MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia kicker Pat McAfee's former teachers at Pittsburgh's Plum High School have wished him well — until he tries a game-winning field goal.

"Then they hope I choke," McAfee said.

That's the nature of next week's Backyard Brawl between Big East foes Pittsburgh and West Virginia, and lately, it's become a rivalry again after the Mountaineers dominated the series in the 1990s.

Pitt's 16-13 win over West Virginia last year denied the Mountaineers their first spot in the Bowl Championship Series.

On Thursday, the Panthers (5-5, 4-2) will try to become bowl-eligible for the sixth straight season while No. 13 West Virginia (8-1, 5-0) tries to keep its remarkable season going with one regular-season game left the following week at South Florida.

The Brawl hasn't had this much significance in consecutive seasons since the 1980s, when both programs were independent and perennially ranked in the Top 25.

"As soon as I got here, people would talk about the Pitt game before anything," said McAfee, a freshman. "As long as we beat Pitt, that's all that matters. I guess it's funny that they are not worried about the Big East championship, just Pitt. Just beat 'ol Pitt."

The 98-game series is the longest in the Big East.

"I have heard it all my life, the Backyard Brawl," said WVU linebacker Boo McLee, a native of Uniontown, Pa. "It is very important to me to go out and play a good game and come out with a win. Everybody puts in extra effort for the Brawl."

The two schools are just 75 miles apart, meaning both travel well to away games and recruit the fertile areas of Western Pennsylvania. The two have seemingly been divided since the first meeting in 1895. West Virginia, then nicknamed the Snakes, beat Western University of Pennsylvania, later Pitt, 8-0.

"You want to win every game, but after you win the Pitt game it has a little bit better feeling," said WVU holder George Shehl, a Clarksburg native. "For me, playing in a BCS bowl game is a big deal. Here it is, and they stand in our way once again. If they lose, it is their seniors' last game.

"If I could have scripted it, it would read a lot like this."

West Virginia quarterback Pat White, a redshirt freshman, will see his first action in the rivalry. Coaches and teammates have tried to explain the game's tenacity to the Alabama native.

"We don't like them and they don't like us," White said.

WVU coach and former Mountaineer player Rich Rodriguez said he knew what would happen if his son, Rhett, wanted to attend Pitt.

"He'd have to change his name," Rodriguez said.

WVU center Dan Mozes said his mother, Joann, converted her former Pitt-supporting boyfriend to a West Virginia fan. McLee, too, has seen friends switch allegiances. It doesn't seem to work the other way.

"I grew up on the Pittsburgh Steelers," said Mozes, a Washington, Pa. native. "I watched some college sports, but all you see in my area are Steelers fans and clothes. You come here and all you see is West Virginia Mountaineers stuff. The way you relate it is that Pittsburgh is a Steelers area first, where here it is college football and the Mountaineers first."

West Virginia has 16 players from Western Pennsylvania. Pitt has no West Virginia natives on its roster.

"My friend was a big Pitt fan," McAfee said. "As soon as I went to WVU, he told me he still liked Pitt. Then Pitt started losing. He jumped right back over to WVU. Pittsburgh fans, they are so fair-weather. They jump to whoever is winning. It's terrible."

Shehl's mother, Susan, is a Pitt graduate. She now cheers for West Virginia.

"But my grandfather still has to go to the grocery store there and hear about it from the people," said Shehl, one of 13 WVU seniors playing their last home game. "This is it for me. This will linger. It is important for me to go out with a win."

McLee added, "This is probably the biggest game every year that I have been here."