Early in the fourth quarter, after Rutgers had taken a two-point lead over Arizona State in the Insight Bowl, the actor James Gandolfini walked with four dark-suited bodyguards across the back of the end zone near the Rutgers fans.
Gandolfini, a Rutgers graduate and honorary captain on Tuesday, plays the New Jersey gangster Tony Soprano on the television series The Sopranos. He smiled and waved as the Rutgers fans cheered and chanted "Tony! Tony!"
Alas, it was the last of many cheers for them. The Sun Devils went ahead again for good a few minutes later on the fourth touchdown pass of the game by the freshman quarterback Rudy Carpenter and defeated the Scarlet Knights 45-40 in a wild display of offense by both teams that lasted four hours.
PHOTO: AP
Matt Miller of Arizona State had two of the touchdown receptions on plays of 43 and 42 yards. Tailback Rudy Burgess of ASU scored twice on runs of 1 and 4 yards and finished with 103 yards on 16 carries. He also had 4 catches for 69 yards.
For Rutgers, Jeremy Ito kicked four field goals and fullback Brian Leonard had two touchdowns, one on a 31-yard pass play, the other on a 3-yard run. Ryan Hart, the Scarlet Knights' quarterback, threw three touchdown passes.
The teams combined for more than 1,200 yards: Arizona State had 678 yards on offense, and Rutgers had 529.
Carpenter completed 23 of 35 passes for 471 yards. Hart was 24 of 38 for 374 yards passing. He also threw an interception. Raymell Rice had 20 carries for 108 yards for Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights entered the game with a record of 7-4, their first winning season since 1992. The Sun Devils were 6-5.
It was only the second bowl game in Rutgers' history, and both have been against the same opponent. In the Garden State Bowl at Giants Stadium in 1978, Arizona State defeated Rutgers 34-18.
The Sun Devils are more accustomed to postseason play. They defeated Purdue 27-23 in the Sun Bowl last year and lost to Kansas State 34-27 in the 2002 Holiday Bowl. Overall, Arizona State came into the game with a postseason record of 11-9-1.
Rutgers, taking advantage of sloppy tackling by Arizona State, held a 17-7 lead after one quarter. Both Knights touchdowns came on passes by Hart.
The first was to tight end Clark Harris in the end zone for a 1-yard play. The second was to Leonard for 31 yards.
Leonard's second touchdown, on the 3-yard run, gave Rutgers a 24-10 lead with 2 minutes 29 seconds left in the second quarter.
Carpenter pulled the Sun Devils to 24-17 with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Zach Miller with 39 seconds remaining in the half. Earlier, he connected with Matt Miller on the 43-yard scoring play.
On the first drive of the second half, Burgess took a pitch from Carpenter and ran for a 1-yard touchdown to tie the score at 24-24.
But Ito kicked his second field goal of the game -- this one from 23 yards -- to put the Scarlet Knights up by 27-24 with 6:53 left in the third quarter. (His first field goal was a 25-yarder).
That lead vanished when Carpenter threw his third touchdown pass, this one covering 23 yards to Terry Richardson, to give Arizona State its first lead, 31-27, with 4:33 left in the third quarter.
Ito cut the margin to 31-30 with a 52-yard field goal, the longest of his career, with 2:05 left in the quarter. His previous best was 51 yards.
The Insight Bowl was the ninth of 28 postseason bowl games. Tuesday night's game was played at Chase Field, the home of baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks.
The stadium has a retractable roof that was open at kickoff but closed during the first few plays on a cool evening. That caused a rise in sound as cheers and band music reverberated.
Most of the seats were filled, and a capacity crowd of 43,536 was announced. A majority of the fans cheered for Arizona State, which is located nearby in Tempe, but the Rutgers contingent was a vocal minority.
This bowl began as the Copper Bowl in Tucson on Dec. 31, 1989, when Arizona beat North Carolina State, 17-10.
It became the Insight.com Bowl in 1997 and the Insight Bowl in 2002.
This was the sixth and final year for the game at this venue. Next season, it will move to Tempe's Sun Devil Stadium and will begin a six-year alignment with the Big 12 and the Big Ten. This year's teams represented the Big East and the Pac-10.
Both the Insight and the Fiesta Bowls are operated by the Arizona Sports Foundation, and the Fiesta is the more prominent of the two. That game, to be played on Jan. 2, will feature Notre Dame and Ohio State.
No. 23 Clemson 19, Colorado 10
James Davis ran for 150 yards and a touchdown, Charlie Whitehurst scrambled for a score and No. 23 Clemson beat Colorado 19-10 in the Champs Sports Bowl, handing the Buffaloes their fourth consecutive loss.
Davis' 6-yard TD run with 1:38 remaining sealed a fourth straight victory for Clemson (8-4) and capped a disappointing season for Colorado (7-6).
The Buffaloes made it close, though, something they didn't do in their previous two games -- losses to the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Texas Longhorns by a combined score of 100-6.
Backup quarterback Brian White replaced starter James Cox midway through the fourth quarter and led Colorado on a 69-yard scoring drive that made it 13-10. His 2-yard TD pass to Quinn Sypniewski ended a streak of 14 quarters without a touchdown and gave the Buffs a chance.
White rolled right on third down, then threw left to Sypniewski, who was wide open in the end zone.
But Davis and Whitehurst answered, moving the Tigers 61 yards in 4:07 to put the game away.
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