When the last cheer has been chanted, the final insult hurled and the couch fires extinguished, University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University fans can, for the most part, resume life apart.

The 70 or so miles that separate the two schools, whose rivalry reaches its zenith once a year in the long-running Backyard Brawl, is a distance short enough to fuel the football feud but far enough to allow each side to bask in victory or stew in defeat.

Some fans, however, do not have the luxury of a buffer between Panther and Mountaineer.

Take the Skrzyckis of Castle Shannon. Dennis Skrzycki met Darcie at a Dave Matthews Band concert, and they hit it off -- except for one detail.

He was a die-hard Pitt fan, and she cheered for West Virginia. They managed to overlook each other's deeply flawed allegiances, and married nearly five years ago. But every year, as the Pitt-WVU face-off approaches, the house rivalry builds, Mr. Skrzycki said.

Last year, they went to the game at Heinz Field. He wore his Pitt gear, she wore her West Virginia gear. She endured jeering as Pitt defeated WVU, 19-15.

"We wind up defending each other a lot," he said. "But at the same time, we heckle each other a lot."

Their mixed marriage gets a lot of questions, he said: "Mainly, how do you deal with it?"

It's a life of compromise. Last year, Mrs. Skrzycki braved Pitt territory. This year, the couple plans to drive down to West Virginia to watch the game on Black Friday.

The compromising goes beyond the once-a-year match-up.

"We are working on revamping our family room, and the goal is to go down the middle with everything," Mr. Skrzycki said.

Love also conquered the Backyard Brawl in Washington, Pa., where John Bruner, a Pitt graduate, lives with his fiancée Annette Clemente, a West Virginia graduate. When they met, the rivalry was a hurdle, they said.

"I kind of took it with a grain of salt," Ms. Clemente said. "Despite that main fault of his, I still decided to give him a chance."

They've tried to convert each other away from the dark side. It can't be done, so they settle for good-natured ribbing every year when the game comes on.

"I just hope that if West Virginia wins she takes the couch outside the house before she burns it," Mr. Bruner joked.

Fans at WVU have been known to burn couches after a game.

In Peters, Melanie Hoffman's family is divided, too. For the first 16 years of her life, Ms. Hoffman was, as her father had hoped, a Pitt fan. Then she started looking into colleges, and West Virginia seemed like a good fit. The Peters Township High School graduate is now a sophomore at West Virginia, to her "heartbroken" father's chagrin, she said.

But there are West Virginia fans on her stepmother's side of the family, which made the transition from Panther to Mountaineer a little easier.

Ms. Hoffman will come home for Thanksgiving, then return for the game. Her dad will be watching it from home.

"If West Virginia loses, I'll get a snarky little text," she said.

A total of 101 games have been played between the two teams since 1895, and Pitt has the advantage, with a 61-37-3 record.

But that's just Backyard Brawl 101. Alex Avakian, a fifth-year senior at Pitt, could be called a brawl expert.

The Point Breeze native spent two years as an undergraduate at West Virginia. As a sports writer for the student newspaper, he covered two of the brawls, including the 2007 game when Pittsburgh defeated West Virginia 13-9, dashing the Mountaineers' hopes for a BCS National Championship bid.

"People were just crushed," Mr. Avakian said. "People felt like their little dog had died. There was a heavy atmosphere of sadness in that loss."

The following year, he moved to a more victorious atmosphere and became a Pitt student. His analysis of the rivalry is that West Virginians care more about it than Pittsburghers, since here, the sports craze is spread out among the other teams in the city.

"The Mountaineers are their Pittsburgh Penguins, Steelers and Pirates all rolled into one," he said.

This year, he's hoping for a Pitt victory, but said he'll be happy whoever wins.

West Virginia expects a sell-out, and a great game, said Stephen Douglas, the president and CEO of the WVU Alumni Association.

"It's got all the classic ingredients for a great novel, a great movie," he said. "It's the country folk of West Virginia playing the city slickers of Pittsburgh."

West Virginia loves the rivalry, Mr. Douglas said, and so does Pittsburgh, said Jeff Gleim, the executive director of the Pitt Alumni Association.

"I'm looking for an absolutely crazy game," Mr. Gleim said.

The 102nd edition of the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pittsburgh will be televised starting at 7 p.m. Friday on ESPN2.

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