By Charles Goldberg
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. -- One more miracle for the miracle Auburn Tigers? Hey, why not? But this time with feeling. This time with one of the most unbelievable plays in SEC history, or college football history, or recorded history.
This time Auburn won the Iron Bowl on a Saturday night with a play that will be talked about as long as there is an Iron Bowl or an Auburn. Forever, it will be Auburn 34, Alabama 28. Forever, Auburn won a spot in next Saturday's Southeastern Conference Championship Game against Missouri, a 28-21 winner over Texas A&M on Saturday night.
This time the Tigers won it on the last play of a football game with a play they put in at the very last second. Chris Davis returned a missed Alabama field goal 100 yards officially, but really 109 yards, but maybe a million yards by racing up the left sideline, going untouched in front of a roaring Jordan-Hare Stadium.
No. 4 Auburn improved to 11-1 overall, a long way from last season's 3-7 disaster. No. 1 Alabama fell to 11-1.
Auburn won it with a running game that smashed Alabama's vaunted defense. The Tigers finished with 393 yards, a whopping 296 on the ground. Alabama was allowing only 91.3 rushing yards a game. Auburn had more than that at the half. Tre Mason led the way 164 yards and a touchdown. Auburn didn't throw for much, but Marshall threw two touchdown passes.
Auburn trailed 21-7 at the half, and 28-21 in the fourth quarter. But Nick Marshall threw a touchdown pass to Sammie Coates with 32 seconds left to tie the game. Then Alabama got as close as the Tigers' 38-yard line and tried a 57-yard Adam Griffith field goal. It was short. Davis got it nine yards deep in one zone and didn't stop until he was in the other end zone.
"When I looked back I said I could believe it," Davis said. "When I was running, I said 'God is good.'
"It really has sunk in yet, but as a team, it feels great for all the players."
It was Auburn's second miracle finish in a row. The Tigers beat Georgia 34-28 on a tipped Marshall pass to Ricardo Louis just one game back.
"The way we won the last two weeks was really unbelievable. Our guys believe," said Auburn coach Gus Malzahn. "They weathered the storm. They backed us up. We held them. They missed a field goal. The offense steps up. The defense steps up, and the special teams. This has just been an amazing year so far. It's not over with. It's a huge win. Our program is going in the right direction."
Alabama almost didn't even try the fateful field goal. T.J. Yeldon ran 24 yards and went out of bounds with the clock at 0:00. But the officials reviewed the time and put one more second on the clock.
Alabama coach Nick Saban opted for the long field goal. Alabama was on the field ready to kick it, but Malzahn called timeout. That's when he put Davis deep. The kick was to the right and short - and landed in Davis' hands.
"We thought about going for the block there. I knew we were going to call a timeout, anyway," Malzahn said. "The wind was going in that direction. The kicker has got a good leg. We just made a decision to put Chris back there. There were some very good blocks and made an unbelievable play at the end to win it."
Malzahn, who said he didn't see Louis' catch against Georgia, saw every bit of Davis' run.
"I saw it didn't have enough distance and my eyes got on Chris," he said. "You have the field goal team out there with a lot of big guys, so I knew he had to miss a couple of guys miss." And there would be clear sailing. Auburn players through in some knock-down blocks along the way, but Davis' only real challenge was not stepping out of bounds.
"We covered to the left; that's why he went to the right," said Alabama coach Nick Saban.
"First time I have ever lost a game that way; the first time I have ever seen a game lost that way."
It was the fourth missed goal returned 100 yards in college history.
Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron was almost the hero. He threw a 99-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper in the fourth quarter for what looked like an Alabama win. But Marshall threw a 39-yard touchdown to Coates with less than a minute to go, then won it in a most dramatic fashion.
The game seemed to turn when McCarron's long TD pass. Auburn failed on a fourth-and-1 gamble from its own 35 on the next series, but still had a chance after blocking the field goal attempt.
Auburn had rallied from a 21-7 first-half deficit, catching Alabama at 21-all when Marshall threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to C.J. Uzomah to open the second half. But the Tide answered with McCarron's throw.
Auburn, the SEC's rushing leader and the No. 2 running team in America, did not hide the fact it wanted to run in the 78th Iron Bowl.
It rushed for 162 yards in the first half against an Alabama defense that was allowing an average of 91.3 rushing yards per game. The 162 total was just three yards short of the most Alabama had allowed in any single game. Tre Mason had raced past 100 yards in the first half.
Conversely, Auburn passed for only 29 yards in the first half on 4-of-6 passing by Marshall.
Auburn grabbed the momentum early. Marshall executed the zone-read to perfection, keeping the ball and racing 45 yards virtually untouched for a 7-0 lead with 5:05 left in the first quarter. But Alabama silenced the crowd for most of the second quarter with three straight touchdowns. AJ McCarron threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Jalston Fowler, a 20-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Norwood and then directed a drive that end on a 1-yard touchdown run by T.J. Yeldon for a 21-7 lead with 3:48 left in the first half.
But Auburn answered with a must-have touchdown drive with seven straight runs, highlighted by a 40-yard run by Mason, and a 10-yard run by Mason, and 6, 8 and 1-yard runs by Mason for that matter.
Marshall ran 15 yards to the 1, and that's where Mason scored to cut Alabama's lead to 21-14 with 1:40 left in the second quarter.