2004 Emerald Bowl

The 2004 Emerald Bowl was a post-season college football bowl game between the New Mexico Lobos and the Navy Midshipmen on December 30, 2004, at SBC Park in San Francisco, United States. The game, which Navy won with a final score of 34–19, was highlighted by a 26-play drive from the Midshipmen that took up almost 15 minutes of game time and set the record for the longest drive in a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college football game. The contest was the third time the Emerald Bowl was played and the final game of the 2004 NCAA football season for both teams.

The conference independent Navy Midshipmen, who finished the regular season with a 9–2 record, accepted an invitation to play in the game on November 22, 2004. Eight days later, the 7–4 New Mexico Lobos agreed to fill the open spot reserved for a Mountain West Conference team. Leading up to the game, sports writers predicted that a major highlight of the contest would be the rushing offenses of Midshipmen head coach Paul Johnson and Lobos head coach Rocky Long; both teams ranked in the top rushing offenses in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The Lobos also ranked as one of the nation's top rushing defenses.

The game began at 1:35 p.m. PST in rainy conditions that had affected the San Francisco Bay Area for days before the contest. The Lobos scored a touchdown on the game's first drive to take an early lead, but the Midshipmen scored three touchdowns to bring the score to 21–7 early in the second quarter. After the Lobos narrowed that lead to 12 points by the end of the third quarter, the Midshipmen began a long drive which took up much of the fourth quarter. The drive ended with a field goal, which gave Navy a 15-point lead with a little over two minutes remaining in the game. On the next drive from the Lobos, the Midshipmen forced a turnover on downs and ran out the clock with their last possession to win the game.

Midshipmen players Aaron Polanco and Vaughn Kelley were named the game's offensive and defensive Most Valuable Players, respectively. The win caused the Midshipmen to finish the season with a 10–2 record, their best record since the 1905 season. After the game, the Associated Press College Poll and the USA Today Coaches' Poll ranked the team as the 24th best in the nation. The loss caused the Lobos' record to fall to 7–5.

First played in 2002 when it was called the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl, organizers announced a new name in May 2004 for that year's iteration of the annual game for the 2004–05 NCAA football bowl season. The new title for the game was derived from the Emerald Nuts brand owned by the game's primary sponsor, Diamond Foods. Originally, the game was to feature the sixth bowl eligible team from the Pacific-10 Conference and the third eligible team from the Mountain West Conference.

Since only two teams from the Pacific-10 Conference had become bowl eligible near the end of the 2004 NCAA Division I-A football season, organizers looked to the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen, who were not a member of any athletic conference, to fill the open spot. The team accepted their invitation to play in the Emerald Bowl on November 22, two days after defeating the Rutgers Scarlet Knights with a score of 54–21 to earn an 8–2 record. The Midshipmen had originally intended to play in the 2004 Liberty Bowl, but chose the Emerald Bowl when it looked as though Liberty Bowl organizers were seeking a matchup of more "high-powered offenses". After defeating the Army Black Knights with a score of 42–13 in that year's Army–Navy Game, the Midshipmen ended the regular season with a record of 9–2, the first time since the 1963 college football season that Navy had won nine or more games in a season. Wins over Army and the Air Force Falcons secured Navy's second consecutive Commander-in-Chief's Trophy. Navy's previous bowl game, the 2003 Houston Bowl, had ended in a 38–14 loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

The University of New Mexico Lobos accepted the game's other invitation on December 30, 2004. The Lobos finished the regular season with five straight wins, culminating in a 16–9 win over conference rival Wyoming to finish with a record of 7–4. The game marked the first time in the program's history the team had played in three straight bowl games, having lost in the 2002 and 2003 editions of the Las Vegas Bowl to the UCLA Bruins and the Oregon State Beavers, respectively. The bowl game was the first meeting between was the two teams.

Prior to the game, spread bettors favored the New Mexico Lobos by a single point. Given both teams' propensity for running the ball and the rainy weather conditions that had affected the San Francisco area for days prior to the game, analysts expected that it would center around both teams' rushing offenses. The Baltimore Sun sports writer Kent Baker predicted that "the teams' non-reliance on the pass will serve both well. The game should be fairly low scoring and rapidly played, with the Midshipmen eking out a victory."