NEWPORT, R.I. — A new day could be dawning in the Big East, one that could see a league team as anchor for a postseason bowl game to be played at Yankee Stadium or Giants Stadium, as well as talk about expansion, several sources told The Post yesterday at the league’s media day.
The sources said that Mark Holtzman, marketing director of Yankee Stadium, discussed the possibilities of a bowl game at a meeting with the Big East athletic directors.
Mark Lamping, CEO of the New Meadowlands Stadium Company, expressed his facility’s interest.
If the bowl game comes to fruition, it likely would match a Big East school against an at-large team, preferably from the Big Ten, which has millions of alumni in the metropolitan area.
Yankee Stadium already has announced plans to host regular-season college football games involving Army, Boston College, Notre Dame and Rutgers.
With threats on the horizon — most glaringly, that the Big Ten, with its 11 members, will one day add a 12th — the Big East is focusing on how it can get stronger.
Two sources said the eight-team Big East would consider adding a ninth member by exploring whether there was interest on behalf of Maryland to jump from the ACC, and for Boston College to rejoin the league.
Both seem a little far-fetched on the surface, but Maryland always has played Big East schools, and the balance of power in the ACC is in the south. And Boston College is learning that life in the ACC, where it has no natural rivals, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The days of considering a Memphis or a Central Florida or an association with Army and Navy are over. The Big East, which went 4-2 in bowl games last season and has won three of its last four BCS games, is thinking of itself as operating from a position of strength.
“I think we’ve proven ourselves over the last three or four years,” said new commissioner John Marinatto. “I think we are in a much better position.”