UWBadgers.com Senior Writer Mike Lucas is celebrating 50 years of covering the Badgers in 2019. Join us throughout the season as we take a look back at some of the most memorable moments from his career in Madison.

MIKE LUCAS Senior Writer Related Content • Varsity Magazine

BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer

MADISON, Wis. — The 1993 Elevator Scare. The 1982 Bounce Pass. The 1995 Tie.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the Illinois-Wisconsin series.

The Elevator Scare

Freshman linebacker Tarek Saleh couldn't stop dancing.

"I was about ready to wallop him across the chops," confessed center Cory Raymer.

Joe Panos and Joe Rudolph couldn't stop perspiring.

"Both of them were sweating bullets," Raymer observed.

Meanwhile, their Wisconsin teammates couldn't stop laughing.

"About 15 of us got stuck in the elevator," said Raymer, delivering the punch line.

This was not a college prank or an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.

This was an elevator — overloaded with many oversized Badgers — which got stuck between floors on the morning of the Illinois game in Champaign on November 20, 1993.

This was not just any football game, either. This was one of the biggest games in school history because it had a bearing on the Big Ten race and potential Rose Bowl trip.

"And I'm thinking, 'Oh, boy, we're going to be here for a while and this isn't going to be any fun,'" said Raymer, who smirked and added, "I watched everybody else panic."

As it turned out, the players were stuck in the hotel elevator for nearly 30 minutes. They were on their way to breakfast, which was being served on the top floor.

When the doors closed, Panos looked up and saw that the elevator's capacity was 2,500 pounds. "Five offensive linemen brings it up to about 1,500 pounds," he thought. "Plus 10."

There was Saleh and quarterback Jay Macias, tight end Kevin Lyles and wide receivers Michael London and Keith Jackson, among handful of others (Lyles is the father of current UW offensive guard Kayden Lyles).

"Saleh wouldn't stop moving around," grumbled Rudolph, the starting left guard and now Wisconsin's longtime O-line coach and offensive coordinator. "I don't think he was nervous as much as he thought this was just the greatest thing."

When the elevator came to a grinding halt — somewhere between the 12th and 13th floors — Steve Stark wasn't concerned. At least not initially.

"But after a while, we didn't have too much air," said Stark, the starting right guard. "So, we opened up the doors. With them closed, it was really getting hot in there."

Panos was miserable.

"I'm claustrophobic," said the senior-co-captain and the starting right tackle. "The first thing I did was take off my coat, then I undid my tie, then I unbuttoned my shirt."

Two other elevators were operating without a glitch.

"We're telling everyone we're stuck," Raymer said, "and you could hear them laughing."

Help finally arrived and the players were set free.

"We were all starting to get hungry," said Raymer, who refused to get back in either of the functioning elevators. "I ran up the final six or seven flights of stairs to get breakfast."

If this was a distraction — and it could have been to some teams — you couldn't tell by the way the Badgers played later that day in pounding out a 35-10 victory at Memorial Stadium. Coupled with Ohio State's 28-0 skunking of Michigan, Wisconsin was now in a position to earn the Rose Bowl bid (which the Badgers did by beating Michigan State in Tokyo two weeks later).

After quarterback Darrell Bevell threw two touchdown passes to tight end Mike Roan and another to receiver Lee DeRamus against the Illini, he said, "We're on a real high now."

In addition, tailbacks Brent Moss and Terrell Fletcher each ran for more than 100 yards on an Illinois defense that ranked No. 1 in the Big Ten and No. 4 nationally against the rush.

The Illini were giving up, on the average, 96 yards per game. The Badgers rushed for 301. Moss had 124 and broke Billy Marek's single-season school record (1,281) set in 1975.

"Joe Panos told me before the game that one of the Illinois players said I wouldn't get 100 yards and that our rushing offense wouldn't get 100 altogether," Moss recounted. "That challenged us."

There was plenty of bad blood to go around. The head coaches, Barry Alvarez and Lou Tepper, were ex-defensive coordinators and they really didn't like each other, adding fuel to the rivalry.

On the field, Illinois was pretty mouthy.

"They did all the talking," Raymer said, "and then we went out and crushed the Orange Krush."

The Bounce Pass

Prior to a Thursday practice, UW offensive coordinator Bill Dudley had the quarterbacks scuffing up the game balls. One of the best ways to take the shine off a new ball was to bounce it off the turf.

First-year offensive line coach Dick Scesniak was watching the QBs playing catch (via the bounce) and went up to Dudley and asked, "Have you ever thrown a bounce pass?"

Dudley had not. Neither had Scesniak, who nonetheless was intrigued by how true the bounces were on the artificial surface. The discussion was revisited the Monday of the Illinois game.

That's when the Badgers began practicing the play with quarterback Randy Wright throwing a bounce pass/lateral to wide receiver Al Toon, who, in turn, threw the ball to tight end Jeff Nault.

"We brought up that play at a meeting early in the week and everyone laughed," Dudley said. "Why waste our time doing something screwy like this? So, we worked on it only four times."

Before the opening kickoff, Wisconsin head coach Dave McClain huddled with the officials and gave them a heads-up on the possibility of a trick play.

"An inadvertent whistle could kill you," Dudley rationalized.

With less than two minutes left in the game, the Badgers had the ball but trailed 26-22. On second-and-10 from the Illinois 40, McClain told Dudley, "Run that pass."

That pass? "He couldn't remember what the play was called," said Dudley, shrugging.

In the huddle, the play was "62 Skip Pass Left." It was run to the left because it was easier for the right-handed Wright to bounce the ball in the direction.

Wright was the triggerman and skipped a one-hop lateral to his gifted receiver Toon, who was positioned three yards behind the line of scrimmage.

When Toon fielded the ball, he carried out his fake — like it was an incompletion — freezing the Illini secondary and drawing a groan from the sell-out crowd at Camp Randall Stadium.

"They went awwwwww (bleep)," Dudley recalled.

Toon, who had one of the stronger arms on the team, then threw a perfect pass to Nault, who had gotten behind the Illinois defense and romped into the end zone for a touchdown.

"Last time I saw that was in Pop Warner," said Illinois receiver Oliver Williams.

"You just have to watch those plays and then clap," said Illini placekicker Mike Bass.

Video: Badger History - The Bounce Pass

Now for the bad news. The Badgers took a 28-26 lead but missed the extra point, leaving the door wide open with 58 seconds remaining for quarterback Tony Eason.

It took five plays for Eason to move the Illini 51 yards to the UW 29. Eason completed a 22-yard pass to Williams and 23-yard pass to tight end Tim Brewster.

Eason then made a mistake on a pass over the middle that should have been intercepted by a Badgers linebacker, ending the game, but he dropped the ball.

With four seconds left, the aforementioned Bass lined up the winning kick.

"The guy looked really fat," said UW receiver Tim Stracka. "I thought he might choke."

Fat chance. The 5-foot-10, 210-pound Bass had a beer keg physique but nailed the 46-yard field goal.

"I was as high as I've ever been when we scored with that bounce pass," said Wisconsin safety John Josten. "And 52 seconds later, I was on the bottom floor."

The Tie

Wisconsin head coach Barry Alvarez burst through the locker room doors still fuming over a 3-3 tie with Illinois, still stewing over a 4-5-2 season.

Alvarez had just lit into his young players — hoping to light a fire under them for next season — when he came upon his senior quarterback who had led the Badgers to the 1994 Rose Bowl.

Darrell Bevell was being wheeled out of the adjacent training room on a gurney.

Bevell was hooked up to an IV and accompanied by a handful of athletic trainers, doctors, paramedics and his high school coach, Jim Bevell, who also happens to be his dad.

Alvarez was informed that Darrell was being taken to University Hospital for further checks and observations. He was also told that Bevell may have suffered a lacerated kidney during the game.

As Bevell was taken to a waiting ambulance, Alvarez slumped on a nearby bench. He conducted a brief postgame radio interview and then collected himself before meeting with the local media corps.

"He took a lot of hits today," Alvarez said softly. "He's such a fierce competitor."

Bevell was moved out of the intensive care unit of University Hospital on Sunday morning and his condition was upgraded to fair. From his room, he watched Alvarez's weekly television show.

There were few highlights from the 3-3 rock fight with Illinois, the last tie in college football history. The NCAA adopted overtime that postseason and on a full-time basis in 1996.

Carl McCullough rushed 35 times for 132 yards against a tenacious Illini defense featuring a couple of All-Americans, linebacker Kevin Hardy and defensive end Simeon Rice.

Meanwhile, the Badgers limited Illinois to 260 yards of total offense, 71 on the ground.

After a scoreless first half, John Hall staked Wisconsin to a 3-0 lead in the third quarter with a 29-yard field goal. Brett Scheuplein's 51-yard field goal in the fourth quarter knotted the game at 3-all.

Scheuplein later missed a 54-yarder in the final minute, leaving the teams deadlocked.

Three days after his final game at Camp Randall Stadium, Bevell held a press conference at University Hospital. He was still hurting from the tie and still in pain from his injury.

"That's not the way I thought my career would end," said Bevell, who finally took himself out of the game in the fourth quarter. "But I was fighting the whole way.

"I can be proud that I gave everything I had. I couldn't have left anything more on the field than I did. I've had a great career here. I wouldn't change anything that happened."

Bevell was released that day from the hospital. But not before he visited the children's ward.

"On the field, I wanted to be known as a winner," he said of his legacy. "I did everything within my powers to make the team better … I want to be known for that for a long time."