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New West Virginia AD hopes to rekindle 'Backyard Brawl' with Pitt

November 25, 2011; Morgantown,WV, USA: West Virginia Mountaineers fans hold up a sign against the Pittsburgh Panthers during the third quarter at Milan Puskar Stadium. WVU won 21-20. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE
November 25, 2011; Morgantown,WV, USA: West Virginia Mountaineers fans hold up a sign against the Pittsburgh Panthers during the third quarter at Milan Puskar Stadium. WVU won 21-20. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE

New West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons wants to see the return of “The Backyard Brawl” with Pittsburgh.

The rivalry game hasn’t been played since 2011, when both schools made jumps to new conferences, but Lyons, who was hired in February, said rekindling the series is “on (his) radar.”

Before Lyons can take the necessary scheduling steps, Pitt has an AD search of its own to complete. Pitt fired Steve Pederson on Dec. 17 while Lyons replaced Oliver Luck, who took a position within the NCAA.

“Obviously at this point I’m kinda waiting to see who their athletic director is,” Lyons said on MetroNews “Sportsline” Monday night. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have a relationship with that individual to be able to work something out.”

With schools locking up non-conference games far in the future (West Virginia has agreements for the next seven seasons), Lyons acknowledged that any future series with Pitt would be further down the road.

“It’s not going to be two years from now,” Lyons said. “We’re probably looking at 2022 and ’23 to do a home-and-away, but I would love that.”

West Virginia currently has non-conference neutral-site games scheduled against BYU (2016), Virginia Tech (2017) and Tennessee (2018), plus home-and-home series with Missouri (2016, 2019), East Carolina (2017, 2020), NC State (2018, 2019), Virginia Tech (2021, 2022) and Penn State (2023, 2024).

The two schools have squared off on the gridiron 104 times with Pitt leading the overall series 61-40-3. Despite Pitt’s overall lead in the series, the Mountaineers won seven of the last 10 matchups in the series.

For more West Virginia news, visit WVSports.com.

For more Pittsburgh news, visit Panther-lair.com.

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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!