Joel Stave has not rewatched the 2013 loss at Arizona State since reviewing the film following the game eight years ago. He knows one thing's for certain, however -- his knee was down at the ASU 15-yard line with under 15 seconds to go. That should have set up another snap, a spike by the signal caller to stop time and allow a game-winning, 32-yard attempt by Kyle French.

Alas, confusion ensued from the referees and those on the field, and Wisconsin painstakingly saw precious seconds tick off the clock to zero in what become a 32-30 loss to the Sun Devils in Tempe.

Wisconsin (8-4 overall, 6-3 Big Ten) takes on Arizona State (8-4 overall, 6-3 Pac-12) on Thursday in the 2021 Las Vegas Bowl inside Allegiant Stadium (9:30 p.m. CT, ESPN). BadgerBlitz.com spoke with Stave, UW's all-time winningest quarterback, earlier this week about the non-conference contest that sparked controversy due to its mishandled end.

However, we home in on UW's final drive against Arizona State where the offense needed to drive down the field with less than 100 seconds on the clock and pinned inside its own 20-yard line.

Stave recalled "a great atmosphere" inside Sun Devils Stadium on Sept. 14, 2013, but one that was hot. The game time temperature, according to the box score, sat at 98 degrees.

"They had a blackout in their stadium that night," Stave said, "and they really do a good job of playing into the heat. They know it's hot, and they kind of play into it. On the video screen that they have wrapping below the second deck, they just had flames on there all the time."

Wisconsin, which led by 11 early in the second-quarter, lost the advantage but fought back to within a two-point game late in the fourth quarter after a Melvin Gordon one-yard touchdown with 3:53 to play. Gordon finished with 193 yards rushing on 15 carries with a pair of touchdowns, and defensive lineman Beau Allen scored a touchdown in the first half on a fumble recovery.

On the flip side, Arizona State quarterback Taylor Kelly threw for 352 yards, and wide receiver Jaelen Strong finished with six receptions for 104 yards.

Stave himself completed 15-of-30 passes for 187 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions.

"They were a good team. They had a lot of good athletes," Stave said. "They were good defensively so they made it tough for us in the pass game. I know between Melvin and James White, they kind of did their thing that game to really kind of help carry the offense.

"We had a few big pass plays, but I know we had a couple of successful jet sweeps.

"The big thing I remember is kind of the finish of the game. That's kind of what sticks with you."

Wisconsin held Arizona State on its final offensive drive, stalling at its own 49. A 34-yard punt gave the Badgers an opportunity to drive down the field, but they needed to start on their own 17 with only 96 seconds remaining.

"The big thing in any two-minute situation is get that first completion, get things kind of rolling," Stave said. "That was everyone's mindset is we got to get our first completion, we got to get a first down.

"In college, it's so helpful that the clock stops on first downs, so it really takes a lot of the pressure off if you are able to get first downs and stack a few on top of each other. You're not burning all that much clock."

The first two plays did not garner said first down, however. An incompletion to wide receiver Jared Abbrederis and a six-yard completion to Jordan Fredrick set up a 3rd-and-4.

With 1:11 left and two snaps taking 25 seconds, Stave took the snap from the shotgun. He looked left, then threw a dart to wide receiver Jeff Duckworth, who reeled in the catch then pranced 51 yards to the ASU 26.

If not for an apparent injury, in Stave's eyes, the game could have been decided on that third-down conversion.

"I don't remember the name of the call," Stave said. "I know it was just a back shoulder throw that we threw down the left sideline, right in front of Arizona State's bench. Just made a great adjustment to the ball, and went trucking down the sidelines.

"He pulled his hamstring on that play, which is disappointing. Otherwise, he may have ended up scoring and that could have just been that. We wouldn't have had to deal with all this. It was just Jeff making a play when a play needed to be made, so that was a cool play to see."

Three plays later, Stave and the Wisconsin offense again moved the chains on first down after a six-yard completion to Abbrederis to the ASU 13. With the clock stopped, 18 seconds remaining and the ball on the right hash, he took the snap under center.

"It's something that we practice every week," Stave said. "You kind of practice those situational, one-off plays, things like that. A Hail Mary, kind of the random plays that may or may not come up ever, and this one happened to come up. We did it just like we had always practiced -- where you take the snap and go to the center of the field, you kneel it, just to kind of give the kicker the best opportunity to make the kick. Set it down, get everyone lined up and try and spike it."

Stave took the ball, ran laterally to the left, and did exactly what he explained above. He knelt down quickly at the 15-yard-line, then placed the ball down on the ground at that marker with about 15 seconds remaining.

However, no officials grabbed the ball immediately, and a couple of Sun Devils toppled on top of the pigskin seconds later. One player did not get up off the ground until about five seconds remained on the clock. By the time UW was able to set for a snap, time expired, and the game was seemingly over.

Stave confirmed, "100%, I took a knee," but he also noted one thing that was different that what was practiced.

"One thing that kinda, just running the play in a game situation versus a practice situation is, those guys were all blocking up front," Stave said. "Whereas in practice, we're doing it on air, and they're kind of just shuffling and going through the motions. So, I went to take my knee, the center was still blocking. He kind of got bumped and bumped into me. I just popped up quicker because I was getting knocked a little bit.

"That's kind of just how it worked, but I certainly put my knee down, kind of bounced right back up. Looking back, obviously, I wish I had been more clear with it, more obvious in my kneel, but I know for a fact my knee hit the ground."

The clock struck zero, and Arizona State players flooded the field in celebration. Elation from the ASU sideline juxtaposed with confusion from multiple Badgers standing with their arms in the air between the 15- and 20-yard-lines.

Video replay shows an animated Stave running up to the referee quickly at the 21-yard-line. He does not know what Wisconsin's coaches were saying at that time, though he assumes they were aligned with his comments, but he remembers what he said to the official.

"The big thing I was saying was, 'Where are you going? The game's not over yet,'" Stave said. "Because they kind of started walking off the field. 'What are you guys doing? The game's not done yet. We got it to finish the game.' So that's kind of what I was trying to tell them.

"I think the situation really got on top of them. Once Arizona State started running on the field, and they are zeros on the clock, and I think the disappointing thing is how often do you see the refs get together, and they review it. They say, 'OK, after review, there should be X number of seconds on the clock left, and we'll wind it at this point, and you can take a snap, and you can spike it.'

"The fact that they didn't go back and review it at all to rectify the situation -- they just let the clock run out and then left -- it was clearly a blunder on their part. So I was trying to stop them from getting off the field. I was kind of getting in front of him, but I wasn't gonna push him, I wasn't gonna hit him, I wasn't gonna do anything stupid like that. But I'm just trying to as clearly as I could with my voice, tell them that the game was not over, and they needed to finish what they started and do their job."

Stave believes he learned some things from that particular situation. He feels he could have slid instead of kneeling to demonstrate he was absolutely down. He also would have handed the ball to the referee instead of setting it himself on the ground.

Then again, that is all 20-20 hindsight for a play that was practiced before.

"It's easy to say that after things didn't work out good," Stave said. "If the refs would have kind of operated the way it should have gone in a normal situation, they get the ball set, we take another snap, we spike it and kick a game-winning field goal as time expires, so that was the plan.

"But obviously we never got a chance to get that second snap to spike it and stop the clock. So next thing you know, time runs off and Arizona State runs on to the field, and the refs are starting to walk off the field. It happened real fast. You could tell that there was some issues there in the officiating crew, but that's kind of how it wrapped up."

The Pac-12 Conference and commissioner Larry Scott took two days to release a statement on Sept. 16, 2013, announcing it had publicly "reprimanded and taken additional sanctions against officials" for the loss. From the latter portion of said statement:

Neither the referee nor anyone on his crew moved with appropriate urgency to clearly communicate that the ball was to be spotted so play could resume promptly.

"This was an unusual situation to end the game," said Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott. “After a thorough review, we have determined that the officials fell short of the high standard in which Pac-12 games should be managed. We will continue to work with all our officials to ensure this type of situation never occurs again."

Stave recalled frustration and anger immediately after the game, as the team did not receive the opportunity to rightly attempt a short-distance field goal to win the game after driving down the field to put itself in that position. However, he also believes the team did well in moving on quickly from that.

Sunday was a day where conversations continued, according to Stave, but Monday came and the time for UW to move past the loss as well. Preparation began for its Big Ten opener against Purdue, and the Badgers went on to roll the Boilermakers in a 41-10 victory the Saturday thereafter.

For Stave, he went on to finish his Wisconsin career in the program's record books. He sits second in school history in career passing yards (7,635), pass completions and pass attempts (613 and 1,031, respectively), and touchdown passes (48). He also ranks first and third for single-season passing attempts (370 in 2015, 336 in 2013) and tied for second in single-season completions (225). His 22 touchdown passes in 2013 ranks third all-time for a single year.

Many point to his 31-10 record, which anoints him as UW's all-time winningest quarterback. That accolade, according to the currently married husband and father of a one-year-old son, speaks to the consistency of the football program. He takes pride in that mark and for receiving the chance to start as many contests as he did during his time in Madison.

However, Stave pointed towards what the team accomplished in his time as a Badger as well.

"It's something I'm really proud of, but again, I think especially with the quarterback position, you get too much credit in wins and too much blame in losses. Ultimately, football takes so many guys to win a game, so it really speaks to the consistency of the program to win that many games over one guy's career. I think [it] really shows how good a program we have -- especially going through the changes that we went through.

"Except for the guys playing, there wasn't a whole lot of consistency in the program with different coaches and different head coaches and offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators. There was turnover every year, it felt like, pretty substantial turnover every year of my career. So to be able to kind of just pick up where we left off and continue to win games was pretty cool."

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