NEW YORK -- The day after he received a phone call from football coach Doug Marrone, telling him Greg Paulus would be the Orange's starting quarterback, Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross was at a press conference to officially announce three Syracuse football games at the new Meadowlands stadium starting in 2012.
"You can tell right now times for Syracuse football are exciting," Gross said. "We're trying to reestablish that history, that heritage, that tradition we've had at Syracuse."They're also trying to grease recruiting pipelines and connect with the alumni fan base in the metropolitan area with the three games: vs. USC on Sept. 8, 2012 and vs. Notre Dame on both Sept. 27, 2014, and Sept. 3, 2016. Gross said Syracuse feels a "responsibility" to be a presence in New York City, as the state's only BCS school.
A closer BCS school, in the state of New Jersey, does not have any dates booked for the Meadowlands and coach Greg Schiano refuted Monday a report that claimed the Scarlet Knights and UCLA were in negotiations to open the 2010 season in East Rutherford.
Giants president and co-owner John Mara said Tuesday there have been conversations with Rutgers about the possibility of featured games at the new venue "but we don't have anything to announce on that," he said.
"There's always a chance," Mara added. "Certain athletic directors prefer to have big games on their own college campuses, and I certainly understand that. But when you're talking about a crowd that could be in excess of 80,000 for certain opponents, we think it could be a great alternative, if that's the direction they want to go in."
When the NCAA allowed teams to schedule 12 games, it opened up the opportunity to play featured games that have a bowl-like feel during the regular season. Mara says there have been conversations with several other programs to bring more such games to the Meadowlands, which has a rich college football tradition with the Garden State Bowl and Kickoff Classic. He said there is "no limit" to the amount of college games the stadium could host, though "several per year" would be successful.
The new Meadowlands stadium, which will open for the 2010 football season, has to compete with another new venue -- Yankee Stadium -- for games in the New York area. Rutgers will play Army at Yankee Stadium in 2011.
"We're in competition with Yankee stadium, but we certainly have the advantage of being able to accommodate more than 82,000 people," Mara said. "Talking to teams like Notre Dame and USC, other big-time programs, I think that's a plus."