Arizona State Clocks In With a Clinching Performance

The goal posts are likely making their way back up Mill Avenue about now after an all-night conga-line parade through a campus town so hungry for the Rose Bowl berth it couldn’t wait for the game to end.

There are actually 21 seconds left to play in Saturday’s game at Sun Devil Stadium, but since playing them with a thousand students on the field would have jeopardized lives, officials prudently raised their hands and awarded Arizona State a technical knockout in its 35-7 victory over California before a crowd of 73,963.

Yes, this run to the roses turned into a stampede for Bruce Snyder’s Sun Devils, who clinched their first Rose Bowl berth in ten years by using star quarterback Jake Plummer as a decoy and running the Golden Bears into Aloha Bowl contention.

For the second straight week, Plummer failed to throw a touchdown pass and, for the second straight week, no one cared.

Terry Battle, a backup until starter Mike Martin was injured five weeks ago, ran for 165 yards in 24 carries and scored four of his team’s five rushing touchdowns.

The game was billed as a shootout between Plummer and Cal’s Pat Barnes, who had combined for 45 touchdown passes entering the game, yet neither quarterback failed to find the end zone.

What Arizona State did was outrush Cal, 290 yards to five, unleash defensive end Derrick Rodgers on Barnes, and wait for the official presentation from the Tournament or Roses Assn.

“This was the finest moment a coach and a team could live,” said Snyder, who left Cal after the 1991 season to take on a reclamation project in Tempe.

Snyder said the rebuilding job was “pick-and-shovel work for four years.”

The result of his labor is a 10-0, fourth-ranked team with a chance to win the national championship.

“I don’t think it dawned on us that it might be an issue,” Snyder said of the national title question.

It had to be heartening for Snyder that his team could clinch the Rose Bowl without needing a big night from Plummer, who completed 10 of 18 passes for 184 yards.

Instead, Arizona State relied on two lesser-known stars, Battle and Rodgers.

Battle has been nothing short of sensational since stepping in for Martin for the USC game. In four games since, the junior from San Diego has rushed for 619 yards, averaging 6.95 yards per carry, and scored 10 rushing touchdowns and another on a 100-yard kickoff return.

“I knew I just needed my chance,” Battle said. “Everything has went well for me.”

So much for understatement.

After Cal took a 7-0 first-quarter lead on Brandon Willis’ two-yard scoring run, Battle scored on touchdown runs of 27, three, three and five yards.

His first score was the one he’ll remember, as he broke cleanly through the line and then made a stutter-step fake that froze Cal corner Derrick Gardner in the tundra.

“If you can’t beat nobody one-on-one, you shouldn’t be playing running back,” Battle modestly offered.

Arizona State knew it could run on Cal, the Pacific 10 Conference’s ninth-ranked defense.

It also knew Cal’s quarterback coach, Hue Jackson, coached Plummer last season at Arizona State and pretty much knew the playbook.

The Sun Devils could not have expected, however, shutting off the tap on Cal’s top-ranked offense, which had been averaging 490 yards per game.

Saturday, the Bears totaled 266.

“To hold them to that?” Snyder said. “That’s a great job by our defense.”

What more could Snyder say about Rodgers? When the Sun Devils upset Nebraska, 19-0, on Sept. 21, Snyder said Rodgers’ performance was the greatest he had ever seen by a defensive player.

Yet, Snyder found more superlatives.

“Derrick Rodgers was on fire, possessed, they couldn’t block him,” Snyder said.

Cal (6-3 overall, 3-3 in conference play) wouldn’t argue. Rodgers, a 25-year-old Riverside City College transfer and former medical technician in the U.S. Air Force, sacked Barnes five times by himself and got a half-sack on another.

He also made the play of the game. Cal, trailing 21-7, faced third and seven from the Arizona State 32 when Rodgers ran down Barnes in the backfield and stripped him of the ball, Jason Simmons recovering at the Sun Devils’ 48.

On first down, Plummer floated a beautiful sideline pass to J.R. Redmond for 42 yards, setting up Battle’s fourth rushing touchdown, with 8:40 left in the third quarter, to make it 28-7.

“I felt like I was in a zone the whole game,” Rodgers said. “I can’t tell you what happened out there. Just like Nebraska, I’ll have to go look at the film to see what happened.”

Could he explain this zone?

“It’s like something takes over,” he said. “It’s like you can’t miss. The playing field is your playing field. You don’t hear any crowd noises.”

Barnes finished with decent numbers, completing 19 of 36 passes for 261 yards, but no touchdowns.

“They were the better team and they deserved to win and go to the Rose Bowl,” Cal Coach Steve Mariucci said.

For Arizona State, only one obstacle stands in the way of entering the Rose Bowl undefeated. It’s a big one--arch-rival Arizona, which has defeated Arizona State the last three years. The Sun Devils, in fact, have only two wins against the Wildcats since 1981.

“We’ve come too far to blow it in the end,” tackle Juan Roque said when asked of the Arizona game in Tucson on Nov. 23. “We understand that.”