2009 Music City Bowl
The 2009 Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl will be the twelfth edition of the college football bowl game, and will be played at LP Field in Nashville, Tennessee. The game is scheduled to start at 8:30 PM US EST on Sunday, December 27, 2009. The game will be telecast on ESPN and will match the Kentucky Wildcats from the SEC against the Clemson Tigers from the ACC.[1]
Music City Bowl officials originally wanted to select North Carolina as the ACC representative.[2] This would set up a contest between two traditional college basketball powers (the Wildcats and Tar Heels are first and second, respectively, in all-time college basketball wins). This plan came undone, however, when the Chick-fil-A, Gator and Champs Sports bowls all passed on Clemson, which lost the 2009 ACC Championship Game to Georgia Tech. This forced the Music City Bowl to take Clemson. Under the ACC's bowl selection rules, the conference title game loser can't fall below the Music City Bowl, which has the fifth pick among bowl-eligible ACC teams. The Tar Heels accepted a bid to the 2009 Meineke Car Care Bowl.
Since 2002 the name of the bowl game has been known as The Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl, being named after its primary sponsor, Gaylord Hotels. The 2010 game will mark the first time since then that a new company will be the title sponsor of the game as Franklin American Mortgage will take over. Gaylord Hotels will continue to be a major sponsor of the game.
This will be Kentucky's third appearance in the bowl game in four years. Clemson will be making its second appearance in the bowl. The game will serve as a rematch of the 2006 game in which Kentucky won by a score of 28-20. The two teams have met a total of 12 previous times with Kentucky winning 8 of the previous games. Aside from the 2006 Music City Bowl the schools also met in the 1993 Peach Bowl, a game won by Clemson 14-13.
Game Summary
Scoring Summary
| Scoring Play | Score | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Quarter | |||
| UK - Chris Matthews 17 yard pass from Morgan Newton (Lones Seiber kick), 10:08 | UK 7-0 | ||
| CLM - Jacoby Ford 32 yard pass from Kyle Parker (Richard Jackson kick), 0:16 | TIE 7-7 | ||
| 2nd Quarter | |||
| UK - Lones Seiber 39 yard, 7:29 | UK 10-7 | ||
| CLM - Jamie Harper 1 yard rush (Richard Jackson kick), 5:19 | CLM 14-10 | ||
| 3rd Quarter | |||
| UK - Lones Seiber 44 yard, 10:13 | CLM 14-13 | ||
| 4th Quarter | |||
| CLM - C.J Spiller 8 yard rush (Richard Jackson kick), 10:14 | CLM - 21-13 | ||