Some of Matt Rhule's best memories as a youth involved taking a subway to go see Yankees like Dave Winfield and Don Mattingly play baseball in his hometown, New York City.

As it turns out, the first bowl game Nebraska will play under Rhule — the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bow at Yankees Stadium on Dec. 28 — happens to be in the head coach's old stomping grounds. The concrete jungle that helped mold who he is today.

It won't be the first bowl game Nebraska has played in The Big Apple, though. In 1962, Bob Devaney's team beat Miami in what was called the Gotham Bowl. That marked the third bowl appearance in Husker history and the first victory.

Rhule, who attended a press conference via Zoom along with Boston College head coach Bill 'O'Brien on Tuesday morning, said he's talked with Devaney's son, Mike, about that game.

"We believe we're here for something really special at Nebraska," Rhule said. "We're trying to kind of dig our way out of this (bowl) drought, and to have it start and have it be the same place coach Devaney started, is really cool. We look forward to following in his footsteps with some other things moving forward."

When the Pinstripe Bowl was created back in 2009, it caught Rhule's attention. The coach thought that, if one of his teams was ever involved in it, it'd be a pretty cool moment for him and his family.

While Rhule's parents currently live in Omaha, his father used to be a minister at Lamb's Church of Nazarene in Manhattan before holding teaching jobs on the Upper West Side. His mother was an outreach social worker, spending most of her time on the Lower East Side. His sister is still back on the East Coast — she works in the city and moved from Brooklyn to north New Jersey a couple years ago.

"It's a chance to reconnect with friends. I grew up kind of in Park Slope and 32nd and second when I lived over on Roosevelt Island, so I had all my buddies from Roosevelt Island hit me up, 'Are you coming over? What are we gonna do?'" said Rhule, who also added he'll be seeking out a tasty traditional Christmas Eve Feast of Seven Fishes.

At the end of the day, New York City is home for Rhule.

"It's been home for a long time," he said. "We love the people that are there. It'll be fun. It'll be fun for my parents. It'll be fun to obviously see my sister. But it'll be fun for my wife and I and our kids."

During the time after he was fired from the Carolina Panthers and before taking the Nebraska job, Rhule was able to take his three children — his son is now 20 years old while his two daughters are 12 and 9 — to see all the must-dos when heading to New York City, like watching the Radio City Rockettes and The Lion King on Broadway, for example.

Rhule wanted to let his players know how memorable of a trip this will be, especially during the Christmas holiday. The coach even sent Cam Lenhardt, who grew up in Staten Island, to the front of the team meeting room recently to talk to the rest of his teammates about the city and what to expect.

Rhule said Nebraska has six players on the roster who are from the New York City or north New Jersey areas. One of them is senior running back Rahmir Johnson, who grew up in Harlem and prepped at Bergen Catholic in New Jersey.

The Pinstripe Bowl's executive director, Mark Holtzman, said the Nebraska and Boston College players will have a schedule of events to take part in.

Those events include seeing the giant Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, a performance by the Radio City Rockettes and the 9/11 Memorial. Players and coaches will also ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and take a boat cruise to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. There will also be community outreach opportunities at the Memorial Sloan Kettering and the American Red Cross Greater New York Region.

The Pinstripe Bowl will also include a light show with both teams' color schemes.

"The night before the game itself, we're going to light up the New York skyline with the colors of the BC Eagles and the Nebraska Cornhuskers," Holtzman said. "One World Trade Center is going to be lit in both teams' colors, as well as One Bryant Park. So you're going to see the colors lighting up the sky the night before."

Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen, who also spoke at the press conference, said NU is planning to bring about 150 band members on the trip.

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