Heat is on for visitors from Big Ten
Big Ten football teams clamor to play in the Rose Bowl, traditionally against a Pac-12 opponent.
But playing in Pac-12 territory at Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium has become a game of thorns for the Big Ten, yet to manage a win in nine tries spread over half a century ahead of Saturday’s appearance by No. 13 Michigan State.
The Spartans are among those with a desert loss that jump started one of the greatest years in ASU his-
tory. Even two decades before 1986, the Sun Devils were advanced enough under Frank Kush in the Western Athletic Conference days to be trouble for the muchmore established Big Ten.
Wisconsin, coming off a Rose Bowl appearance in the 1962 season, agreed to a home-and-home series against ASU starting in ‘67 not imaging it would have sunk to the bottom of the Big Ten by then.
The Sun Devils crushed the Badgers 42-16 in Madison then reinforced their dominance with a 55-7 pummeling in 1968 that began the Big Ten jinx in Tempe.
“They said the reason we beat them last year was because all we recruited was metal welders,” wide receiver J.D. Hill said after the ‘68 game. “They said we never graduated. We wanted to prove it wasn’t true.”
ASU has won at home by an average margin of 23.5 points over the Big Ten, although to be fair none of the nine games were against Ohio State or Michigan. And three home games against Nebraska including the Sun Devils’ 1996 masterpiece win are not included because they predated the Cornhuskers joining the Big Ten.
Naturally not every win over the Big Ten carries the same weight. Three stand out going into Saturday and significantly all came after earlier road losses to the same opponent.
Road to Rose Bowl
Jeff Van Raaphorst spent two weeks in the summer of 1985 training with Michigan State linebacker Mark Beaudoin, a childhood friend going back to their fathers being high school teammates in tiny Charlevoix, Mich.
The ASU quarterback picked up some intel he figured would be useful in the season opener in Lansing: “I knew their nose guard (Joe Curran) smoked so I kept running hurry up and he was wheezing.”
But Van Raaphorst played poorly in the first half, and ASU coughed up a 12-3 loss to open the John Cooper coaching era.
“I told our team that the last time I came in here I was an assistant at UCLA,” Cooper said afterwards. “We lost 13-3 then went on to win the Pac-10 and go to the Rose Bowl.”
His comment foreshadowed was to come a year later.
ASU opened the 1986 season with a 20-17 home over Michigan State, won the Pac-10 and in its first Rose Bowl appearance beat Michigan, 22-15, finishing No. 4 in the final Associated Press poll.
“Both teams were better (in 1986),” Van Raaphorst said. “The prior year, we weren’t quite ready for prime time. That year we figured out a way, and it helped us mentally a lot. We played more Big Ten-ish on both sides of the ball, and that made for closer games. With our skill players, we should have been blowing people out a lot more.”
Instead it took a sack by Jeff Joseph followed by a blocked 34-yard field goal by Darren Willis with 17 seconds left to put away the Spartans for what then made it 4-0 vs. the Big Ten at Sun Devil Stadium.
After the rain delay
what
The monsoon season was not yet finished in the third week of September 2004. Heavy rain and lightning delayed ASU’s kickoff against No. 16 Iowa for 40 minutes, much to the chagrin of quarterback Andrew Walter.
“We had a great game plan, and I was looking forward to exposing them,” Walter said. “But I couldn’t throw a spiral in pregame so I was really concerned that the rain was going to stay and it would nasty.”
It got nasty alright, but not because of the rain and only for the Hawkeyes.
Walter, in the third game of his senior season, threw for 428 yards and five touchdowns, surpassing Jake Plummer as the school career passing TD leader (a record he still holds). It was redemption for his 160-yard, zero-TD game in a 21-2 loss at Iowa in 2003.
“We lost a third of our offense in Shaun McDonald,” who turned pro after 2002, Walter said. “We were really young at receiver and not a good offensive team, and we got smoked (at Iowa).”
But in 2004, the Sun Devils not only blasted Iowa but finished 9-3, best of the Dirk Koetter coaching era, and No. 19 in the final AP poll.
Down or not down
Wisconsin fans no doubt still believe the No. 20 Badgers were jobbed out of a potential game-winning field goal by Pac-12 officials in the chaotic final 20 seconds of what went down as a 32-30 ASU win in 2013.
Maybe they’re right although there’s no guarantee about the field-goal conversion as Michigan State knows from 1986.
Was Wisconsin quarterback Joel Stave down at the 15-yard line after a short run to line up a field-goal try? ASU players thought not, Anthony Jones pouncing on what he believed to be a live ball placed on the ground by Stave.
Before officials got a grip on the situation, time ran out with ASU reversing the heartbreak of a 20-19 loss in Madison in 2010.
“I’ve got to hang onto the ball so only me and the ref are touching it,” Slave said in self critiquing his spotting error. ASU coach Todd Graham said,