MORGANTOWN — Finally!

If you are a true West Virginia football fan you understand the double entendre that word represents.

It became a part of Mountaineer football lore back in 1984 when they flashed it on the scoreboard after WVU defeated Penn State, 17-14, in 1984.

Finally!

West Virginia had not beaten Penn State in 28 years, playing a game every season. In that time they had secured one tie with the Nittany Lions. The losing streak was at 24 games when Don Nehlen’s 1984 team — Finally! — won.

That was one part of the meaning of Finally!

But this year there is another meaning. It seems like a lifetime since WVU last played a football game, since Neal Brown was bathed in mayonnaise after beating North Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl to complete a nine-win season that, seemed to be shouting that the Mountaineers were ready to become a fixture on the national college football scene.

That’s 242 days since last playing a football game for WVU; 242 days of withdrawal, of anticipation. Can’t say why it is, but beer tastes better with football.

But now we have WVU back in Morgantown, the last game having been played in Mountaineer Field now being 281 days ago.

And as for Penn State, its last visit to Morgantown was on Oct. 24, 1992, which is 11,618 days ago as this is being written or before any player on the WVU team was born.

Considering all that, and that WVU is just 9-49-2 all-time, this is still a rivalry game … and that is where we want to begin today.

See, it doesn’t necessarily take equality to make a rivalry. In fact, that can sometimes ruin a rivalry. Make no doubt that beating Penn State will set off a celebration in Morgantown equal to any that come with say the Pitt or the Virginia Tech games and, conversely, a loss to WVU would leave State College shrouded in doubt and sorry and have the alumni calling for James Franklin’s job.

In other words, each and every game between these two teams has strong implications.

Rivalries, of course, are at the heart and soul of college football, even in these days of mercenary players who are openly in it for the money.

Rivalries are even more important to WVU than most schools … considering that it’s awfully hard to be talking and thinking all year round of playing Texas Tech or Baylor or Arizona State or Utah or BYU.

That’s what makes scheduling different at WVU and I believe Wren Baker and the administration is taking the wrong approach in their announced future scheduling philosophy, that of playing one non-conference Power 4 opponent, preferably a rivalry game; one Group of 5 opponent and one lower-level opponent.

The idea is to lighten the non-conference path toward the newly expanded college football playoffs, a goal that has the ker-ching of a cash register opening rather than of creating the most entertaining schedule you can present to fans … fans who have accepted the inflation in the cost of attending WVU games more than they accept the inflation at the grocery store.

See, WVU’s schedule in most years could have two regional rivalries. The truth is, the Backyard Brawl must be included in every schedule WVU puts out. Pitt and WVU is our own Michigan-Ohio State, Army-Navy, Georgia-Alabama.

However, there doesn’t really seem to be any reason that in most years a second eastern rivalry game to be rotated between Penn State, Virginia Tech and Maryland couldn’t be worked out along with a Pitt game to get the football blood flowing in Morgantown and make the beers taste a little better and give value to season tickets, which are threatening to get out of the reach of many.

If you are going to be a figure on the national scene, you have to play meaningful games … as many of them as you can play.

It isn’t just winning games. It’s being good enough to win those meaningful games that draw fans and viewers … and, far more important, players who you want to come to your school to prove they can play against the best there is as they live out their dream of trying to get to the NFL.

Whether we want to admit it or not, this is rapidly becoming an open minor league for the NFL, so the schools who are fielding top level Power 4 football teams — or whatever the future holds for the highest echelon of the game — have to point their program as much toward developing professional football players as they now do toward developing doctors, nurses, journalists, historians, musicians, farmers and scientists.

College football has bought into the entertainment industry and there’s a whole lot more entertaining in playing football against Virginia Tech rather than Carnegie Tech or Penn State rather than James Madison.