Officials are staying mum until after this weekend to decide which Big East teams will play in what bowls. That said, the Pinstripe Bowl has pretty much set their public sites on one of two teams:
Holtzman acknowledged that the new bowl game, which pits a Big East team against one from the Big 12, wants a "local" team – meaning Syracuse, Rutgers or Connecticut.
Rutgers, at 4-7, isn’t bowl eligible this year, and Connecticut is still in the hunt to win the Big East championship the league’s automatic spot in a BCS bowl.
"We need to wait to see how this weekend unfolds," Holtzman said Tuesday. "You can’t predict exactly how things are going to go down."
So basically, they're keeping their options slightly open to see what happens with UConn. My gut tells me that we're locked in either way, because UConn is way more attractive to the Meineke Car Care Bowl. So even if they lose, I have to believe that's where they go.
Besides, too many good storylines with Syracuse attending.
In the meantime, a couple hopefully-future Orange are going to be playing in Yankee Stadium first.
The folks at the Pinstripe bowl announced today that they will allow the Yankee Stadium field to be used for the PSAL title game at 5 p.m. Tuesday between Abraham Lincoln and Fort Hamilton high schools. Each team features a downstate player SU recruiters covet - defensive end Ishaq Williams of Lincoln and wide receiver Brandon Reddish of Hamilton.
What can you do in the meantime? Well you could get off our lazy butt and call Yankee Stadium, telling them they have to invite Syracuse. It seems to be working already:
"In our first year as a bowl, obviously there are a lot of advantages to having Syracuse," he said. "There’s a lot of pent-up energy for the football program. We’ve gotten a lot of calls here about Syracuse playing in this game," he said.
Be dialing...