Senior safety Troy Nolan was obviously disgusted with the ASU football team’s loss Saturday against UNLV.

“They’re not on our level, I’ll tell you that,” Nolan said of the Runnin’ Rebels. “No disrespect to them. They won the game.

“I give all the credit [to them], but we let them hang around in the game, and look what happened: They beat us.”

At the postgame press conference, Nolan banged a bottle of Gatorade down on the table in front of him, representing the feeling of the ASU defense.

One of the central reasons: the UNLV scoring drive that spanned the third and fourth quarters of the 23-20 overtime loss.

The 18-play, 87-yard marathon cut the Sun Devils’ lead to 20-13 and featured no spectacular plays. But the Sun Devil defense was unable to make a key stop on the drive.

That outcome became the trend for the rest of the game.

The Rebels put 13 points on the board after the third quarter to complete the comeback, while the Sun Devils did not score.

“If we come out, and we win the third down-battle like we always kind of hang our hat on, and maybe just create a couple big plays here and there . . . it’s a different story,” junior linebacker Mike Nixon said. “We were unable to do those things that made us tough last year, and that’s the outcome.”

UNLV racked up first downs late, mostly set up by the consistent dose of senior running back Frank Summers.

“He’s a little bowling ball back there,” Nixon said. “In the second half, they just started pounding him away and he was putting them in second and short and third and short situations.”

When the ASU offense gave the ball back to UNLV with 3:03 to play, the Sun Devil defense had the chance to redeem itself down the stretch and crush any hopes of an upset.

It didn’t.

The Rebels went on a methodical 10-play, 74-yard drive to tie the game at 20 with 18 seconds left in regulation.

Even after UNLV tied the game, ASU defense had two chances to force a turnover on the Rebels’ first possession of overtime, which would have given the Sun Devils a chance to win the game with a field goal.
It didn’t.

UNLV sophomore quarterback Omar Clayton nearly fumbled the ball on the Rebels’ third play of the drive, but it was ruled an incomplete shovel pass.

Three plays later, a Clayton pass was tipped high in the air in traffic near the ASU goal line, but no Sun Devil was able to come up with the interception. It was instead caught by UNLV junior wide receiver Ryan Wolfe.

“Anytime you get into overtime, anything can happen,” ASU coach Dennis Erickson said. “You saw what happened.”

The ASU defense did not force any turnovers against UNLV after causing three against Stanford last week.

But even after UNLV kicked a field goal to take a 23-20 lead, the ASU defense thought it would still have another opportunity to take the field when reigning Lou Groza. Award winner Thomas Weber was lining up to kick the potential game-tying field goal for the Sun Devils.

It didn’t.

Weber’s field goal was blocked, and the chances for the ASU defense to step up were over.

“After that game, nothing really shocks me,” Nixon said. “It was just ‘What’s going to happen next?’ and when it happens, you just kind of shake your head. It still hasn’t really sunk in.”

Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu.