Fourth-and-31! Alabama yanks miracle victory away from Auburn

AUBURN, Ala. — It took 10 years, but Alabama at last got its revenge. Auburn has the Kick Six, and now Alabama has Fourth-and-31.

Alabama escaped — and yes, that is the correct word — with a 27-24 victory that keeps its College Football Playoff hopes alive, if only barely. Style points matter in a race as tight as this year's playoff sprint, and the Alabama that beat Auburn was a far cry from the team that had thundered off nine straight wins since a September loss to Texas in Tuscaloosa.

Beaten to within an inch of submission, Alabama pulled a miracle from disaster, as Jalen Milroe found Isaiah Bond in the deepest corner of Auburn's end zone — on fourth and 31 with 43 seconds left — to reverse a game that had been going Auburn's way almost all night. These are the kind of miracles that can only happen in the Iron Bowl.

Ghosts were in the air at Jordan-Hare Stadium on Saturday. This season marks the 10-year anniversary of Auburn’s landmark 2013 season, where the Tigers beat Georgia on a tipped Hail Mary — the Prayer at Jordan-Hare — and then knocked off Alabama two weeks later. That game — the Kick Six, where Auburn’s Chris Davis ran back a missed Alabama field goal attempt with no time on the clock — still stands as one of the greatest college football plays of all time. Auburn displayed the actual Kick Six ball, safely behind plastic, just outside the stadium for hours prior to the game, and Davis and other members of the team soaked up the crowd’s love during a second-quarter introduction.

Even in a season where the teams are on two wildly different trajectories — Alabama has won 10 straight and is looking to position itself for a College Football Playoff bid; Auburn was coming off a humiliating 31-10 loss to New Mexico State — the Iron Bowl still carries weight. There were more Tide fans than usual dotting the stands Saturday, but despite that — or maybe because of it — ticket prices remained well north of $200 apiece inside two hours to kickoff.

Something possesses the players at Jordan-Hare Iron Bowls, some force that gives Auburn players extra juice and Alabama players extra anxiety. The Alabama team that took the field Saturday marched between the 20s with the efficiency of the November Tide, but committed the numbing mental mistakes of the September version. Two separate Alabama touchdowns were called back because of penalties — the first, a 40-yard Kendrick Law scramble wiped out because of holding; the second, a pretty Jalen Milroe touch pass deemed illegal for the simple reason that Milroe was about three yards over the line of scrimmage when he threw it.

Meanwhile, Auburn — just seven days removed from one of the ugliest losses in recent college football history — played like a team with nothing left to lose, a team with the psychological devastation of its hated rival on its mind.

With less than four minutes remaining in the first half, Auburn unleashed its best play of the game, and perhaps of the season. Damari Alston found an unexpected hole around the left side of the Alabama line and scooted into open territory, running for 56 yards before he was brought down. A facemasking penalty on Alabama added 12 yards onto the play, and on the next play, Auburn’s Ja’Varrius Johnson bull-rushed 12 yards into the end zone to put Auburn ahead, 14-10. The feeling in the stands at Jordan-Hare was so evident it could have been flashed on the big screen: No matter how bad our year has been, if we can derail Bama, it’ll all be worth it.

But then Alabama remembered that it’s Alabama. In one of many plays he probably couldn’t have made earlier this year, Milroe fired a pass into low Earth orbit that ended up in the hands of a wide-open Jermaine Burton for a mammoth 68-yard touchdown. Every bit of Jordan-Hare’s good vibes vanished in an instant as Alabama took a 17-14 lead into the half.

Alabama got the ball to open the second half and immediately set about trying to clean up the mistakes of the first. Over its last four games, Alabama has outscored opponents 97-24 in the second half, and on its first drive, the Tide drove down to the Auburn 5 in what initially seemed like a promising drive.

But, ominously, Alabama had to settle for a field goal, keeping the game at one possession. Auburn responded by carving chunks out of Alabama’s defense and erasing that six-point deficit. The Tigers took a 21-20 lead on a 27-yard touchdown pass to Johnson, who was so wide open on the left side of the field that he would have had time to make a sandwich before any Tide defenders even touched him.

Milroe, who at this point is a completely different quarterback than he was against Texas, tried to take matters into his own hands, scrambling — including a 37-yard dance along the Auburn sideline — and firing passes with far more accuracy than he had earlier in the season. But Milroe doesn’t play defense, and Milroe couldn’t keep his teammates from making drive-killing penalties as Nick Saban seethed on the sidelines.

Auburn entered the fourth quarter up by a point and driving, and orange lights bathed the stadium as a spotlight focused on the logo at the center of the field. Virtually the entire Tiger team, from starters to walk-ons to trainers, stomped onto the field and pointed in the direction of Alabama’s sideline. Just under five minutes of game clock later, Auburn added another field goal to extend the lead to 24-20.

The game took another turn as Auburn punt returner Keionte Scott muffed a punt with just over four minutes left in the game. That gave Alabama the ball at Auburn's 30. Alabama reached as far as the Auburn 7 before chaos struck again. A fumbled snap and, later, another illegal forward pass left Alabama at fourth-and-goal from the 31-yard line with 43 seconds left on the clock. And then Milroe threw the pass that will live forever in Alabama history.

A late interception iced the game, sending a stunned Auburn crowd into the night and delirious Alabama fans celebrating loud enough to be heard back in Tuscaloosa.