The 2009 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl was an

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

-sanctioned

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 Subdivis ...

(previously the Motor City Bowl game) played at 1:00 PM EST on December 26, 2009, at

Ford Field Ford Field is a domed American football stadium located in Downtown Detroit. It primarily serves as the home of the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), as well as the annual Quick Lane Bowl college football bowl game, state champ ...

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

and aired 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%). The ...

. The game was the 13th installment of the bowl game played in Detroit. The

Marshall Thundering Herd The Marshall Thundering Herd is the intercollegiate athletic collection of teams that collectively represent the Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. Thundering Herd athletic teams compete in the Sun Belt Conference, which are membe ...

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

defeated the

Ohio Bobcats The Ohio Bobcats are the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Ohio University, located in Athens, Ohio, United States. Ohio University is a charter member (1946) of the Mid-Amer ...

, champion of the East Division of the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

, 21–17, giving the Thundering Herd a seven-win season. A lack of eligible teams from 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 ...

made a spot available in the game for Marshall. Line judge Sarah Thomas became the first woman to officiate a college football bowl game.

Teams

The 2009 game marked an unexpected renewal of the

Battle for the Bell The Battle for the Bell is an American college football rivalry game played by the Marshall Thundering Herd football team of Marshall University and the Ohio Bobcats football team of Ohio University. It is a regional rivalry, with the universi ...

, the rivalry between the two nearby teams (about apart), which had been on hiatus since Marshall's move from the MAC to C-USA in 2005. The teams were both members of the Mid-American Conference from 1997 to 2004 and were meeting for the 53rd time. Marshall and Ohio planned to renew their rivalry in 2010. This marked Ohio's first trip to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl and only the fourth time in the school's history that they appeared in a bowl game. Marshall was playing in its fifth Little Caesars Pizza Bowl but first since joining Conference USA, as they had qualified for the then-Motor City Bowl in its first four playings as MAC Champions. In those four games Marshall had only lost once. Marshall was coached by its

defensive coordinator A defensive coordinator is a coach responsible for a gridiron football (American football) team's defense. Generally, the defensive coordinator, the offensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator represent the second level of a team's c ...

interim An interim is a period of temporary pause or change in a sequence of events, or a temporary state, and is often applied to transitional political entities. Interim may also refer to: Temporary organizational arrangements (general concept) *Provis ...

head coach,

Rick Minter Rick Minter (born October 4, 1954) is an American football coach, most recently the defensive coordinator for the Birmingham Iron. He was the linebackers coach for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL) from February 2013 to ...

. Minter, who was previously the head coach for the

Cincinnati Bearcats The Cincinnati Bearcats are the athletic teams that represent the University of Cincinnati. Though they will move to the Big 12 Conference (XII) the teams are currently a part of the American Athletic Conference (The American), which from 1979 ...

took over as Marshall's temporary head coach after

Mark Snyder Mark Snyder (born December 30, 1964) is an American football coach and former safety who is the linebackers coach for the Orlando Guardians of the XFL and previously the linebackers coach for the Houston Gamblers of the United States Football Lea ...

resigned at the conclusion of the regular season.

Game summary

Ohio wore their home green jerseys and Marshall wore their white away jerseys. Defense dominated the game as Marshall was held to 275 yards of total offense, while Ohio only managed 123, including just 12 yards rushing. Ohio also recovered a fumble for a touchdown and Marshall returned a punt for a score. Marshall's Martin Ward was named the game's MVP as he rushed for 72 yards on nine carries and recorded two touchdowns. Theo Scott threw for 111 yards and a touchdown pass to lead the Bobcats. The bowl game drew a record-low 30,311 fans. Just two years before, more than twice as many people watched Purdue beat Central Michigan in Detroit. The game attracted fewer than 40,000 only once before when Marshall beat

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

in 1998 at the

Pontiac Silverdome The Pontiac Silverdome (also known simply as the Silverdome) was a stadium in Pontiac, Michigan. It opened in 1975 and sat on 199 acres (51 ha) of land. When the stadium opened, it featured a fiberglass fabric roof held up by air pressure, ...

Scoring summary

References

{{Ohio Bobcats bowl game navbox

Little Caesars Pizza Bowl The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (known as the Motor City Bowl until 2009) was a post-season college football bowl game that was played annually from 1997 to 2013. The first five games (1997–2001) were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, M ...

Little Caesars Pizza Bowl Marshall Thundering Herd football bowl games Ohio Bobcats football bowl games