UNLV Hands Badgers 23-5 Defeat
September 13, 2003 | Football
Under rainy skies throughout the afternoon at Camp Randall Stadium Saturday, UNLV posted a 23-5 upset win over the 14th-ranked Wisconsin football team, handing the Badgers their first loss of the season.
UW falls to 2-1 overall with the loss, while the Rebels see their record improve to 2-1.
The Wisconsin defense was outstanding in defeat, allowing the UNLV to accumulate just 187 yards of total offense. The Badgers totaled 291 yards offensively, but were hurt by allowing eight sacks for a loss of 67 yards as well as five turnovers.
It also didn't help UW's cause when running back Anthony Davis went down with an ankle injury with just under nine minutes remaining in the opening quarter and did not return.
UNLV got on the scoreboard first with 8:51 remaining in the first quarter on a 26-yard field goal by Dillon Pieffer. The Rebels increased their lead to 10-0 at the 4:26 mark of the opening quarter when Jamaal Brimmer scooped up a Dwayne Smith fumble and raced 55 yards for the touchdown.
It was just the beginning of a career day for Brimmer, who finished with 11 total tackles, two tackles for loss, two sacks, two interceptions and the fumble recovery returned for a score.
Wisconsin put its first points of the game on the board on the opening play of the second quarter. On fourth down, linebacker Alex Lewis broke through the UNLV line and blocked Gary Cook's punt out of the back of the end zone for a safety. It was the second blocked punt of the season by Lewis, and brought the Badgers within 10-2.
Following the ensuing free kick, UW marched down to the Rebel five-yard line, thanks in part to a 39-yard completion from Jim Sorgi to Lee Evans. Despite having first and goal at the 5, the Badgers were forced to settle for a 27-yard field goal by Scott Campbell, cutting the UNLV lead to five.
However, that was as close as the Badgers would get. The Rebels added a second-quarter touchdown on a six-yard pass from Kurn Nantes to Earvin Johnson, but missed the extra point on their way at a 16-5 halftime lead.
Despite seeing the defense limit UNLV to just 41 yards of offense on 25 plays in the second half, Wisconsin was never quite able to rally offensively. In fact, the Rebels' longest drive of the afternoon went just 30 yards, a second-quarter drive that they did not even score on.
UNLV closed out the game's scoring when Nantes and Johnson hooked up for their second touchdown of the afternoon on an eight-yard pass with 12:14 remaining in the third to account for the final margin.
Smith led the Badgers with 92 yards rushing on 18 carries. Sorgi completed 11-of-25 passes for 222 yards. Brandon Williams posted a game-high six catches for 83 yards.
Dominique Dorsey carried 26 times for UNLV, gaining 100 yards.
Wisconsin will close out its three-game homestand at 11 a.m. next Saturday when it plays host to North Carolina.
Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez
Post-game Quotes - Wisconsin vs. UNLV
Sept. 13, 2003
Opening Statement:
'Well, needless to say that I'm very disappointed in how well we played. They beat us in every phase ' they out coached us, they outplayed us and that's what can happen in this game if you don't take care of the football. Anybody can beat you and it's hard to win a game when you don't score a touchdown. But with that said, all we can do is go back to the drawing board and get our guys to bounce back and get them playing football like they 're capable of playing because they certainly didn't play very well today.'
On the status of Anthony Davis:
'Last I heard it was an ankle. I don't know how severe. I just don't know. '
On the effect of Anthony Davis' absence in the loss:
'Anthony obviously is a large part of our offense but there are no excuses in this game. Their top tailback was out also.'
On what his team is capable of doing:
'I know potential. I've seen them do some good things before. You can't rely on Anthony (Davis) or whatever but you have to execute, you have to throw and catch it well. You have to hold on to the football. You can 't give somebody points like that. You can't keep giving them field position and giving them points.'
On the UNLV defense:
'They didn't do anything defensively that we hadn 't seen. They were playing cover two, cover four; they were zone blitzing some but nothing we hadn't seen.'
On the change in defensive secondary:
'We wanted to have some competition back there. We thought that (Levonne) Rowan had played well enough last week to garner a chance to earn that position ' the same thing with (Joe) Stellmacher. So, we graded them every day this week and those guys graded out better in practice so we gave them the start and decided to go ahead and use them and try to keep whoever was in there fresh. Not to not use the other guys but to use both ' two sets of them.'
On Jim Sorgi's performance:
'Obviously, he didn't throw it well. I don 't want to second guess why someone doesn't throw it well whether it was a wet ball but their guy threw a wet ball too. Again, there are no excuses and I'm not going to try to sit here and figure out why he didn't throw it well. '
On the UNLV blitz:
'That's what they do. I thought a couple of times we held it too long and a couple of times late, we turned some guys free. That was just missed assignments. But again, we knew that that was coming. We knew what they were going to do. That was just a matter of executing.'
UNLV head coach John Robinson
Opening Statement:
'Well, excuse me, I don't have my makeup on for TV, but it was pretty wet out there. It was' In the second half the rain got really ' pretty steady. All of you toughies were all up in the press box. We ' It made it very hard to handle the ball, passing.
'I think it was a great win for us in that' and we deserved it because we played just about every phase of the game as hard as we could. We were effective on defense in getting the ball back. Did they fumble, did we knock it loose, who knows. Tonight we knocked it loose and I think we jumped on the balls and were very active. Our defense has kind of a Jekyll and Hyde team. We were good the first game and atrocious the second game and they (our defense) were very good in this game.
'Their (Wisconsin's) losing (Anthony) Davis early was a hurt to them, but we lost our tailback even earlier than that, Larry Croom, we think is a great player, we lost before the game. Dominique Dorsey, our tailback, number 10, has had some great break away games, but he's never had a game '. I don 't know how many times he carried the ball, 30, I bet. He just had to hold off ' holding onto the ball was being a winner in that game today.
'We tried to put pressure on their quarterback from a variety of ways and we got them. They, you know, their (Wisconsin's) receiving core is formidable looking group and when they get on the field on you if he (the quarterback) has time, it's hard to defend. But for us, it was a great day.
'Playing' to play football here, I ' we 've talked all week what a privilege it was to come here and play, just to have a sense of what the best of college football is. I believe Wisconsin ranks in that area, it 's not a good day for Wisconsin, but I think they will contend for the Big Ten Championship. But they have established here one of the great atmospheres and great traditions and they are about to expand on it to make it one the great stadiums in football. So, it was a privilege for us, you don't always get that at UNLV and I was very proud that we came in and gave a good account of ourselves. I'll be happy to answer any questions.'
On pressuring the quarterback:
'Well, we saw what happened to us last week when we didn 't, you know. I think you've got to. They are a deep throwing team, they have that 'those ' you know, there's a collection of receivers there. And those kinds of teams like to go down the field, the play action pass, fake the run controls linebackers, get your receivers hit ' is an extremely well thought out passing game. And that's kind of what they do. So, if you can't get some drops, we didn't get much in the way of blocks last week, but if you get some good drops, then you give room for a pass rush chance and I really was impressed with that. '
Wisconsin Players
Offensive lineman Dan Buenning on the UNLV pressure:
'They were bringing a lot of different stuff. They had a good package against us and they knew what they wanted to do and they did it well '
Buenning on the overall performance of the team:
'Not well. We all competed hard, it is not like we didn 't try out there. I have to give it to (UNLV). They won the game, they deserved to win.'
Buenning on the play of Jamaal Brimmer:
'They brought him a lot. He was one of the guys we were focusing on, watching him and trying to know where he was at all times.'
Buenning on next week:
'We just have to go back to work. Next week is a new week and we just have to put this behind us. We should be able to do that pretty quick with the group of guys we got. We have a great group of guys here and we are just going to work towards the next game.
Offensive lineman Morgan Davis on the UNLV pressure:
'I think with them moving there (line)backers all over and there safeties coming at us presented a problem for all of us. I think we picked up the majority of them, but a few of them got by us.'
Davis on the offense:
'I think that the way our offense was rolling this year with the amount of yards we picked up (in the first two games) no one assumed this would happen. But it happened today.'
Linebacker Chris Catalano on today's game:
'The bottom line is we didn't get the win. We have to improve for next week. All we are thinking about now is North Carolina.'
