ASU Football: “Bad start” bites in 20-13 Las Vegas Bowl loss to Wisconsin

(Photo: Brendan Belfield/WCSN)

LAS VEGAS – On a night where offense was so hard to come by for ASU Football, the play almost felt like a miracle.

Junior quarterback Jayden Daniels dropped back and saw his No. 1 target during the 2021 season – junior wide receiver Ricky Pearsall – come open near the right sideline as the Sun Devils were down 20-6 with 9:39 left in the third quarter of the 2021 Las Vegas Bowl on Thursday night. As Wisconsin senior linebacker Jack Sanborn, who led the Badgers’ nationally renowned defense into the matchup with ASU, leveled Daniels on a blitz, the Sun Devils’ quarterback flicked the ball downfield with just enough strength to make it catchable for the 6-foot-1-inch Pearsall, despite Sanborn’s collision with Daniels’ torso reducing the velocity of the ball making the attempted catch by Pearsall a seriously contested one.

The scrappy receiver, who battled through an apparent leg and upper-body injury during the game, didn’t flinch and came down with the ball. It was ASU’s biggest offensive play of the night, and set up a four-yard rushing touchdown by redshirt freshman running back Daniyel Ngata to cut Wisconsin’s lead to 20-13 with 8:52 remaining in the third quarter.

But the magnificent, potentially game-saving play by Pearsall wasn’t enough, as ASU fell to the Badgers at Allegiant Stadium in Vegas on Thursday night by the same score the board read just after halftime, ending the Sun Devils’ up-and-down season with a record of 8-5.

“Dissapointing outcome for us,” ASU head coach Herm Edwards said. “We got off to a bad start, 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.

“They’re a good football team.”

ASU had signs of rallying against the Badgers. After Ngata’s score, it got a quick stop against the Wisconsin offense. The next offensive series saw Daniels make plays with his legs, a common theme throughout the night (and especially so in the first half, where the Sun Devils’ offensive line couldn’t handle the menacing Wisconsin defense, forcing Daniels to run for 52 yards, mostly on scrambles), but it quickly fell through as Daniels took a big sack on 2nd down, putting ASU in a 3rd and 29 hole.

Another three and out by the Sun Devils’ defense gave the ASU offense another chance, but once again a big play – one that could have turned the tide of the game – failed to have any real meaning.

After he was called for holding that wiped out a 46-yard scramble by Daniels, ASU redshirt freshman tight end Jalin Conyers challenged his inner Pearsall on the next play and caught an underthrown deep ball from Daniels, which gained 35 yards and briefly gave the Sun Devils hope again. But the drive fell apart after a failed rush and throw on back-to-back plays, and was concluded by a Daniels sack for a five-yard loss.

“I give all the credit to the Wisconsin defense,” Daniels said. “Everyone in this room knew what they were capable of. They’re not a top-ranked defense in the country for no reason. We knew coming into this game that the game would be won at the line of scrimmage.”

After ASU’s multiple opportunities to tie fell through, Wisconsin responded in a way that was hard to believe. The Badgers took over possession after Daniels’ sack with 9:57 left in the fourth quarter.

The Sun Devils never got the ball back, and gave up three third down conversions on Wisconsin’s last drive: a three-yard rush on 3rd and 1, a back-breaking 30-yard completion on 3rd and 12 and an offside penalty on a three-yard rush on 3rd and 4 that then turned into a 1st and 10 for the Badgers’ offense.

“They’re scary,” Edwards said. “Wisconsin can chew up drives. Every time they ran the ball, I was looking at the clock.”

ASU seemingly didn’t have it from the jump on Thursday night. Its short-handedness at almost every position certainly didn’t help, as the sudden, unreported loss of redshirt senior defensive tackle D.J. Davidson and the known absence of senior linebacker Darien Butler was felt early on against Wisconsin’s potent rushing attack, which was led by freshman running back Braelon Allen – the game’s MVP after he rushed for 159 yards.

“It always happens with bowl games,” Daniels said of the players missing. “It’s the next guy up.”

Offensive coordinator Zak Hill added: “It’s tough. Now that you have transfers going on and guys working for the draft, everyone has some sort of ‘missing a guy here, missing a guy there,’ but that’s what the opportunity is about. I thought our guys did a good job with practice and being intentional with what we were doing.”

Allen had 101 of his rushing yards before halftime.

“Unfortunately we came up short in the first half,” redshirt senior linebacker Kyle Soelle said. “It hurt us in the long term.”

Wisconsin started the game in about the most stereotypical way a Big Ten Conference-styled offense could. The Badgers lined up in a double-wing formation near the goal-line after getting a big passing play through the air. Senior fullback John Chenal set up shop behind Wisconsin’s right guard and tackle, and once the ball was snapped, Chenal ran across the field in front of Wisconsin sophomore quarterback Graham Mertz, got a block from the left-winged blocker and outside wide receiver and ran the ball into the end zone nearly untouched by ASU’s defense.

“That was a new wrinkle [from Wisconsin],” Edwards said of the play.

After an arguably embarrassing defensive drive to open things up, the Sun Devils responded with points of their own. With his offensive line crumbling on nearly every play – ASU’s first run of the game came on its eighth play from scrimmage and resulted in a three-yard gain from Ngata – Daniels made plays happen with legs instead, moving the ball far enough downfield for the Sun Devils to cut Wisconsin’s lead to four at the 4:21 mark of the first quarter thanks to a 38-yard field goal.

“We knew I was going to have to run [coming in],” Daniels said. “The front seven [of Wisconsin] did a good job.

“We knew the challenge we faced.”

The Badgers kept punching ASU in the mouth, though. After the field goal, the Badgers relied heavily on their run game. Rushes of 11 and seven yards from Allen and a six-yard run by Chenal set up a 43-yard gain by Allen to put Wisconsin in prime position to score.

“They ran the ball like we anticipated and they cut us out of some gaps at times,” Edwards said. “The runner is a fabulous player.”

Two plays later, a coverage breakdown by ASU freshman linebacker Eric Gentry and junior safety Kejuan Markham left Wisconsin’s senior tight end Jake Ferguson wide open in the left corner of the end zone to give the Badgers a 14-3 lead.

After ASU’s corresponding drive stalled out, the Sun Devils caught a break after Mertz threw an interception to ASU redshirt senior cornerback Timarcus Davis. The Sun Devils only converted it into another field goal though, putting them down 14-6 with 11:13 left in the second quarter.

“That was kind of the critical point of the first half,” Edwards said of only getting three points off of the pick.

Two chunk pass plays by Mertz got Wisconsin its own field goal on the next drive, giving the Badgers a 17-6 lead. It later added another field goal to go up 20-6 seconds before halftime, making ASU’s inability to not score more than three points at a time a real liability later in the game.

“At the end of the day, we came up short,” Daniels said.

Hill added: “We just didn’t make enough plays.”