium in the room."