Gov. Patrick Morrisey gave us more insight last week into the idea of a “Backyard Brawl” economic competition with neighboring states. The concept has its merits. Certainly Mountain State residents tend to respond well to being asked to rise above, to compete.

“Many of you have followed over the last few years where I’ve talked a lot about having a Backyard Brawl with all the states that we touch so we can grow economically,” Morrisey said. “I’m a believer in the power of competition; that if you start to look at what your state is doing in the economic arena and you compare it to all the states that you touch, you start to have barometers of where you stand and how you can be better at what you do.”

But fans of West Virginia University football know the team has an all-time losing record in that Backyard Brawl. The University of Pittsburgh is on top 62-41-3. And while it might fire us up to do so, we can’t kick off Morrisey’s Backyard Brawl by letting other states know what we think they should eat.

It will take more, then, than just a desire to win. We’ve got to perform an honest self-assessment and come up with a plan that moves us to the top. And here’s the thing: We already have a significant amount of data that shows us how we stack up against not only our surrounding states but the rest of the country. It’s become almost a running joke.

To give one recent example, WalletHub’s “Best and Worst States to Start a Business in 2025” counts West Virginia as the tenth worst in the country. We are 49th in the average growth in number of small businesses and 48th for industry variety.

When we think about larger employers, time and again economic development officials have done their best only to end up having to tell us yet another deal either fell through or never took off to begin with.

Morrisey’s greatest challenge might not be winning the game, but in reversing that kind of inertia and understanding what it will take to get us on the field in the first place. He’s chosen Todd Johnston, deputy chief of staff and chairman of the new Energy, Infrastructure, and Competitiveness Council to help him do that. His experience working with “regulatory and competitiveness issues” is important.

But if we are to succeed — if we are to gain any points at all in this Backyard Brawl — Morrisey and Johnston must be determined to support legislation and policy that reverses generations worth of almost intentional misunderstanding of what West Virginia truly needs to win. If they do — and if lawmakers don’t throw the game — Mountain State residents are very much looking forward to victory.