Hazell: ASU made smart play in controversial ending vs. Wisconsin
By CLIFF BRUNT
ISL Editor
Purdue coach Darrell Hazell weighed in on the controversial finish to the Wisconsin-Arizona State game during his weekly teleconference on Tuesday afternoon.
Wisconsin trailed the Sun Devils 32-30 in the closing seconds of last Saturday’s game. Badgers quarterback Joel Stave tried to center the ball to give his kicker a better spot to try a game-winning field goal, so he placed the ball on the ground in the center of the field with 15 seconds remaining. It wasn’t clear if his knee went down, so Arizona State fell on the ball. An ASU player remained on the ball until 6 seconds remained. The ball wasn’t set until four seconds remained, and the Badgers, at the Arizona State 15-yard line, did not set up in time to spike the ball and kick the field goal.
Here’s the sequence, courtesy of ESPN:
I asked Hazell what he would tell his quarterback in this scenario. He was diplomatic, not blaming anyone for what happened and perhaps avoiding distraction heading into Saturday’s game against the Badgers in Madison.
“We all go through these different scenarios in our heads, but there are 18 seconds left in the game,” he said. “The one unknown about the clock is how you unpile. Their objective was to center the ball and spike the ball which is, you know, good in some people’s eyes, but that’s hard. That’s a hard situation because of what Arizona State did. I thought Arizona State did a great job of laying on the football there in that scenario. But we all see things differently. I’m not saying anyone was wrong or right, but there is a lot of different perspectives on how you should have played that one out at the end.”
Hazell said his staff discussed the situation.
“The announcers were saying that should be a penalty on Arizona State or delay of game for sitting on the ball. But they literally thought he did not put his knee down. It happened so fast, the natural reaction was to jump on that football. Now you’re in a situation where you tell your guys, take your time getting off the ball, milk that clock. I think the offensive team got caught up in the moment and didn’t realize the clock was running at that point in time.”
