ESPN Broadcast Crew for 2024 Backyard Brawl Announced

The Backyard Brawl is just a few days away, and the broadcast crew has been announced for those who can’t attend the game in person at Acrisure Stadium.

With ESPN deciding to flex Tulane-Oklahoma to ESPN, West Virginia at Pitt will be on ESPN2. Mike Monaco will handle play-by-play duties, Kirk Morrison will serve as his analyst and Dawn Davenport will report from the sideline.

Locally, Tony Caridi – in his 40th season as the voice of the West Virginia Mountaineers — will handle play-by-play duties on the Mountaineer Sports Network, with Dwight Wallace serving as the analyst and Jed Drenning reporting from the sideline.

WVU and Pitt are scheduled to kickoff at Acrisure Stadium at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

West Virginia is 1-1, rebounding from a season-opening loss against Penn State with a 49-14 beatdown of Albany. WVU quarterback Garrett Greene and the Mountaineers’ offense are looking to continue their ascent.

Pitt is 2-0, coming off a come-from-behind win against Cincinnati this weekend, and is looking to improve to 3-0 for the first time since 2020.

Pitt leads the all-time series with West Virginia 62-41-3. It’s a series that initially kicked off in the 1800s, with an 8-0 WVU win 1895. The two sides then played every season from 1943-2011 — and just about every season since 1900 before that. It’s grown into perhaps the greatest rivalry in college football in the years since.

The series stopped for 10 seasons due to both teams leaving the Big East, with West Virginia moving to the Big 12 and Pitt the ACC.

But it resumed in the 2022 season. Pitt knocked off WVU, 38-31, to open the season at Acrisure Stadium, and WVU returned the favor with a 17-6 win at Milan Puskar Stadium last season.

The current series will expire in 2025, but another four-game series is set for 2029-32. So, the Backyard Brawl will be played a handful of times in the coming seasons.

Television — ESPN2

Mike Monaco (play-by-play)

Kirk Morrison (analyst)

Dawn Davenport (reporter)

Radio — 100.9 Jack FM, Mountaineer Sports Network  

Tony Caridi (play-by-play)

Dwight Wallace (analyst)

Jed Drenning (reporter)

SiriusXM Satellite Radio

Channels 119 or 193 or on the SiriusXM app

WWVU-FM U92 (WVU Student Station) — 91.7

For a related story, WVU head coach Neal Brown explained why the Backyard Brawl needs to be played as often as possible.

Part of this story with edits initially appeared on our partner site Pittsburgh Sports Now.