Big East, Big 12 in Talks to Meet in Yankee Bowl in 2010

Update: Big 12 spokesman Bob Burda confirmed to FanHouse that an agreement for the Big East and Big 12 to meet in the Yankee Bowl is nearly finalized.

The Big East and Big 12 conferences are in serious discussions to play in the new Yankee Bowl beginning in 2010, multiple sources told FanHouse.

The Big East would send its third or fourth selection to New York, while the Big 12 would likely send its seventh selection. The bowl game would be played at the new Yankee Stadium with a seating capacity of about 47,000.

This is the final year of the current bowl cycle with the new cycle running from 2010-13.

Last month, the Big East officially announced the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando would get the league's second selection or Notre Dame once every four years if eligible beginning in 2010, taking the place of the current hybrid agreement with the Gator and the Sun bowls.

The Sun Bowl had an offer from the Big East to take the league's third selection, but opted to take the fifth selection from the Atlantic Coast Conference, The Tampa Tribune reported.

If the Big East adds the Yankee Bowl, the league's new six-bowl lineup would likely consist of BCS, Champs (Orlando), Yankee (New York), Meineke Car Care (Charlotte, N.C.), Papajohns.com (Birmingham, Ala.) and St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg, Fla.).

The Big 12 currently has agreements with eight bowls for this season, although the Sun Bowl will not be affiliated with the Big 12 beginning in 2010.

If the Big 12 adds the Yankee Bowl, the league's bowl lineup could consist of BCS, Cotton (Dallas), Alamo (San Antonio), Insight (Tempe, Ariz.) Holiday (San Diego), Yankee (New York) and Texas (Houston) and possibly the Independence (Shreveport, La.)

Yankee Stadium officials are actively seeking college football games to be played at the stadium and have announced several future regular-season games, including Notre Dame-Army in 2010, Army-Rutgers in 2011, Army-Air Force in 2012 and Army-Boston College in 2014.

Now onto our Big East Rewind of Week 2

Some things we may have actually figured out in the past week

1. The Big East Conference has a championship game this season. Not officially anyway, but the Big East Conference title game will be held Dec. 5 at Heinz Field when Cincinnati visits Pittsburgh. Sure, we're only two games into the season, but the Bearcats and Panthers appear to be the class of the league. West Virginia is currently running third, while the rest of the league -- unless USF is doing a major sandbag act or Rutgers' Tom Savage becomes another freshman QB wiz like USC's Matt Barkley and Michigan's Tate Forcier -- appears no threat to the Bearcats or Panthers. If Cincinnati survives at Oregon State Saturday and at USF in mid-October the Bearcats should be 9-0 entering their final three games -- at home with West Virginia (Nov. 13), Illinois (Nov. 27) and at Pitt (Dec. 5).

2. Matt Grothe will make history again. USF's senior quarterback broke Pat White's career Big East total offense record Saturday and by the time his career is done -- yes I know it seems like he's been at USF since the program began in 1997, but I promise this is his final year -- he could approach 14,000 yards. While Grothe would gladly trade in every single yard for a Big East title, I think unfortunately for Grothe, unless the Bulls win this year's Big East crown, he will earn another dubious distinction: owner of the Big East's all-time career total offense record, but never voted to the coaches' All-Big East first team. Pat White was the league's All-Big East QB the past three seasons and Cincinnati's Tony Pike is the early leader for this year's award.

3. Is the Big East worth a darn? Other than Cincinnati and Pittsburgh (although Pitt allowing 500 yards to Buffalo is never a good sign), I really don't know yet. But I have a funny feeling we'll find out this week in a crucial six-pack of games: Louisville at Kentucky, UConn at Baylor, Navy at Pittsburgh, Cincinnati at Oregon State, Northwestern at Syracuse and West Virginia at Auburn. According to Vegas, Pittsburgh is the only Big East favorite among those games, so if there are no upsets the Big East will go 1-5 in those contests. Even though there wouldn't have been any upset losses, a 1-5 mark would be a huge failure. I think 2-4 wouldn't be great, but it wouldn't smell as bad; you could spin 3-3 as acceptable; while 4-2 or better would be gravy. As far as the league's image, the three games the Big East needs to win the most this week are Cincinnati at Oregon State, West Virginia at Auburn and Navy at Pittsburgh.

Re-Tweeting Week 2
Ranking the league from top to bottom and summarizing each team, in 140 characters or less.

1. Cincinnati: How good are the Bearcats? We'll find out Saturday in Corvallis, Ore.; not the easiest place to play for a visiting team

2. Pitt: Dion, Dorsett. Dorsett, Dion. Meet Dion Lewis, Pitt's freshman RB who is drawing comparisons to former Panther Tony Dorsett

3. WVU: Pat who? QB Jarrett Brown had 407 yards total offense vs. East Carolina, something Pat White didn't accomplish the past two years

4. USF: The Bulls host Charleston Southern Saturday. CSU lost to Wofford 42-14, Wofford lost to USF 40-7. Do the math: this will be ugly

5. UConn: You can't spell Connecticut without TO: Huskies have committed six turnovers in splitting their first two games

6. Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights are officially Savages: true freshman QB Tom Savage throws for 223 yards and 2 TDs in first start

7. Syracuse: After opening with Minnesota and Penn State, SU plays Northwestern. Another L and SU is officially eliminated from Big 10 race

8. Louisville: This isn't as big as UL-UK hoops, but Steve Kragthorpe really, really needs to end a two-game losing streak to hated 'Cats

You can follow Brett McMurphy on Twitter here: @BrettMcMurphy