The 2006 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, played on January 2, 2006, was the 35th edition of the

Fiesta Bowl The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Phoenix metropolitan area. From its beginning in 1971 until 2006, the game was hosted at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2007, the game has been pla ...

, sponsored by

Frito-Lay Frito-Lay is an American subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures, markets, and sells corn chips, potato chips, and other snack foods. The primary snack food brands produced under the Frito-Lay name include Fritos corn chips, Cheetos cheese-fla ...

through its

Tostitos Tostitos is a brand of Frito-Lay that produces different tortilla chips and a range of accompanying dips. Varieties There are many varieties of Tostitos chips: * Tostitos ''Gold'' (and bite size ''Gold'') - a thicker and larger version of t ...

tortilla chip brand. The game featured the

Notre Dame Fighting Irish The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 23 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Division ...

and the

Ohio State Buckeyes The Ohio State Buckeyes are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Ohio State University, located in Columbus, Ohio. The athletic programs are named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Ohio and after the state tre ...

, and resulted in a 34–20 Ohio State win. Ohio State quarterback

Troy Smith Troy James Smith (born July 20, 1984) is a former American football quarterback. He played college football at Ohio State, was recognized as an All-American, and won the Heisman Trophy in 2006. He was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the fi ...

became the frontrunner of the 2006 Heisman race, after he completed 19 of his 28 passes for 342 yards, including 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. Notre Dame's

Brady Quinn Brayden Tyler "Brady" Quinn (born October 27, 1984) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for seven seasons. He played college football at Notre Dame, where he won the Maxwell Award, and w ...

completed 29 out of his 45 passes for 286 yards. Notre Dame got the first score of the game, with a 20-yard touchdown run by

Darius Walker Darius Adunte Walker (born October 21, 1985) is a former American football running back in the National Football League (NFL) and current college football analyst for Fox. He worked as a college football analyst and sideline reporter for Mounta ...

. Then Ohio State responded on a 6-play, 86-yard drive capped off with a 56-yard touchdown pass to Ted Ginn Jr. In the second quarter, off a wide-receiver reverse, Ginn rushed 68 yards to the left side for a touchdown. Then with just over 2 minutes to go in the half, Troy Smith found

Santonio Holmes Santonio Holmes Jr. (born March 3, 1984) is a former American football wide receiver. He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft after playing college football at Ohio State University. In 2009, Holmes w ...

for an 85-yard touchdown pass, and Ohio State led 21–7 at half-time. In the second half, Notre Dame scored on Darius Walker's second rushing touchdown of the game, to make the score 21–13 in favor of Ohio State. Notre Dame's defense forced two Ohio State field goals to make the score 27–13. With five minutes left to go in the game, Darius Walker got his third rushing touchdown of the game, bringing the Irish within 27–20. On third and five, with Ohio State using up the clock, the Buckeyes scored on a 60-yard touchdown run by Antonio Pittman to clinch the victory.

Selection of teams

The Fiesta Bowl this season was supposed to choose either the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

champion or the Pacific-10 Conference champion as part of the BCS tie-ins for this season. The Rose Bowl served as the BCS National Championship Game this season, and the Pac-10 conference tie-in moved to the Fiesta Bowl as a result. Unlike the 2001 season, the Fiesta Bowl would not be allowed to match the Big 12 and Pac-10 champions, it could choose only one of them. However, neither the Big 12 or Pac-10 champions would be available to the Fiesta Bowl in the end, as those teams, the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and a ...

and the

USC Trojans The USC Trojans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC), located in Los Angeles, California. While the men's teams are nicknamed the ''Trojans'', the women's athletic teams are referred ...

, would finish in the top 2 of the BCS standings and meet in the Rose Bowl. None of the other conference champions that earned an automatic bid were available either, as those teams would go to the

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

and Sugar Bowls. The Fiesta Bowl was left to take the 2 teams that earned BCS at-large bids, Ohio State of the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

and independent Notre Dame.

External links

ESPN report
{{Ohio State Buckeyes bowl game navbox

Fiesta Bowl Notre Dame Fighting Irish football bowl games Ohio State Buckeyes football bowl games Fiesta January 2006 sports events in the United States