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.

The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that has been played annually at 40,800-seat AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, in San Francisco, California, since 2002. It was previously known as the Emerald Bowl from 2004 to 2009 and the San Francisco Bowl and the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl in recognition of the corporate title sponsor, Diamond of California, from 2002 to 2003. As of 2010, the bowl is sponsored by Kraft Foods.

The game is one of three college bowl games played in baseball-specific stadiums, alongside the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl in St. Petersburg, Florida, played at Tropicana Field, and the Pinstripe Bowl in New York, played at Yankee Stadium.

In 2010, Kraft Foods became the sponsor of the bowl and announced the new name, which the corporation is launching as part of a broader hunger relief program. According to Sports Illustrated, the executive director of the bowl, Gary Cavalli, was paid a $377,475 salary in 2009.