Viva Las Vegas!
The Wisconsin Badgers are going to be heading to Sin City for their bowl game this year to take on the Arizona State Sun Devils out of the Pac-12 in the Las Vegas Bowl, taking place on December 30th.
The Sun Devils finished the 2021 season with an 8-4 overall record and went 6-3 in conference. The Badgers also finished with an 8-4 record and went 6-3 in conference. Arizona State finished 2nd in the Pac-12 South while Wisconsin was 2nd in the Big Ten West.
So on paper, this should be a pretty even matchup between these two teams.
Arizona State suffered conference losses at the hands of Utah, Washington State, and Oregon State this year while Wisconsin's three conference losses were to Penn State, Michigan, and Minnesota.
Historically, these two teams haven't played against each other much, but back in 2013 the Wisconsin Badgers played a non-conference game against Arizona State. The Badgers, led by Joel Stave, Melvin Gordon, and Jared Abbrederis wound up falling short in that game, a 32-30 defeat, after the bizarre sequence of events in the final seconds of the game.
Stave took a knee and set the ball down in the center of the field to set up for a game winning field goal, but the officials did not spot the ball quickly enough and allow Wisconsin to snap the ball in time to spike it and bring on the field goal unit.
This will be the first matchup between these two programs since that game.
It'll be a late kickoff for Wisconsin, with the game starting at 9:30 PM CT on December 30th.