Tuscaloosa, AL (Sportsbooks) - Glen Coffee ran for 144 yards and a TD on 20 carries and Mark Ingram scored twice and ran for 64 yards as top-ranked Alabama kept its national title hopes alive with a convincing 36-0 win against Auburn in the annual Iron Bowl rivalry game.
John Parker Wilson completed 8-of-16 pass attempts for 134 yards and a TD to Nikita Stover while Greg McElroy also saw time under center and completed both his passes for 44 yards with a TD to Marquis Maze as Alabama (12-0, 8-0 SEC) ran its winning streak to 13 games dating back to last season, the longest for the program since 1994.
Head coach Nick Saban is on the verge of completing an undefeated regular season, but his Crimson Tide will face a red-hot Florida Gators squad in the SEC title game next Saturday.
"We don't have a player on our team who has experienced this before so that was our goal. It was really less about the rivalry and more about doing something that was within our power -- if we focused on the right things and put our energy into the right things and went out there and played good football," Saban said of the win. "I was pleased with the way that we did that. The biggest thing is that we were able to control the line of scrimmage -- run it a little bit. Glen (Coffee) had a good game and that was probably the difference."
Kodi Burns hit on just 9-of-23 pass attempts for 113 yards while Mario Fannin led both the ground game with 28 yards and the receiving efforts with three catches for 44 yards for the Tigers (5-7, 2-6), who had won the last six meetings with the Crimson Tide, the second-longest run by either team in the series.
Auburn had never lost in Tuscaloosa, owning a previously unblemished 6-0 record in Iron Bowl play, but came into Saturday having lost five of its last six games overall.
"All streaks must come to an end and our streak came to a halt tonight. We ran into a good football team," Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville said. "We needed them to make mistakes and they didn't and we needed not to make mistakes and we did. But that's what good football teams make you do -- is make you make mistakes. They're very aggressive on defense and offense."
The Crimson Tide defense registered their second shutout of the season and held Auburn to 170 total yards of offense. Alabama has given up just seven points in its past two games following a 27-21 nail-biting overtime triumph against LSU November 8.
Alabama held a slim lead heading into the second half but quickly took over the game with three third-quarter touchdowns. The Tide took advantage of a Brad Lester fumble deep in Auburn territory and Wilson tossed a 39-yard score to Stover on the first ensuing play to make it a 16-0 game after Leigh Tiffin had the extra point blocked.
Auburn's offensive struggles continued in the second half and Bama used a short field to go 45 yards with an Ingram one-yard score making it a 22-0 affair. A two-point conversion failed.
The Tigers responded with three yards on three plays and again the Tide had a short field to work with. Ingram scored from 14 yards out this time to make it a 29-0 game heading to the final stanza.
Auburn had its most productive drive of the second half to start the fourth, but a six-play, 17-yard series resulted in another punt and Bama started to wind the clock with the running game. McElroy came on for Wilson and tossed a 34-yard TD to Maze late in the frame to account for the 36-0 final.
The Crimson Tide grabbed an early lead on their second possession of the game, moving the ball 76 yards in 15 plays. Wilson converted a 4th-and-1 play from the Auburn 30 with a sneak but Bama's drive bogged down at the 19 and Tiffin kicked a 37-yard field goal on the final play of the first quarter.
Alabama's defense kept the Tigers in check for most of the first half, holding them to just six first downs. Meanwhile, the Tide's offense rolled on in the second quarter with Wilson hitting Julio Jones for 15 yards on 3rd-and-11 to gain the Auburn 41. And on the next play Coffee sprinted 41 yards up the right sideline for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead with 10 1/2 minutes left until halftime.
The Tigers finally got things going on their final drive of the half, moving the ball to the Bama 23 with five seconds left. Morgan Hull looked to have Auburn on the board with a 39-yard field goal but Saban called a timeout at the last second. Hull's second attempt was then blocked and it remained a two- score game at the break.
Game Notes
Alabama holds a 39-33-1 advantage in the all-time series...Seventeen of the last 21 meetings in the series have been decided by 10 points or less, including the previous six meetings...Alabama's last shutout of Auburn was in 1992, a 17-0 final...Auburn had just eight total first downs and was 4-of-14 on third down conversions...Alabama racked up 412 yards of total offense with 21 first downs...Jones finished with three catches for 36 yards.
