Bowl game date, time, opponent is official, Huskers to play in Pinstripe Bowl vs Boston College

Nebraska football now officially knows its bowl game destination, date, kickoff time and opponent: Head coach Matt Rhule, quarterback Dylan Raiola and the Huskers will take on Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 28 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York (New York City).

The bowl game announcement was made official on Sunday, shortly after the reveal of the 12-team College Football Playoff bracket. The Huskers (6-6 overall, 3-6 Big Ten) accepted the invitation to play in the Pinstripe Bowl against head coach Bill O’Brien and the Eagles (7-5 overall, 4-4 ACC) late last week, sources told Inside Nebraska on Friday.

Now, the news is public.

***PINSTRIPE BOWL***

Matchup: Nebraska vs. Boston College

Time: 12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT

Date: Dec. 28, 2024

Location: Yankee Stadium | Bronx, New York (New York City)

TV: ABC and WatchESPN

Nebraska finished the season with a .500 record at 6-6 overall, including a 3-6 mark in the Big Ten (it was the Huskers’ sixth time in the last eight years they finished exactly 3-6 in the B1G), to finish in a four-way tie with Michigan State, UCLA and Wisconsin for 12th place in the 18-team conference. Ultimately, though, the Huskers secured a postseason berth for the first time since 2016.

Nebraska accepting the invitation to the Pinstripe Bowl marks the fourth time in the last six matchups of the NYC-hosted bowl game (an annual matchup of Big Ten vs. ACC) that a Big Ten team with a 6-6 record has played in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Boston College finished the season with a 7-5 record overall, including a 4-4 mark in the ACC for a T-9th finish with Virginia Tech in the conference standings. The Eagles began the season with a 28-13 road win over then-ranked No. 10 Florida State to kick off a 4-1 mark out of the gate, which featured wins over FCS program Duquesne (56-0), Big Ten program Michigan State (23-19) and Conference USA runner-up Western Kentucky (21-20) with a 27-21 loss at then-No. 6 Missouri sandwiched in between during Week 3.

Similar to Nebraska, however, the Eagles saw their own mid-season swoon. Boston College lost three consecutive games, going 0-3 in October against Virginia (24-14), Virginia Tech (42-21) and Louisville (31-27) for a 4-4 record. The Eagles then outlasted Syracuse (37-31) but fell to then-No. 14 SMU (38-28) on the road to enter their final two-game stretch – just like Nebraska – needing a win to secure postseason eligibility.

The Eagles did one better than the Huskers, rattling off back-to-back home wins over North Carolina (41-21) and Pittsburgh (34-23) to reach the above-.500 mark in O’Brien’s first season at the helm of the program.

Prior to O’Brien’s arrival, Boston College had gone 22-26 in four seasons under Jeff Hafley from 2020-23. That included no bowl game following a 6-5 season in Year 1 in 2020, two seasons of 6-6 in the regular season in 2021 and 2023 (plus a canceled bowl game in 2021 and a 7-6 mark after beating SMU in a bowl game in 2023) and a 3-9 mark in 2022.

The last time the Huskers made a bowl game in 2016, they began the season 7-0 and were nationally ranked in the Top 10. But they finished 9-3 overall following road losses at No. 11 Wisconsin (23-17 in overtime) and No. 6 Ohio State (62-3), home wins over Minnesota (24-17) and Maryland (28-7), and then a road loss at unranked Iowa (40-10) to close out the regular season.

Ultimately, that road led to Nashville, where the No. 24 Huskers faced No. 21 Tennessee in the Music City Bowl and fell to the Volunteers, 38-24, on Dec. 30, 2016.

Both programs went into tailspins in the years afterward.

Both head coaches (Nebraska’s Mike Riley and Tennessee’s Butch Jones) were each fired at the end of the following seasons in 2017. Both programs went 4-8 that season with Riley the head man for all 12 games and Jones getting fired after a 4-6 start.

Nebraska is now on its third head coach ever since firing Riley (Scott Frost from 2018-22; interim head coach Mickey Joseph in 2022; Matt Rhule from 2023-present).

Tennessee’s program went a strikingly similar path as Nebraska’s. The Vols are also on their third head coach ever since firing Jones (interim head coach Brady Hoke for the final two games in 2017; Jeremy Pruitt from 2018-20; Josh Heupel from 2021-present).

Nebraska went 16-28 (.364 winning percentage) in three seasons from 2017-20 while Tennessee went 20-27 (.426) during that stretch. The Vols, however, fired Pruitt after a 3-7 record during the 2020 Covid season while Nebraska retained Frost following a 3-5 campaign the same season.

Tennessee hired Heupel in 2021 and finished 7-6 (7-5 during the regular season) with a loss in the Music City Bowl to cap it off. The Vols have had a resurgence ever since, going 11-2 in 2022, 9-4 in 2023 and 10-2 in 2024 including a berth in the College Football Playoff.

Nebraska, meanwhile, went 3-9 in Frost’s final full season as head coach in 2021, and he was fired after a 1-2 start in 2022. The Huskers finished 4-8 that season under Frost and Joseph.

The program is hopeful that hiring Rhule, who went 5-7 in his first season at Nebraska in 2023, will eventually lead to a similar turnaround as Tennessee under Heupel.

Nebraska started Rhule’s first campaign in charge of the program with a 5-3 record before fading down the stretch with four consecutive losses, each by one possession including three L’s by exactly three points. The Huskers began the 2024 season with a 5-1 record highlighted by a 28-10 win over Colorado and a ranking in the AP Top 25.

Similar to Rhule’s first season, though, the Huskers instantly faded after hitting five wins. They lost four consecutive games to get saddled with a 5-5 mark, but they were able to move past Wisconsin in the second-to-last game of the year, blowing out the Badgers 44-25 to end a 10-game losing streak.

That win, which was followed by a 13-10 loss at Iowa to end the regular season, also ended the nation’s longest bowl game drought at the Power 4 level (seven seasons) and the third-longest in all of college football (trailing only Louisiana-Monroe and UMass at 11 seasons apiece entering the 2024 season, skids that are now at 12 straight seasons without a bowl bid).