Sun Devils Keep the Curse on Michigan : Bo Absorbs Another Rose Tattooing, 22-15

Isn’t this the way these Rose Bowl trips almost always end for Michigan?

The Wolverines come to Pasadena sincerely believing they’re the better team, get no argument from the oddsmakers, lose the game and then wonder where it all went wrong.

What was it this time, in the aftermath of No. 7-ranked Arizona State’s 22-15 victory over No. 4-ranked Michigan Thursday before a New Year’s Day crowd of 103,168 in the Rose Bowl?

Was it the natural grass?

Was it the crowd noise?

Was it just one of those days?

All of the above were advanced by either Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler or a number of his players in attempting to explain their loss, although all emphasized that they weren’t making excuses.

But all the evidence suggests that Arizona State, appearing for the first time in the Rose Bowl game, simply was the better team.

Anyone surprised by that is living in the distant past, when the Big Ten had a reason for its superiority complex.

Arizona State’s victory was the 12th for the Pacific 10 Conference over the Big Ten in the last 13 Rose Bowl games and the 17th in the last 20.

Besides the numbers on the scoreboard, the important statistics were Arizona State’s 188 yards rushing to Michigan’s 53, Arizona State’s 10 third-down conversions to Michigan’s 4 and Arizona State’s 35 minutes 28 seconds of possession time to Michigan’s 24 minutes 32 seconds.

That includes the Sun Devils’ remarkable edge of almost 10 minutes of possession in the third quarter, when the Wolverine offense had the ball for only 2 minutes 43 seconds and could do little but watch as a 15-13 halftime lead disappeared. The lead had been 15-3 midway through the second quarter.

Arizona State Coach John Cooper would add another number that he believes was crucial: zero turnovers for the Sun Devils, who all season lost only 4 fumbles and 11 interceptions.

Not coincidentally, they finished with a 10-1-1 record. Michigan was 11-2.

In Cooper’s first Rose Bowl as a head coach, he already has won as many of the games as Schembechler, whose record is 1-7. Schembechler’s only victory, 23-6 over Washington in 1981, is the Big Ten’s most recent.

There was no question that this day belonged to Cooper, not in Cooper’s mind, anyway.

When someone suggested that the coach take a path other than the one he wanted to take after the game, Cooper huffed: “Bo’s not calling the shots here now; I won the game.”

Cooper did it without having to wave his gold towel, which he does sometimes during games to stir the crowd.

After the Sun Devils began making their second-quarter comeback, the crowd was stirred enough.

The only towel in evidence Thursday was the one Schembechler was crying into.

Upset because the Arizona State fans made so much noise that the Wolverines had difficulty hearing offensive signals, Schembechler complained: “It would be nice someday if we (Big Ten teams) got as many tickets as they (Pac-10 teams) did. It would be nice if the Rose Bowl did that.”

The Tournament of Roses Assn. gives 41,000 tickets to the Pac-10 champion and 21,000 to the Big Ten champion, concluding that more fans of the Pac-10 team will have an opportunity to attend the game because of their closer proximity.

Arizona State fans filled the west side of the Rose Bowl, waving gold pompons that made them look as if they were part of a field of wild sunflowers.

They were anything but wallflowers.

The Wolverines seemed particularly bothered by the crowd noise late in the second quarter. After Arizona State’s Kent Bostrom kicked the second of his three field goals, this one from 27 yards at 9:21, to cut the Wolverine lead to 15-6, the Wolverines started their next possession from their 12.

Michigan quarterback Jim Harbaugh asked for quiet, didn’t get it, then asked for help from the officials.

The officials stopped the 25-second clock, giving Harbaugh as much time as he needed to run his first-down play. He needed about two minutes before the crowd noise subsided.

Michigan gained two yards on the next three plays and punted.

“It’s amazing to me that people don’t understand about the crowd noise,” Schembechler said. “Some coaches don’t; some officials don’t. You can’t operate when you can’t hear. I’m not making excuses; that’s the way it is.”

Cooper had no sympathy, unless it was for the teams that regularly have to play Michigan in Ann Arbor before crowds of more than 100,000.

“Can you believe that Michigan (complained about) crowd noise?” he said. “They play before 100,000 people, and they ask for quiet. I thought that was great.

“Our crowd really played an important part in the ballgame.”

Michigan subsequently punted from its 9, giving Arizona State the ball at its 40.

Eleven plays later, the Sun Devils had their first touchdown, a four-yard pass from quarterback Jeff Van Raaphorst to flanker Bruce Hill with 29 seconds remaining in the first half.

The Sun Devils’ momentum carried into the second half, when they took the kickoff and drove 80 yards in 12 plays for the go-ahead touchdown, this one on a one-yard pass from Van Raaphorst to Hill. Coming on second and goal, the pass was an intriguing call by Cooper and his offensive coordinator, Jim Colletto.

Arizona State scored only once more, on a 25-yard Bostrom field goal 44 seconds into the fourth quarter, but it was the Sun Devils’ ability to control the ball that guaranteed the victory.

Behind one of the nation’s premier offensive lines, running back Darryl Harris ran 23 times for 109 yards and fullback Channing Williams had 18 carries for 69 yards.

But Van Raaphorst was the offensive star, for which he was named the most valuable player by the Amateur Athletic Foundation, as he completed 16 of 30 pases for 193 yards and two touchdowns.

Time after time, he kept the ball away from the Wolverines by completing third-down passes, six of them without failing during one stretch of the second and third quarters. Not counting punts, the frustrated Wolverines had the ball for only eight third-quarter plays.

“We just never had the ball,” Schembechler said. “When we got it the first couple of times (in the second half), we didn’t do anything with it.”

That wasn’t the case in the first half, when the Wolverines drove 66 yards in 9 plays for a touchdown after the opening kickoff and 58 yards in 9 plays for another in the second quarter.

Jamie Morris scored the first on an 18-yard run, followed by a two-point conversion pass from kicker Mike Gillette to fullback Gerald White. Yes, it was planned that way. Harbaugh scored the second touchdown on a two-yard run.

From then on, the Sun Devils dominated.

They blamed their early troubles on nerves.

“We never had a team warm up like that before a game,” Colletto said. “They were almost paralyzed.

“You spend all your time here reading about Bo this and Bo that. It took us a whole quarter to realize Michigan doesn’t walk on water.”

Neither do they run very well on grass, which grows in the Rose Bowl. All Big Ten teams play on artificial turf.

Morris ran for 51 yards in the first half but only 9 in the second.

“They’re accustomed to playing on grass; we’re not,” Morris said. “You can practice on it, but it’s not the same.”

Morris invited Schembechler’s wrath on the Wolverines’ next-to-last possession, when the running back headed toward the line on a draw play, thought better of it when he saw no opening, reversed his field and lost 11 yards.

Before that play, the Wolverines were facing second and six at the Arizona State 29.

On third and 17, Harbaugh was sacked. Schembechler said the crowd noise caused an offensive tackle to miss his assignment on that play.

“That killed the drive,” he said.

Morris’ 11-yard loss didn’t help. Schembechler said he didn’t want to talk about it.

“I’ll just get madder than I already am,” he said.

Schembechler was mad, all right, but not at his quarterback. Harbaugh, third in the Heisman Trophy voting and second in the nation in passing efficiency, completed 13 of 23 passes for 172 yards but also had 3 interceptions, including on that ended the Wolverines’ final possession at the Arizona State 44.

Asked about Harbaugh, Schembechler said, “He played well the first half.”

Pause.

“If that sounds smart alecky, that’s because it’s a stupid question,” Schembechler said. “If you’ve got somebody in your face the whole time, how can you play? If you want to be critical, be critical of the offensive line. I think they played lousy.”

Harbaugh didn’t necessarily agree with Schembechler, which is OK as of Thursday because the quarterback is senior.

“I’m not going to blame it on the offensive line,” he said. “They didn’t play as well as they could have, but I didn’t play as well as I could have. The defense didn’t play as well as they could have.

“If you play as well as you can and get beat, then you know you’re not the better team. But this really hurts because we didn’t play as well as we could.”

The Sun Devils might have had something to do with that.

“It’s like they were on Cloud Nine,” Morris said. “We were on Cloud Six.”

As in deep six.