2009 New Mexico Bowl

The 2009 New Mexico Bowl was a post-season American college football bowl game, held on December 19, 2009, at University Stadium on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of the 2009–10 NCAA bowl season. The game, telecast on ESPN, featured the Wyoming Cowboys from the Mountain West Conference and the Fresno State Bulldogs from the WAC. This was the first trip to the New Mexico Bowl for Wyoming. It was also their first trip to a post season bowl game since the 2004 season when the Cowboys defeated the UCLA Bruins 24–21 in the Pioneer PureVison Las Vegas Bowl. This marked Fresno State's second straight trip to the New Mexico Bowl; they were defeated 40–35 by Colorado State in the 2008 contest. Before the 2009 New Mexico Bowl, Wyoming and Fresno State had played each other a total of six times, playing in consecutive years from 1992–1997 as rivals in the Western Athletic Conference; the teams have split their match-ups with each squad winning three games. The last meeting in 1997 was won by Fresno State, 24–7.

Behind freshman quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels, Wyoming upset Fresno State 35–28 in the game, which went into double overtime after a late field goal by Cowboy kicker Ian Watts. Carta-Samuels threw three touchdowns in the win including the game-winner in overtime, a 13-yard strike to David Leonard.