2009 Fiesta Bowl The 2009 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl game was a post - season college football bowl game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas Longhorns on Monday , January 5 , 2009 , at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale , Arizona . Texas participated in the Fiesta Bowl because the Big 12 champion University of Oklahoma Sooners were participating in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game ; however the bowl kept its ties to the Big 12 by selecting the Longhorns , who did not play in the championship game as they beat Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry , 45 - 35 , then lost to Texas Tech and Texas Tech in turn lost to Oklahoma and dictated that a tiebreaker would decide that the highest BCS ranked team for the Big 12 South the week of November 28 , 2008 would be in the title game . The Buckeyes were chosen as an at - large school as co - champions of the Big Ten Conference , having lost the right to play in the Rose Bowl due to a 13 - 6 loss to Penn State on October 25 . The Fiesta Bowl served as the penultimate contest of the 2008 – 2009 Bowl Championship Series ( BCS ) of the 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season and was the concluding game of the season for both teams involved . This 38th edition of the Fiesta Bowl was televised in the United States on FOX . It was the third meeting in the history of the two schools . The Longhorns ( variously " Texas " or " UT " or the " Horns " ) are coached by head football coach Mack Brown and led on the field by quarterback Colt McCoy . The Buckeyes ( variously " Ohio State " or " OSU " or the " Bucks " ) are coached by Jim Tressel and led on the field by Terrelle Pryor . The victory by Texas gave Ohio State their third straight bowl loss , their longest such streak since the early John Cooper era ( when they lost 4 bowls in a row from 1989 – 92 ) . This follows a four game bowl winning streak which tied for longest in OSU history . The Ohio State and Texas football programs . The Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas Longhorns are two of the most storied programs in college football . Before 2005 each school had participated in college football for more than 100 years . They are home to nationally known traditions from the Buckeye leaf stickers and the O - H - I - O chant at Ohio State to Bevo and the Hook ' em Horns of Texas . One of the three most victorious programs in college football history as judged by either number of wins or winning percentage , the University of Texas has traditionally been considered a college football powerhouse . From 1936 to 2004 , the team finished the season in the top ten 23 times , or one - third of the time , according to the Associated Press . The team that coach Mack Brown fielded in 2005 has been called one of the most memorable in college football history by " College Football News " . Like the Longhorns , the Buckeyes are an elite football program . The Buckeyes program has produced 164 first - team All - American players , including seven Heisman Trophy winners . The Buckeyes rank fifth in college football history in terms of both total wins and winning percentage . Previous meetings . Texas and Ohio State have two of the longest - running programs in college football , but they have played each other only twice . Texas won the 2005 game en route to winning their most recent national championship ( in the process becoming the first visitor to win a night game at Ohio Stadium ) . In the 2006 game , which was won by Ohio State , OSU and Texas were ranked # 1 and # 2 respectively . It was only the 36th time that the top two teams in college football had ever faced each other outside of the BCS National Championship . OSU later played against # 2 Michigan Wolverines in the Buckeyes ' . Leading into the game . After being passed over in the selection for the 2009 BCS National Championship Game , the Longhorns were selected to represent the Big 12 Conference as host team in the Fiesta Bowl . The Buckeyes were selected as an " at - large " school from among the eligible teams . The day the bowl bids were announced the sports betting line opened with Texas as ten - point favorites , the most of any of the 2009 BCS bowls .