2009 Armed Forces Bowl

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The 2009 Armed Forces Bowl was the seventh edition of the Armed Forces Bowl, a college football bowl game, and was played at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. The game started at 12:00 PM US EST on Thursday, December 31, 2009. The game was telecast on ESPN and matched the Houston Cougars of Conference USA and the Air Force Falcons of the Mountain West Conference. The game earned a 1.6 rating.

This was the second year in a row that the two teams finished their seasons against each other in the bowl game played on the TCU campus. The Cougars, the Conference USA runner-up after losing to East Carolina in the championship game, beat Air Force 34–28 last year for their first bowl victory since 1980. Air Force played in the Armed Forces Bowl for the third straight season. The Falcons lost 42–36 to California in the 2007 game, which was then their first bowl appearance since 2002. Each team also made their third appearance in the bowl game. The only other meeting between the two schools was in 2008 when the Falcons defeated Houston 31–28 in a game played in front of just 2,546 people at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on the campus of SMU in Dallas, Texas. The game was originally to be a home game for the Cougars but due to Hurricane Ike the game was moved.

The game marked the first time that Houston had entered a bowl game with a national ranking in the Coaches' Poll since the 1979 season.