Rebels’ pressure on quarterback neutralized star Badgers receiver

Monday, Sept. 15, 2003 | 9:32 a.m.

One of the key matchups in Saturday's UNLV-Wisconsin game had Lee Evans, the Badgers' All-Everything receiver, going against Rebels cornerback Ruschard Dodd-Masters and his relatively inexperienced teammates in the defensive secondary.

Evans is Wisconsin's bread-and-butter receiver, and when the Badgers' other offensive stalwart, running back Anthony Davis, left the game with an ankle injury midway through the first quarter, it appeared that Evans would become Wisconsin's peanut butter and jelly as well.

But that was before the UNLV pass rush turned Jim Sorgi, Wisconsin's veteran quarterback, into milquetoast.

Led by strong safety Jamaal Brimmer, the Rebels sacked Sorgi eight times, forced five turnovers and rarely allowed him enough time to search out Evans downfield.

Evans was coming off a monster 9-catch, 214-yard game against Akron in which he hauled in a 99-yard touchdown bomb from Sorgi. On Saturday, he caught just two passes for 58 yards.

His 29-yard reception set up Wisconsin's only offensive points, a second-quarter field goal that trimmed the Rebels' lead to 10-5. But like the rest of the Badgers, he could not find much room to operate.

"We wanted to come in and limit his action by mixing up the coverage with me on him 1-on-1," said Dodd-Masters, who usually talks more than a morning deejay.

But on Saturday, he let his play speak for him, and offered a simple assessment of why the Rebels were able to contain the speedy Evans, who is projected as a first-round NFL draft choice.

"As a whole and as a unit, we did a good job," Dodd-Masters said.

Brimmer, who had more happy returns than Roy Rogers, taking back a Wisconsin fumble for a touchdown and setting up another score with a long interception return, said the different looks UNLV used on Evans may have confused him, or at least Sorgi.

"We did a good job of throwing different things at him and re-routing him," Brimmer said. "We knew he'd come to different spots. We just watched lots of film and studied their splits and everything."

Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez said UNLV's defensive scheme wasn't exactly rocket science, although you wouldn't know it by the way his team handled it.

"They didn't do anything defensively that we hadn't seen," Alvarez said after the Badgers were limited to 12 completions in 25 passing attempts on a gray, rainy day. "They were playing cover two, cover four; they were zone blitzing some but nothing we hadn't seen."

Evans started the day needing only five catches to break Al Toon's school record of 131.

To the Rebels' credit, he'll have to take his bows against North Carolina this week.

The key matchup of each UNLV football game will be previewed in the Las Vegas Sun this season and followed up with after the game by an examination of how it turned out.