Penn State has taken it upon itself to rekindle some old regional and traditional rivalries in recent years with the non-conference scheduling with a four-game series with Pitt and a recent home-and-home arrangement with West Virginia. But following Penn State’s season-opening victory over West Virginia a few weeks back, there are no scheduling agreements with either historical rival for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, West Virginia and Pitt squared off this weekend and have one more game to be played in 2025 before picking up their Backyard Brawl rivalry again in 2029 with another four-year scheduling agreement.
Watching Penn State go against Pitt and West Virginia in recent years was great for longtime Penn State fans and newer fans that may have grown up without those fond memories of the matchups with the Panthers and Mountaineers. Many newer fans may scoff at the idea of playing future games against either school for a handful of reasons, but having an in-state rivalry to look forward to on a regular basis again would be fun. There is a scheduling solution that could work for all three schools as well.
The bottom line is I would love to see Penn State, Pitt, and West Virginia play every season in non-conference play, and there is an easy way to give each school a slice of the scheduling pie.
The easiest way to make this work would be to have each school host one game and play one road game on an alternating basis between the three schools. Here is how it could work;
YEAR 1 ROTATION
- Penn State hosts Pitt
- Pitt hosts West Virginia
- West Virginia hosts Penn State
YEAR 2 ROTATION
- Pitt hosts Penn State
- West Virginia hosts Pitt
- Penn State hosts West Virginia
No one school gets two home games in the mix in any given year, fans get one traditional and historical rivalry game each season to look forward to, and the travel for all three fanbases is feasible.
I would honestly love to see one of these rivalry matchups take place at the end of the regular season, although it would be more likely to see these games played earlier in the year.
Penn State will stray away from some of their traditional regional opponents on the non-conference schedule the next few seasons. Temple will return to the schedule in 2026 for a home-and-home series, and Syracuse will pop back on for a home-and-home series beginning in 2027.
The rest of the non-conference schedule through 2028 will consist of games against Nevada, FIU, Villanova (FCS opponent), Marshall, Buffalo, Delaware (which will be an FBS school by the time the game is played), Ball State, and UMass.
Would you trade some of those games for matchups with Pitt and West Virginia? I know I would in a second.
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