Rutgers and Army will play football at Yankee Stadium on Nov. 12, 2011 in the second football game at the new stadium and the first in a series between the schools.
Army and Notre Dame will play the first football game at the new stadium on Nov. 20, 2010. The game will be broadcast on CBS.
Those two programs played 22 games at the old Yankee Stadium, the last one coming in 1969.
Army will also play Air Force in 2012 at Yankee Stadium and Boston College in 2014.
Yankee Stadium is expected to have about 47,000 seats for football, according to The New York Times.
The story was first reported by The Star-Ledger.
“It is very important to us,” Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said. “I can say it in two words: Ray Rice. He was a very important player to us and to our program. He was great for us, and for the New York area. And for recruiting, to put your program in a venue like this, we take great pride in recruiting the best players in a three-hour circle of our institution. It’s going to be a great opportunity for our kids and for our program.”
The Scarlet Knights will be making their ninth appearance at the historic arena, having played their first game at the old Stadium against NYU in 1927.
The last time Rutgers played at Yankee Stadium was Nov. 13, 1948 in a 40-0 victory over NYU.
Yankees general managing partner Hal Steinbrenner told The Ledger that his father, George Steinbrenner, wanted to bring football back to the new stadium.The elder Steinbrenner played football for Williams College and coached college football at Northwestern and Purdue.
“My dad, like many of us, is a great fan of college football,” Hal Steinbrenner told the paper. “When we first floated this idea past him and told him Notre Dame and Army were interested, he was ecstatic and very excited and eager to get a deal done.”
Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, a native of Trenton, N.J., told The Ledger he approached Steinbrenner two years ago about bringing Notre Dame and Army to the new stadium.
“This is a very special moment,” he said.
(Rutgers AD Tim Pernetti threw out the first pitch at Wednesday’s Orioles-Yankees game at the Stadium; photo courtesy Tom Ciszek/NJSportsPhoto)
REGIONAL HOSTS SET FOR LEGENDS CLASSIC
Michigan State, Rutgers, Florida and UMass have been announced as the four regional hosts for the 2009 Legends Classic men’s college basketball tournament. The event will tip-off with Regional Round games November 18-22 and conclude with the four host schools automatically advancing to the Championship Rounds at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ on November 27 and 28. The doubleheaders are scheduled to begin at 5:30 PM ET on both Friday and Saturday.
Follow Adam Zagoria on Twitter.
