(Photo: Brendan Belfield/WCSN)
LAS VEGAS – It was looking hopeless at times.
Wisconsin freshman running back Braelon Allen was bouncing off tacklers and getting out in space. Sophomore quarterback Graham Mertz had little pressure on him and could seemingly fly to Madison and back with the time he was given in the pocket. The Badgers’ defense was darting to the football, hounding Arizona State Football junior quarterback Jayden Daniels as he was running for his life.
It was the bruising, physical display of football that the Big Ten Conference is known for, and ASU had no answers.
This was all in the first half of Thursday’s SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl, in which Wisconsin leveled the Sun Devils with 121 yards on the ground. ASU’s run defense gives up an average of 129 yards per game, but Allen – the bowl’s Player of the Game – was a type of running back the Sun Devils hadn’t quite seen before this season.
“We got off to a bad start, I thought,” ASU head coach Herm Edwards said. “[We] fell behind and you don’t want to fall behind to a team like this that can chew a lot of time off the clock due to their running game. I thought [in] the first half, our gap responsibilities versus the run weren’t as sound as they were [in] the second half.”
Overall, the game was just as Daniels predicted on Wednesday: “This game is going to be won up front – it’s about who wants it more.”
The resounding answer was the Badgers, who ended up winning 20-13 on Thursday night.
Wisconsin set the tone from the jump with three sacks and a seemingly endless amount of forced scrambles from Daniels. The junior quarterback knew he would have to put his head down and run, considering the Sun Devils were down their top two running backs against the top rushing defense in the country.
ASU’s depleted offensive line may have been just as looming of a factor for their struggles at the line of scrimmage. Junior center Dohnovan West – an All-Pac-12-Conference honoree – and senior right guard Henry Hattis were both out due to injuries. Without a fully healthy unit, the Badgers’ defensive line gained control at the point of attack and feasted in the pocket.
“We knew the challenge that we faced,” Daniels said. “Coach Herm [Edwards], Coach [offensive coordinator Zak] Hill, they said, ‘At the end of the day, you got to go out there if nothing is open. Do what you do, make some plays, because at the end of the day, don’t take that dimension out of my game.’”
Daniels finished with 19 carries for 40 yards, averaging just 2.1 yards per rush. However, some key scrambles to escape the pressure and throws kept the game manageable with a two-touchdown deficit at half.
The domination by the Badgers within the trenches then completely swayed toward the Sun Devils in the second half, lighting a fire under the entire team and the faithful fans in Allegiant Stadium.
“All of a sudden, the energy in the stadium changed too,” Edwards said. “Our ASU fans behind us were loud, and I looked across, and Wisconsin fans were sitting down all of a sudden. And it became a football game. That’s all you can ask for.”
Wisconsin’s first three drives were shut down by plays made in the backfield, featuring two straight sacks of nine-plus yards by freshman walk-on defensive lineman B.J. Green – which made him the team’s sack leader (5) for the season – and an Allen rush that was stuffed by Maxwell Freshman All-American linebacker Eric Gentry for no gain. The Badgers would only accumulate 78 total yards in the second frame compared to 216 in the first.
Edwards was pleased with the adjustments by the young players who filled in for others opted out of or were unable to participate in the game.
“This is a game you go into halftime and you’re looking at the scoreboard and you’re going, ‘Huh, this is interesting,’” Edwards said. “How are we going to react now? … I thought the coaches did a nice job offensively and defensively adjusting to what was being done in the first half, and the players bought into it. They listened to the direction of the coaches and came out and had a lot of energy.”
While ASU was given life by the defensive stops, they could only muster one touchdown the rest of the way. Several promising drives were shut down near midfield by the beginning of the fourth quarter, but ASU was still only one score away.
Yet, in what proved to be a game-sealing, demoralizing drive in the fourth, Wisconsin showed their true character up-front with a near 10-minute stroll down the field. The 18-play, 90-yard drive featured 14 running plays, with Allen running roughshod for 45 yards after gaining just 13 in the third. To rub salt in the wound, Mertz handed it off to his fullback on fourth down instead of kneeling it to run out the final seconds.
“They’re scary,” Edwards said. “Because when you watch them on tape, that’s what they can do. They can chew up some drives, they can chew up a lot of time. Every time they made a first down, I kept looking at that clock and said, ‘Hey, we’re running out of time.’”
Even with the young defense punching back at times, it was too late. Edwards repeated himself.
“We just ran out of time,” he said.
ASU can sleep well on this season knowing it has some young guns who can bring the heat inside. But heading into an offseason riddled with an uncertain roster, ASU will look for a way to sustain the heat and finish on top in games like the one on Thursday night.
