The 2009 Sheraton Hawaii Bowl was the eighth edition of the

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game, or simply bowl, is one of a number of postseason college football games primarily played by NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. For most of its history, the FBS did not use a playoff tourname ...

, played at

Aloha Stadium Aloha Stadium is a closed multi-purpose stadium in Halawa, Hawaii, a census-designated place that is a western suburb of Honolulu. It is the largest stadium in the state of Hawaii. , the stadium ceased fan-attended operations indefinitely, and ...

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

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. The game started at 3:00 pm local time (8:00 pm EST) on Thursday of Christmas Eve 2009, with the

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

Conference USA Conference USA (CUSA) is a collegiate athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas. Mem ...

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. H ...

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, Texas, Utah and Washington (state), Washington. Due to ...

, 45–10. The game was sponsored by

Sheraton Hotels and Resorts Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an American international hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Cent ...

and was televised on

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

. The 2009 Hawaii Bowl was SMU's first bowl bid since playing in Hawaii in the 1984 Aloha Bowl, 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 was most recently the offensive coordinator of the Seattle Sea Dragons. Jones was the head football coach at the University of Hawaii at Manoa ...

made his first appearance as a coach in

since leaving

in 2008 to take over the SMU football program. SMU freshman starter Kyle Padron, who was a backup until an injury earlier in the season to then starter Bo Levi Mitchell, 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 Hawaii 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 At ...

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

2009 in sports in Hawaii