AP: McElroy and Julio Jones took over without him, aided by five runs and a 17-yard catch by freshman Trent Richardson on the 15-play, 79-yard drive that consumed more than seven minutes.
McElroy, who has been criticized at times as a weak link in an offense with a powerful running game, completed his final seven passes for 62 yards on the climactic drive after opening with an incompletion. Jones made four catches, three for first downs.
Auburn fans remained in the stands for several minutes when it was over, some seemingly stunned and others applauding a closer-than-expected game, while a sizable crimson-and-white contingent celebrated. A handful of ‘Bama players later returned to the field briefly.
ALSO: No. 2 Alabama found its championship form in the nick of time.
Outplayed most of the game, the Crimson Tide stayed unbeaten with a 26-21 victory Friday over Auburn, taking the lead with a nearly perfect drive that was capped by Greg McElroy’s 4-yard touchdown pass to Roy Upchurch with 1:24 left.
Alabama (12-0, 8-0 Southeastern Conference) completed a second straight perfect regular season in the Iron Bowl, but did it the hard way against its bitter rival. The Tide fell behind in the opening minutes, but came out ahead to do its part to set up 1 vs. 2 showdown with top-ranked Florida in the SEC championship game.
But forget the national and league championship, the state title almost slipped away. (read the entire AP report embedded in this post.)
I don’t know where ole Joe Kines is, but he would have been proud of this defense! It was as much ‘read-and-react’ and ‘arm tackling’ as I have seen since ‘Shulaball’!
Could anyone go through Checkdowns any slower than Gmac? The boy is as slow as a Neil Young song. The Lizards are gona love that better than nibblin’ on a dead cow! This victory felt about as good as the one after the Tenn game. It’s a win, but it don’t put a ‘shut-up’ on their fans.
Didn’t Bill Oliver say that phrase? — put up or shut up? — shrug — just a thought…
I know Bill Oliver would be proud of this defense —
I will confess — the offense wasn’t clicking on all cylinders — god bless our defense for doing their jobs — and doing it well. They really kept this game intact. I know it’s a “team” effort and it is — but sometimes the D and O can outshine each other.
Moving on from our Iron Bowl victory — Florida. I’m glad Alabama got some “practice” against a spread offense because that’s the same type of shit we’ll see in Atlanta.
Trent Richardson is a beast!!! He’s built like he’s 20 something — only 18 years old and he looks like he’s NFL ready!!! I know we’ll be in good hands with him (see Iron Bowl) but I’m am VERY concerned about Mark Ingram. Will he be healthy for the SEC Championship game? One week is not a lot of time to heal. Forget about all the Heisman bullshit — if Ingram & Co. takes care of Florida — you can bet he’ll be back in it — but the voters are wary to giving it to a Sophomore — Colt McCoy (Senior) will get it — this is the third year I think he’s been on the ballot??? If we beat Floridumb and go to the National and say beat a Texas team — they’ll all be saying Ingram should of got it — I just hope he’s at least 90% for Atlanta. RTR!!!!!
Yeah boy THE BEAST had what ? 40 yards ? Boy hes the man aint he ? You and all the other necks need to apologize to McElroy for the crap yall where saying about him, because he singlehandedly won the game for you.
I know it hurts to lose BPI.
The beast had 68 yards. More than the best RB (ha ha) in the SEC Tate! You never once stopped Richardson for less than 3 yards. One of the games biggest mistakes was insisting on giving Ingram his carries when it was obvious the Barn was going to sell their mothers ass to stop him. If Trent had carried the ball on 4th down it would have been no contest. And if Mac had thrown the ball on just half of the handoffs to Ingram, we would have had 3 more tds. In fact I’m still wondering why we only threw deep twice. And the one we completed was to Peek our slowest reciever. With Auburn playing 8 men to stop Ingram, there’s no way they cover Julio, Maze and Hanks one on one. The failure to throw downfield is what allowed them to gangbang Ingram. Plus we have just as many trick plays as Auburn and all we did is have Ingram throw his first pass out of Julios reach in the end zone. It didn’t look like to me we came there to win the game until the last desperation drive. Strange game plan IMO! RTR!