By my bookkeeping, West Virginia and Pitt can’t or won’t resume their football rivalry before 2022. They’re both booked for 2016 (as well as 2015, of course), and scheduling philosophies would seem to preclude a matchup in 2017-21.

The Panthers have one, two, two, one and three openings those five seasons, and that, of course, assumes the ACC sticks with an eight-game conference schedule, which it agreed to do in May, and doesn’t jump to nine games. If that happens, then Pitt has zero, one, one, zero and two openings.

But let’s stick with present scenarios. I can’t see it before 2022, even though WVU has one slot every year from 2017-21. It would look like there’s room for a game: WVU could play on the road in 2017, 2018 and 2020 and has to play at home in 2019 and 2021. Pitt has a little more flexibility because conference scheduling gives the Panthers four home and road games every year, and Pitt has two, one, one, two and zero home non-conference games.

You can figure out possibilities there, except that the Mountaineers are sort of hard to figure with regard to building their non-conference schedule.

There was a time they were of the mind nobody would be playing games against FCS teams, but Oliver Luck is gone (and he surely shared his intel from his time on the CFP selection committee) and I’ve heard the Mountaineers, who have two non-conference FBS opponents from 2015-21, are open to FCS contracts in the years they need a home game.

So that’s why 2022 seems the earliest date for a future game. That’s not good news, but it feels like we’re getting somewhere here.

There are four parts to this puzzle: The two head coaches and the two athletic directors (and it might also be true that the Big 12’s decision on a conference title game matters, too).

We know WVU’s Dana Holgorsen is invested. Remember this? “I’d be in favor of us and Pitt playing once in Pittsburgh because it’s a big venue and because we’d have more people than they would.” Pitt has a new coach, but Pat Narduzzi seems up for it as well — he hedged, and we’ll get to that in a moment.

Luck’s replacement, who wasn’t particularly close with his counterpart at Pitt, is Shane Lyons, and Lyons is open to entertaining the idea of getting back together with the Panthers, though he, like Narduzzi, said he wanted to see who Pitt’s new A.D. would be.

Well, that’s done.

Source confirms #Pitt set to hire Utah State’s Scott Barnes as next athletic director: http://t.co/1j66DHEbuz

— Sam Werner (@SWernerPG) April 23, 2015

Barnes worked four years at Iowa State, which we know as WVU’s new Pitt, but he knows rivalries, too. Those things are tense in Utah, and his Aggies could claim three:

1. BYU (84 meetings, 61 for the Old Wagon Wheel)
2. Utah (111 meetings as the Battle of the Brothers)
3. Wyoming (65 meetings, the past two as Bridger’s Battle).

What’s it matter? Well, Utah State and Wyoming met 58 times from 1903-78 and then never at all from from 1979-2000. The rivalry resumed in 2001, and they’ve played seven times this century, including the past two years as members of the same division in the Mountain West Conference, meaning it’s an annual deal now.

Utah State and Utah play for the Beehive Boot, and the last 50 games since 1961 have been non-conference games.

Fifteen of the past 19 battles for the Old Wagon Wheel have been on the first Friday in October, a big day on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints calendar. It’s the first day of one of two semiannual worldwide conferences (the other is in April).

So at minimum, Barnes can be expected to identify and appreciate a good rivalry and pursue its renewal.