The 2009 Sheraton Hawaii Bowl was the eighth edition of the college football

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...

, played at Aloha Stadium in

Halawa Halawa () is a census-designated place (CDP) in the ‘Ewa District of Honolulu County, Hawaii, United States. Halawa Stream branches into two valleys: North and South Halawa; North Halawa is the larger stream and fluvial feature. Their conflue ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. The game started at 3:00 pm

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

(8:00 pm EST) on Thursday of Christmas Eve 2009, with the

SMU Mustangs The SMU Mustangs are the athletic teams that represent Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas, United States. The Mustangs were founded in 1911 and joined the Southwest Conference, competing against Baylor, Rice, Texas, Texa ...

of Conference USA beating the

Nevada Wolf Pack The Nevada Wolf Pack are the athletic teams that represent the University of Nevada, Reno. They are part of NCAA's Division I's Mountain West Conference. It was founded on October 24, 1896 with football as the Sagebrushers in Reno, Nevada. Hi ...

of the

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Texas. Due to mos ...

, 45–10. The game was sponsored by Sheraton Hotels and Resorts and was televised on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

. The 2009 Hawaii Bowl was SMU's first bowl bid since playing in Hawaii in the

1984 Aloha Bowl The 1984 Aloha Bowl, part of the 1984 bowl game season, took place on December 29, 1984, at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. The game featured the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and the SMU Mustangs of the Southwest Conference, meeting for the firs ...

, as well as their first since the program was relaunched in 1989 after being shut down for two years due to massive NCAA rules violations. Head coach

June Jones June Sheldon Jones III (born February 19, 1953) is an American football coach and former player who is currently the Offensive Coordinator of the Seattle Sea Dragons. Jones was the head football coach at the University of Hawaii at Manoa from 1 ...

made his first appearance as a coach in Aloha Stadium since leaving

in 2008 to take over the SMU football program. SMU freshman starter

Kyle Padron Kyle Padron (born March 27, 1991) is a former American football quarterback. He played college football at Eastern Washington University and Southern Methodist University. Prep career Padron graduated from Carroll Senior High School in Southlak ...

, who was a backup until an injury earlier in the season to then starter

Bo Levi Mitchell Bo Levi Mitchell (born March 3, 1990)Official Eastern Washingto ...

, was named the game's MVP after throwing for 460 yards and two touchdowns. The two teams met for the first time since 2004 when they were both members of the WAC. They previously played five times from 2000 to 2004, with Nevada having led the series with a 3–2 record. Prior to this game, their last meeting was a 38–20 victory by SMU.

Game summary

Scoring summary

References

{{SMU Mustangs bowl game navbox

Hawaii Bowl The Hawaiʻi Bowl is a college football bowl game that has been played in the Honolulu, Hawaii area since 2002. The game was originally held at Aloha Stadium in Halawa, Hawaii, a suburb of Honolulu, before moving to the Clarence T. C. Ching Ath ...

2009 2009 2009

2009 in sports in Hawaii