Syracuse to play Kansas State in inaugural Pinstripe Bowl
Syracuse accepted an invitation to play in the inaugural New Era Pinstripe Bowl Thursday, SU Athletic Director Daryl Gross announced at an afternoon press conference.
‘We have such a great announcement,’ Gross said. ‘It’s not the biggest secret in the world, but we have accepted a bid to play in the Pinstripe Bowl.’
The Pinstripe Bowl will take place Dec. 30 at 3:30 p.m. at Yankee Stadium. The Orange will face off against Kansas State, which accepted a bid to the bowl Friday.
In addressing the media Friday at an afternoon press conference, SU head coach Doug Marrone said the bowl trip was a ‘dream come true.’
‘This team has accomplished a great deal, and this is a great reward for us,’ he said. ‘We talked about it all year. We have our goals that we all signed on for.’
On Thursday, Gross rarely stopped beaming during a 14-minute press conference in which he wore cufflinks that displayed the interlocking ‘NY’ logo of the New York Yankees.
After Syracuse’s season ended last Saturday with a 16-7 loss to Boston College, talks between the Yankees and Syracuse started to heat up.
The Pinstripe Bowl gets the fourth selection from the Big East. But with the ‘mutual attraction’ between the two parties, Gross said it made sense to accept the bid now than to wait for other bowl possibilities.
‘We’re elated,’ he said. ‘We’re happy to be back at a bowl. To be in the Pinstripe Bowl is a really nice thing for us. Like Doug (Marrone) said, if we’re not going to be in a BCS bowl, there couldn’t be a more perfect bowl for us to be in.’
Later, Gross added that the novelty of the bowl made it such an easy choice for the department to accept.
The bowl is the first in the New York City area since the 1981 Garden State Bowl in Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. It is the first bowl in New York since 1962, when Miami played Nebraska in the Gotham Bowl in the original Yankee Stadium.
‘It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime type of event,’ Gross said.
For a team and program attempting to market itself as ‘New York’s college team,’ a trip to the Pinstripe Bowl in perhaps the most iconic stadium in New York can ‘only enhance that,’ Gross said.
‘It couldn’t be any better,’ he said. ‘There we are, for a whole week, to take over the town and paint it Orange. Not just taxi tops. We’ll be playing down there, as well.’
Marrone grew up in the Bronx, about nine miles from Yankee Stadium. His grandfather worked as an usher for Yankee Stadium.
So for the SU head coach, the bowl will also be a trip home, making it all the more special.
‘I don’t know how many coaches get to play in a venue that they grew up around their entire life,’ Marrone said. ‘I think it is, without a doubt, a dream come true to go home.’
Mark Holtzman, the Pinstripe Bowl’s executive director, was on hand during the Syracuse men’s basketball game against North Carolina State Saturday to present Marrone and SU with an official invite.
‘We’re still high-fiving,’ Holtzman said of Syracuse’s inclusion to the bowl after the presentation. ‘The smile hasn’t worn off.’
In Marrone’s second season at the helm, the Orange returned to a bowl game for the first time since 2004. Its 7-5 record was the first winning season for the program since 2001. And it came after a 4-8 season last year that led to a preseason pick of seventh in the conference in the Big East media poll.
But SU surprised with four road victories in the Big East, including signature wins at South Florida and West Virginia. In its final road conference win at Rutgers on Nov. 13, it clinched bowl eligibility with a 13-10 victory over the Scarlet Knights.
Published on December 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm
