Nov. 28, 2009

Bama survives both barrels from AU, 26-21

By Scott Wright

The kitchen sink was the only thing still in place on the Plains Saturday morning. The day before, the Auburn Tigers had thrown everything else at No. 2 Alabama.

The Crimson Tide looked like a whipping boy for most of the game, but the offense came up big when it mattered. Greg McElroy's 4-yard touchdown pass to Roy Upchurch with just over a minute remaining sealed the Tide's second consecutive Iron Bowl win, 26-21.

Alabama (12-0, 8-0 Southeastern Conference) completed its second straight undefeated regular season after overcoming an offensive assault from an out-manned Auburn team that was willing to try every trick in the book.

“I think this is the first team in the history of Alabama to win 12 games two years in a row,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “We kind of made history out there today.”

The Tigers opened the scoring with a 67-yard reverse then recovered an onside kick before another trick play set up a scoring pass from Chris Todd to Eric Smith.

Auburn coach Gene Chizik and Gus Malzahn, the offensive coordinator, must have felt their team would have come up short using a more conventional approach. After the game, Saban said the early trickery wasn't unexpected.

"I knew it would be tough at the start," Saban said. "When these guys go off the script, they have all kinds of formations, all kinds of plays - double passes, reverse passes and all kinds of stuff. Most of it is stuff you haven't seen before. We knew we were going to have to play through it."

The Alabama defense bent but never broke, giving up 332 yards but allowed only one touchdown after the Tigers' first-quarter blitz.

"They threw everything they had at us," Alabama linebacker Cory Reamer said. "We just had to get on the sideline and talk about it, go over what they were doing. We knew they were going to do something different that we've never seen before."

Linebacker Eryk Anders said the Crimson Tide had prepared for several trick plays, including the reverse. The defense just didn't take care of its assignments, he said.

"They (Auburn) did a good job of executing,” Saban said. “I don't want to take anything away from them. But we didn't always play it exactly right, and it was their formation variations that probably created some of the mistakes."

Alabama allowed almost 150 yards in the first quarter, but settled down at the break and gave up only 139 in the second half. Seventy-two of those yards came on the Tigers' lone second-half touchdown, a deep pass to Darvin Adams. It was the longest pass play allowed by the Alabama defense since 1999. Terrell Zachary's first-quarter reverse was the longest run the Crimson Tide has allowed since 2005.

Alabama running back Mark Ingram came into the game as the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. But he injured his leg early in the game Friday and finished with a season-low 30 yards rushing on 16 carries.

The win by the Tide sets up a showdown with top-ranked Florida in the SEC championship game. Kickoff at the Georgia Dome is Saturday at 3 p.m.