Friday Feedback
September 11, 2015 by Mike Casazza
Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which brings to you a sign of the times. Yesterday, we saw WVU and Pitt rekindle the Backyard Brawl, and we thanked Twitter for the role it played in the saga. With games come contracts, and one between these two had potential fir it to be interesting for a variety of reasons, mostly potential contentious ones. Yet the eight-page pact for the four-game series is pretty pedestrian, and only one thing stood out to me — and it’s a 2015 thing, for sure. The spotlighted section above is, near as I can tell, a first in a WVU contract.
And come to think of it, you better have it, right? Shane Lyons thinks so.
“That’s just a protection for both of us,” Lyons told me. “The game is seven years away. Over 10 years, a lot can change — just look back 10 years from now, what it looked like then and what it looks like now. So that language is in there. But I think from our standpoint — and I can’t speak for Pitt — this is a game that’s important for us regardless of conference realignment. One of the things you have to look at when doing this is what can happen in the future, what possibilities are out there for one reason or another? Obviously, conference expansion is one of those topics. I think we’re in a climate right now where it’s going to continue to be discussed. I hope we never need it. It’s in there as language to protect for of us, but that is new language for us.”
We’ve been over this, but the more that time passes and the closer we get to the end of these media rights deals the more likely it is that the current conference configurations change. If the ACC, for example, grows and goes with nine conference games, then maybe Pitt needs a non-conference breather somewhere in the series. If, hypothetically, the Big 12 loses members and WVU, again hypothetically, is in another conference, maybe a game against Pitt isn’t in the best interest of the Mountaineers.
There are a lot of maybes out there, so this is in there.
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, arrive in style.
Mackstradamus said:
44 points is explosion enough for me. I enjoyed it.
I’d also be morally remiss if I didn’t point out that the Wolf of Wall Street bit on the jumbotron was fire and flames.
Right again!
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