2010 Alamo Bowl (January)
The 2010 Alamo Bowl (known via corporate sponsorship as the Valero Alamo Bowl) was a college football bowl game played at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on Saturday, January 2, 2010. It was the 17th edition of the Alamo Bowl. The game featured the Michigan State Spartans against the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
| 2010 Valero Alamo Bowl | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | January 2, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Season | 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Alamodome | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | San Antonio, Texas | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Offensive: Taylor Potts (QB, Texas Tech) Defensive: Jamar Wall (Texas Tech) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | Texas Tech by 9 | ||||||||||||||||||
| National anthem | Alamo City Brass | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | Tom Ritter (Southeastern Conference) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 64,757 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Payout | US$2,200,000 (As of 2006) | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ESPN | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Mike Patrick, Bob Davie and Holly Rowe | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nielsen ratings | 4.8 | ||||||||||||||||||
The 2010 game was the last one to feature a team from the Big Ten Conference. In the fall of 2009, it was announced that the Pacific-10 Conference's second-place team would take part in the Alamo Bowl instead of the Holiday Bowl.
This was the third Alamo Bowl appearance and first Alamo Bowl win for the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Their previous appearance was a 19–16 loss to Iowa in the 2001 game. Michigan State played in one previous Alamo Bowl, losing the 2003 game to Nebraska, 17–3. The game also marked the first-ever meeting between the two schools.
With approximately 5,553,630 households watching it, the game was the most viewed Alamo Bowl in history. It also drew the highest rating of any bowl ever shown by ESPN. Behind the BCS bowl games and the Capital One Bowl, it was the most viewed bowl shown up to that point in the 2009–10 bowl season.