The 2009 Emerald Bowl was the eighth edition of the college football bowl game, and was played at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California. The game started at 5:00 PM PST on Saturday, December 26, 2009. The game was telecast on ESPN.USC defeated Boston College 24–13.

The presenting sponsor of the 2009 Emerald Bowl was Diamond Foods, promoting its Emerald Nuts brand of snack foods. The company had served as title sponsor of the game for all eight years of the bowl's existence.

This marked the first time USC had played in the bowl. The Trojans had played in a BCS bowl game each of the past seven years and had hopes to make it back there again this season before dropping three of their last five games. First, Oregon defeated USC 47–20, USC's worst loss under Pete Carroll up to that time. This was followed by an even worse loss against Stanford in the Coliseum by a 55–21 margin that eliminated USC from Rose Bowl contention for the first time in seven years as well as its worst loss in 43 years while Stanford's 55 points were the most points ever scored by an opponent against USC. USC's final regular season game was a 21–17 loss to Arizona. USC fell out of the AP Top 25 for the first time in eight years after the loss to Wildcats.

Boston College was making its 11th straight bowl appearance. The Eagles were the first team to play in the Emerald Bowl twice, beating Colorado State 35–21 in the 2003 San Francisco Bowl (the former name of the Emerald Bowl). Boston College went 8–1 in bowl games in the first decade of the 21st century. This was the third meeting between the two schools and the first one in the post-season. USC had won both games in the series, a 23–17 victory in Los Angeles in 1987 and a 34–7 win in Chestnut Hill in 1988.

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