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Army will meet Rutgers next October in a college football game to be played at the New Meadowlands Stadium.

I'm interested in a couple facets of this game.

Army will be the home team - just like they will be vs. Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium. I've got to wonder... will they be splitting the gate? 50/50 would be a pretty good deal for Army considering they can barely fill Michie Stadium's 40,000 capacity.

This may be the second college football game in the New Meadowlands - depending on the status of negotiations between the Meadowlands and two as-yet undetermined D1-AA teams.




















Army/Rutgers is a decent matchup - certainly more winnable than next year's Notre Dame game @ Yankee Stadium, but outside of an upset Army win - the success of this game will be determined by how much profit Army football clears between TV and tickets sold.

















Army's homes away from home for the next 5 seasons will be

Army at the Meadowlands
2010 vs Rutgers

Army at Yankee Stadium
2010 Notre Dame
2011 vs. Rutgers
2012 vs. Air Force
2014 vs. Boston College

These are great new football venues, and it should be a big selling point to recruits that they will be able to participate in these types of games - but it's not 1944 anymore, and the recruiting edge of the major college teams has become a sheer ledge that Army football will continue to have a difficult time climbing. These games will benefit recruiting for Rutgers, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Boston College a lot more than they will Army. At that, it's going to come down to the development and execution of Coach Ellerson's option to at least make these games memorable enough to continue the (hopefully) lucrative series.

I came across Andrew Clem's baseball blog where he lists the pro baseball stadiums that have been used for football -both college and pro. With lists of historic multiple use stadiums and diagrams of their layouts it's a very interesting site to say the least. Here's a look at the football layout at the old Yankee Stadium.


























Just for fun let's compare it to the football layout of the new Yankee Stadium:
































I'm not trying to get involved in the stadium architecture business, but new Yankee Stadium looks like a very tight fit for football. Are the dugouts and 3rd base line seats actually part of the end zones? It reminds me of grade school neighborhood football games where the lot next to my house had a little hill and a tree on it - which were both fair game, and you had to switch ends after every touchdown to make it fair.

No baseball stadium as a football venue is truly ideal... but looking back on my childhood football games... it's clear we should have tried much harder to maximize ticket profits.