Pitt running back LeSean McCoy battles for extra yardage against a host of West Virginia defenders during the third quarter of the 100th Backyard Brawl Dec. 1, 2007, at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Among the many memories forever embedded in Scott McKillop's mind from one of the most iconic games in the history of Pitt athletics is a creeping sense of foreboding.
McKillop deeply believed in his team and teammates, but on Dec. 1, 2007, as Pitt continued to hang around with, and then edge ahead of No. 2 West Virginia, McKillop found himself bracing for a Mountaineers' counterpunch.
"Personally, every time I was going to the sideline, maybe I wasn't saying it to my teammates, but I was thinking, 'Is Pat White, is Steve Slaton, is Owen Schmitt - is this the one series where they break the big run?' They were a huge splash-play offense," McKillop told TribLive. "Rich Rodriguez was the originator of that fast-tempo, that go-go-go offense and it worked. ... When's the sleeping giant going to wake up?"
Pat Bostick, who quarterbacked for Pitt in Morgantown that day, recalled a similar feeling.
"It was this constant thought of, 'They're going to wake up and make a play,'" he said. "But we also knew that it was creeping into their minds, and they were starting to press and force it."
In the end, while the Mountaineers did not go down quietly, the offensive domination that propelled them to nearly 40 points per game, an 11-2 record and Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma was absent in their regular-season finale with Pitt.
The result was one of college football's most celebrated upsets -- 13-9 -- cemented as a source of pride in Oakland and anguish in Morgantown.
Much has changed over the 18 years since the Panthers shocked West Virginia in late 2007.
College football has been irrevocably altered by conference realignment and revenue sharing, among other strong forces.
As a byproduct, historic rivalries like the Backyard Brawl, with chapter No. 108 upcoming Saturday afternoon in Morgantown, have been threatened.
But even with the Backyard Brawl ending what's been a four-year resuscitation to go on hiatus again until 2029, intense feelings continue to be felt by its participants, past and present.
It might not be possible to replicate the aura that hovered over the kinds of contests that McKillop, Bostick and their peers took part in. But the spirit of the Backyard Brawl remains strong.
Elation and dejection
Bostick, McKillop and their teammates won't ever forget defeating West Virginia in the 2007 Backyard Brawl.
Nor will Rodriguez.
Not even a win this weekend against Pitt, against whom he went 4-3 from 2001-07 as West Virginia's coach, could fill the void of such a devastating defeat.
"That's a lifetime ago," Rodriguez told reporters in Morgantown this week. "Is it a sore spot when it's brought up? Yeah, it is. It was the worst moment of my professional career from a game standpoint. I tried to move past it a long time ago. From that regard, it'd be good to get a win. But it's not going to ease the pain from (2007). It'll still always be there. That's a part of life."
In rivalries such as the Backyard Brawl, one team's happiness is the source of the other's dejection.
For both Pitt (2-0) and West Virginia (1-1), and particularly their fans, the most memorable games from the series are largely congruent with the results which inflicted the most pain on their neighbors across the border.
In a showdown that dates to 1895, it's hard to pick a game with more consequences than when Pitt deprived West Virginia of a national championship appearance via their 2007 upset win.
"We kept them from doing something really special, probably," said Bostick, who scored Pitt's lone touchdown in the win. "That was as good of a team that I ever played against during my four years at Pitt. They were as good an opponent as we ever played. Watching them on film, top-to-bottom depth - they were humming.
"We were this 4-7 team that was going nowhere and that was our Super Bowl. We didn't really play with nothing to lose on offense, but our defense did. (2007) was about as good a chance as they had and listen - I think they win the national championship if we don't beat them. They were that good."
McKillop has had his fair share of sparring matches with Mountaineers fans since 2007.
As the man who stopped Slaton in his tracks on a critical fourth-and-3 try at Pitt's 26-yard line with just over four minutes to play, McKillop's name is engraved in Backyard Brawl lore.
He can't contest the talent WVU had that year and under Rodriguez in general, while the Mountaineers as a program rose to much higher heights than the Panthers during his time as a student-athlete.
But within those acknowledgements is one irrefutable truth.
"I've always heard from WVU fans, 'That was your bowl game. You hang your hat on beating us. We went to consecutive BCS bowl games and we won,'" said McKillop, who has now resided in West Virginia for the better part of a decade. "I'm not debating that, but you didn't go to a national championship because you couldn't beat little old Pitt."
The Brawl in 2025
That the times have changed over the last 18 years at Pitt, West Virginia and in college football is a vast understatement.
When Bostick and McKillop played against WVU, it was a more intimate affair by nature of the strong annual WPIAL alumni presence on both squads.
Additionally, stricter transfer portal rules limited roster turnover and ensured that the same nucleus of players were squaring off against one another each year.
Illustrating the polar opposite that is today's college football is Rodriguez's 2025 squad, which features 81 first-year players in Morgantown.
But Pat Narduzzi has his fair share of players preparing for their first Backyard Brawl who aren't from Pittsburgh and didn't grow up in the rivalry's lingering shadow.
Plus, recent history shows that players on both teams don't need four or five years to develop a healthy hatred of one another.
Look no further than former WVU defensive back Beanie Bishop, who, despite playing only one year for the Mountaineers, saw fit to post a video of himself dragging his cleats across Pitt's practice facility logo when in training camp with the Steelers in June.
Similarly, former Pitt quarterback Kedon Slovis, who played only the 2022 campaign in a Panthers uniform, infamously issued a profanity-laden jab at WVU ahead of that year's Backyard Brawl at Acrisure Stadium.
Whether they're first-year players or fifth-year seniors, those at Pitt and West Virginia seem to gravitate to the intensity of the Backyard Brawl.
"I think it starts with the fans," Pitt defensive coordinator Randy Bates said. "They don't leave their teams, so that's No. 1. At the end of the day, tradition, where you end up going, it ends up through osmosis becoming part of you. I would guess that the kids who have transferred to Pitt, transferred to West Virginia, by the time we get to the game will have a very clear idea of the rivalry."
Pitt center Lyndon Cooper acknowledged what's on the table for the winning team, given the upcoming multi-year pause in play.
"Going to Morgantown, it's the real deal," he said. "We get a chance to basically secure our legacy for Pitt winning against WVU until the next time we play them in 2029. This is a big deal for us and a big deal for them."
In Bostick's eyes, despite the very different era of collegiate athletics, the legend and appreciation of the Backyard Brawl is still alive and well.
"The atmosphere is fueled by fans, it's fueled by interest, years and decades of history, and it doesn't take long whether you're there for a year - which I was in '07, I had been there for eight months - to figure out that this game means a lot to a lot of people," he said. "Winning it is great, losing it is horrible, and you feel that as a player. You feel the weight of it. It's not a burden. It's an opportunity."
Grasping immortality
Nearly two decades after helping Pitt to its win in the 2007 Backyard Brawl, Bostick has remained humble about his own contributions.
"I like to say that I'm the Pat that had least to do with Pitt winning that game," he said. "Pat White not playing was No. 1 and then Pat McAfee missed a couple (field goals), which helped our cause."
McKillop, a two-time All-American and All-Big East selection, as well as Big East Defensive Player of the Year in 2008, deflects much credit to the man calling plays for Pitt at the time.
"We had a defensive coordinator in Paul Rhoads that we believed in and loved," McKillop said. "It was someone we felt like we'd die on the field for."
Bostick and McKillop, among countless of their peers at both Pitt and West Virginia over the years, are personifications of the kind of immortality that awaits players who make a major impact in the storied rivalry.
From punching it into the end zone like Bostick to being a tackling machine like McKillop, those who make plays on such a big stage are not forgotten.
Ahead of kickoff Saturday, for the last time until 2029, new opportunities for everlasting glory have arisen.
Which players manage to grasp them remains to be seen.
"I think legends and heroes are made in this game," Narduzzi said. "Whether it's Pat Bostick on a quarterback sneak - his helmet's out and he doesn't even remember the play if you ask him because I think he was knocked out. But plays like that, you become legends in this game. People will remember you forever for those big plays."