This weekend brings us the 107th version of the Backyard Brawl as Pittsburgh looks to improve on its 2-0 start against West Virginia in college football’s Week 3 action on Saturday.
Pitt lost this game a year ago and slumped to a 3-9 mark, the worst record in head coach Pat Narduzzi’s time with the school, but quarterback Eli Holstein appears to have rejuvenated this offense so far, ranking 12th nationally in passing output and 28th in scoring offense.
West Virginia recovered from its season-opening loss to Penn State by routing Albany the week after and comes into this matchup as the slight favorite, needing to beef up an attack that ranks 74th nationally in scoring and 88th in passing production.
What do the analytics say about the matchup? Let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Pittsburgh and West Virginia compare in this Week 3 college football game.
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The simulations currently favor the road team in this game, but by a very slim margin.
SP+ predicts that West Virginia will defeat Pittsburgh by a projected score of 30 to 27 and to win the game by an expected 3.1 points overall.
The model gives the Mountaineers a slight 58 percent chance of outright victory.
SP+ is a “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that attempts to predict game outcomes by measuring “the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football.”
How good is it this season? So far, the SP+ model is 47-44 against the spread with a 51.6 win percentage.
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West Virginia is a 1.5 point favorite against Pittsburgh, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 63.5 points for the game.
FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for West Virginia at -126 to win outright and for Pittsburgh at +105.
If you’re using this projection to bet on the game, you should take …
Other analytical models take a different view and favor the Panthers over the Mountaineers.
That includes the College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times to pick winners.
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Pittsburgh is projected to win the game outright in 52.6 percent of the computer’s updated simulations, while West Virginia comes out the winner in the remaining 47.4 percent of sims.
The index forecasts a very close game, but sides with West Virginia to be 0.7 points better than Pittsburgh on the same field, not enough to cover this spread.
West Virginia will win 5.8 games this season and sits sixth from the bottom among Big 12 teams with a 2.3 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff.
The models project Pittsburgh will win 6.8 games and have a 3.4 percent shot at the 12-team playoff, ranking ninth in the ACC in that category.
Four people died in a fire at this mobile home in Junior PHOTO: Alan Coberly
JUNIOR, W.Va. — A late night fire in Barbour County has claimed the lives of four people.
The State Fire Marshal confirms the four adults died in the blaze at a home in the town of Junior. The fire department was alerted just before 11 p.m. Wednesday. They arrived to find a mobile home fully engulfed in flames along River Avenue in the town.
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The fire was out in 15 minutes and the bodies discovered.
The Fire Marshal has investigators on scene. All four victims were adults, but further information is not known.
MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. — The Moundsville Police Department is investigating a pharmacy break-in that led to the theft of a large amount of narcotics.
Police said the burglary happened in the early morning hours of June 30. Investigators said the suspects broke a window, went behind the pharmacy counter and stole the narcotics.
Authorities believe the suspects are from outside the area.
Police said the suspects used a stolen Infiniti Q50. The vehicle was later recovered by Ohio authorities near Cambridge.
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The investigation is ongoing and involves law enforcement agencies in multiple states.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Moundsville Police Department at 304-845-1611.
The United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox on Tuesday, ruling that states may exclude transgender athletes from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
The justices were unanimous in their analysis that the laws do not violate civil rights laws. However, the court was split on whether West Virginia’s law stood up to constitutional muster.
The ruling concludes this chapter in the ongoing cultural debate. The Save Women’s Sports Act was overwhelmingly approved by the legislature and signed by then-Gov. Jim Justice in 2021, and was almost immediately challenged in court. The legal battle trudged on for the next five years on its way to becoming a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Tuesday’s ruling settled the legal debate, but the court of public opinion weighed in on the issues long before the justice issued their legal opinions. According to Pew Research, 66 percent of U.S. adults support laws requiring athletes to compete on teams that match their biological sex. A Gallup poll found similar results, with 69 percent of adults supporting such laws.
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West Virginia is not alone in passing a law to protect women’s and girls’ sports. Twenty-six other states have recognized the basic fact that there are differences between males and females and have chosen to pass legislation acknowledging those distinctions in athletic competition.
Lawmakers, who campaigned on protecting women’s and girls’ sports, can now tell constituents that they have fulfilled their campaign promise. The Save Women’s Sports Act is now the law of the land in West Virginia.
“I would say that for the foreseeable future, we have a very certain future for women’s sports. And here in West Virginia, we know what the rules are, we know what the law is, we know that it’s constitutional,” said West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey on Talkline.
Tuesday’s ruling also presents an opportunity for legislators to move on from the issue. Discussions surrounding the topic during the legislative session have been known to grind momentum to a halt, and Republicans running for office over the last five years have made it a centerpiece of their campaigns.
The issue is now settled, at least for now.
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As J.B McCuskey cautioned,
“In the world of constitutional litigation, Dave, there’s never an end to any chapter.”
