It was a miracle at Jordan-Hare — for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

It was a finish for the ages for Nick Saban and Co. as the No. 8 Crimson Tide scored an improbable last-minute touchdown against Auburn in the Iron Bowl to pull off a 27-24 comeback victory to keep their College Football Playoff hopes alive.

Auburn led for a majority of the second half against the Crimson Tide, but Alabama had the ball deep inside Tigers territory in the final minutes of the game. Things took a turn for the worse after a botched snap and an illegal forward pass left Alabama with a fourth-and-goal from the 31-yard line with 43 seconds left.

Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe took the snap and looked around for a receiver, and launched the ball to the back-left corner of the end zone. He found Isaiah Bond, who hauled in the miraculous catch to give the Crimson Tide the lead.

“Big-time players make big-time plays,” Bond said. “That’s the one quote my mom instilled in me as a young child.”

The last-second touchdown proved to be enough, as Auburn couldn’t do anything with the few seconds it had left. Quarterback Payton Thorne lost the ball on a strip sack that the Tigers recovered at their 1-yard line, setting up one final play. But Thorne’s last-gasp pass was intercepted to seal the Alabama victory.

“It’s a lot of hurt in that locker room, and it stinks,” Auburn coach Hugh Freeze said. “Our kids gave themselves a chance to win the Iron Bowl tonight, and it’s going to stick with us for a while.”

The win was the Crimson Tide’s fourth straight victory in the rivalry and pushed Alabama to 11-1 ahead of the SEC Championship Game against No. 1 Georgia next Saturday.

“I’ll never forget this game, ever in my life,” Milroe said.

Alabama vs. Auburn highlights

After his third consecutive loss to Michigan — an almost unforgivable sin for any Ohio State coach — Ryan Day has only two choices in front of him, either of which will define the rest of his career. 

He must either commit to completely junking the ultra-conservative approach that cost him yet again in the only game that really matters or admit to himself he’s not the right guy for Ohio State and sprint to Texas A&M.

Unlike the the last two years, Saturday was not some huge indictment of Day’s playcalling or Ohio State’s toughness. It wasn’t a blowout or an embarrassment. Quite simply, Michigan won 30-24 because its quarterback played a little bit better than Ohio State’s. 

That’s the difference between winning the Big Ten and staying home next week. That’s what separates a College Football Playoff berth from a disappointing postseason. For all the accusations around this rivalry, the difference between the two teams turned out to be pure and simple. 

But this three-year stretch of Michigan dominance — its first since 1995-97 — is now baked into the cake for any conversation about Day going forward. If he manages to steer the rivalry back toward Ohio State, it’s the ‘yeah, but” that will always linger in the background. If he doesn’t, his near-pristine record against everyone else in college football won’t be enough to save his job at some point. 

That’s where Texas A&M comes in. 

Keeping in mind that it’s agent season, and agents often have reason to exaggerate interest in their clients or just make things up out of whole cloth, it was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser Saturday when Bruce Feldman of Fox and The Athletic said the Aggies could make a run at Day to replace Jimbo Fisher. 

It makes some sense. Texas A&M likes to make splashy hires and has pretty much an endless supply of financial resources, but there’s no obvious slam-dunk candidate out there with a track record of winning at the highest level. 

Normally, the idea that Texas A&M could poach Ohio State’s coach would be laughable. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and the opportunity to hire an established winner who is 56-7 as a head coach is absolutely worth a try. 

Had Ohio State won Saturday, this possibility would have quickly faded away. Ohio State is a better job than Texas A&M with pretty much equal resources, and Day has proven that he can come very, very close to winning a national title there. 

But at Ohio State, winning The Game is everything. And it’s possible Day just isn’t built for a job where there’s a 365-day-per-year focus on one opponent.

Because if you watch Day coach against everyone else, then watch him coach against Michigan, it’s clearly in his head. He gets tight. He goes into a shell. He makes decisions that suggest he’s a little too scared of choosing incorrectly.

And what makes it worse is that his counterpart Saturday, Michigan’s offensive coordinator and interim coach Sherrone Moore, didn’t have that problem.

Put in the unenviable position of replacing the suspended Jim Harbaugh, Moore pretty much pitched a perfect game. He looked completely in control on the sidelines. He took calculated risks without being over-aggressive. He went for fourth downs when it made sense — and was rewarded by converting 3-of-3. Michigan did not look like a better team than Ohio State, but it was just better enough on the margins to win. 

Meanwhile, when Day was presented with some opportunities to play aggressive football, he did not take them. On the Buckeyes’ second offensive series, they faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 46-yard line. 

Admittedly, this is a borderline call for any coach. But given that Day emerged from the Michigan game the last two years under heavy criticism for keeping such a tight rein on one of the most talented offenses of the decade, it looked like a moment to send a message about the Buckeyes’ intentions, keep the ball and get an early score on the board. Instead, Day punted — not necessarily a bad call, but certainly a scared one.

Day’s more egregious sin, however, occurred at the end of the half after the Buckeyes had driven from their own 2-yard line to the Michigan 34 with less than a minute remaining. Down 14-10 and facing a fourth-and-2, the correct risk/reward play would have been to try and get a quick first down and leave enough time to perhaps get in the end zone and steal the lead going into halftime.

Instead, Day was so scared of not making the first down and giving Michigan a few extra plays that he ran the clock all the way down and sent out Jayden Fielding for a 52-yard field goal. Keep in mind that Fielding, in his first year as a starter, had never even attempted a 50-yarder before with the Buckeyes. It was a low-percentage decision disguised as the safe option, and Day got what he bargained for when Fielding missed. 

Are those two decisions to blame for Ohio State’s loss? No, not directly.  

In the end, it boiled down to Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy playing a clean game for the Wolverines when they needed it most and Kyle McCord finding the stage a bit too big. He threw a truly awful first-quarter interception that pretty much handed Michigan seven points, and then he threw another on the final series when Ohio State was driving for a potential victory.

If you want to blame Day for failing to recruit or develop a better quarterback, fine. But McCarthy’s years of starting experience and McCord’s inability to get meaningful reps until this season because he was blocked by C.J. Stroud showed up in this game. That’s football. 

But in the macro, Day has a real problem in this matchup. Michigan plays and coaches with confidence and freedom. Ohio State plays and coaches with inhibitions that suggests they feel the pressure far more.

Day must change that dynamic. There’s no other option for him — except now, perhaps, to junk it all for College Station, a big pile of money and a different set of expectations. 

After another crushing disappointment at the hands of Michigan, a fresh start might be a pretty appealing outcome for all parties. 

Ohio State and Michigan lived up the hype and delivered a high-pressure, down-to-the-wire matchup between two of the best teams in the Bowl Subdivision.

The win sends Michigan to the Big Ten championship game and a pairing with Iowa. A win there would make the Wolverines no worse than the second seed in the semifinals depending on what happens in the SEC championship game.

Beating the Buckeyes keeps the spotlight off coach Jim Harbaugh, who concluded his three-game conference suspension as part of the program’s sign-stealing scandal and will be back on the sidelines for the game against the Hawkeyes. A loss would’ve made it impossible to ignore the ongoing NCAA investigation into the scandal and the fact that Harbaugh was suspended for half of Michigan’s regular-season schedule.

Instead, the fallout from Saturday is reserved for Ohio State coach Ryan Day and the Buckeyes, who spent months honing a more physical style to better match wits with the Wolverines but were outmuscled in the second half.

A year ago, Ohio State lost to Michigan but still reached the College Football Playoff. Given the depth of Power Five contenders in this year’s race, the Buckeyes’ chances of finishing in this season’s top four are between slim and none.

The program will presumably head into next season with Day at the controls, though the scrutiny he’ll face after this loss could make this a moment to evaluate other opportunities, such as Texas A&M. With or without Day, it will be another offseason of intense self-reflection.

The Wolverines and Buckeyes lead Saturday’s winners and losers:

Winners

Washington

It took some luck, clutch kicking and overcoming some head-scratching play calls in the final minute, but Washington remained unbeaten with a 24-21 win in the Apple Cup against Washington State. This turns next Friday’s Pac-12 championship rematch against Oregon a playoff play-in game; the Huskies won 36-33 when the rivals met during the regular season. Washington was able to sneak past the Cougars despite another middling game from quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who completed 18 of 33 throws on just 6.2 yards per attempt. But he delivered a 65-yard scoring drive in the final two minutes that was capped by a 42-yard field goal as time expired. The Huskies have been living on borrowed time for months with a series of close-and-closer wins but is still just one victory away from a playoff berth.

Alabama

With Alabama down 24-20 and facing fourth-and-goal from the Auburn 31-yard line with under a minute left, Jalen Milroe took a shotgun snap, stood in the middle of a clean pocket for seven seconds and then found wide receiver Isaiah Bond in the back left corner of the end zone to steal a 27-24 Iron Bowl win and keep the Crimson Tide’s playoff hopes alive entering the SEC championship game against Georgia. Milroe made another late-in-the-day Heisman statement with 366 yards of total offense, including a team-best 107 yards on the ground, and two touchdowns passes without an interception. The miraculous win sends the Tide into December with just the one non-conference loss to Texas, making this season one of the most impressive of coach Nick Saban’s career.

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Oklahoma State

Down 24-6 at halftime to Brigham Young, the Cowboys rode three touchdowns from Ollie Gordon to force overtime and then topped the Cougars 40-34 in two extra frames to earn a spot opposite Texas in the Big 12 championship game. Pushed aside as a contender after September losses to South Alabama and Iowa State, Oklahoma State closed with seven wins in eight games to earn a shot at the second conference crown of the Mike Gundy era. The comeback win is heartbreaking for rival Oklahoma, which lost to the Cowboys earlier this season and needed a BYU win to earn a rematch with the Longhorns. Gordon’s 166 rushing yards and five touchdowns could be enough to get Gordon to Manhattan as a Heisman finalist.

Florida State

It wasn’t a perfect day: Louisville’s loss to Kentucky isn’t good for Florida State, which would’ve obviously preferred the Cardinals bring just one defeat into the ACC championship game, and Alabama beating Auburn to stay alive in the playoff could have the Seminoles looking over their shoulder when the committee issues the final rankings next Sunday. In the end, though, all they can and should do is focus on taking care of business and finishing the regular season unbeaten, confident in the belief that no unbeaten Power Five team would miss the top four. So far, so good. Backup quarterback Tate Rodemaker had 134 passing yards in his first start in place of Jordan Travis and the Seminoles scored a 24-15 win at Florida to head into the matchup with Louisville a perfect 12-0. Defensively, FSU held the Gators to just 232 yards and did a really nice job containing young quarterback Max Brown, who had just 86 yards on 16 attempts with an interception.

Michigan State

The Spartans closed the regular season on Friday with a 42-0 loss to Penn State, the final chapter in what has been one of the most miserable years in program history. One day later, some good news: Michigan State officially hired former Oregon State coach Jonathan Smith, a deft rebuilder who turned the Beavers into one of the top teams in the Pac-12 and a New Year’s Six contender. This experience will pay off as he takes over a team and program in need of a bottom-to-top overhaul.

The newly bowl eligible

Several teams clinched bowl eligibility just under the wire. That includes Central Florida, which beat Houston 27-13. Virginia Tech is back in the postseason for the first time under coach Brent Pry after a 55-17 win in the Commonwealth Cup against Virginia. Cal defeated UCLA in their final Pac-12 regular-season game to get bowl eligible. Also getting a sixth win on Saturday were South Florida, Rice, Marshall, Syracuse, Old Dominion, Louisiana-Lafayette and Northern Illinois.

Losers

Ryan Day

Day’s tenure is in danger of being swallowed up by his team’s failures in the game against Michigan, in the same way the John Cooper era at Ohio State isn’t remembered for two near-national championships in 1996 and 1998 but for his woeful record against the Wolverines. Day is now 56-7 overall with the Buckeyes, but three of those losses have come in this rivalry and all but one have come against teams in the top five of the playoff rankings. So these games against Michigan might be representative of a bigger issue for the program: Ohio State has feasted on lesser opponents but come up short against other members of college football’s upper crust, beginning with this bitter rivalry.

Louisville

Louisville’s playoff hopes aren’t altered too dramatically by a 38-31 loss to Kentucky — the Cardinals were almost certainly not going to make it anyway, so whatever. Not to say this one doesn’t hurt. The Cardinals outgained the Wildcats by more than 100 yards but turned the ball over three times, allowed a special-teams touchdown and couldn’t stop Ray Davis, who had 127 yards of total offense and three scores. The bottom line doesn’t change too much: Louisville can lock in a New Year’s Six bid by beating Florida State in the ACC championship game or as the next-best team from the conference should the Seminoles finish in the top four. Unfortunately, the loss puts a sour finish on what had been a remarkable debut regular season for coach Jeff Brohm.

North Carolina

UNC won six in a row to open the year but will limp into the postseason having lost four of six, capped by an ugly 39-20 loss at rival North Carolina State. The Wolfpack and coach Dave Doeren deserve huge credit for a nine-win season almost no one saw coming, especially given the team’s issues at quarterback and on offense. But this one was more about the Tar Heels and the feeling that this has been a wasted season: wasted for not making the most of the hot start, a ripe-for-the-taking ACC and what will likely be the final season for quarterback Drake Maye, a likely top pick in next year’s NFL draft. N.C. State did a nice job on Maye, limiting the potential All-America pick to 22 completions in 38 attempts for 254 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Maye did have 106 yards and a score on the ground, though.

Florida

Florida is an undisciplined, inconsistent mess of a program that couldn’t even find a way to beat the Travis-less Seminoles at home when needing a win to earn bowl eligibility. The loss drops the Gators to 5-7 and makes Billy Napier the program’s first coach since Raymond Wolf in 1946-47 to suffer back-to-back losing seasons. Napier joins Wolf and Josh Cody (1936-37) as the only coaches to suffer losing finishes in each of their first two seasons. Yeah, in case it wasn’t clear: Napier is becoming a historically disastrous hire for Florida.

Colorado

Two months ago, Colorado was hailed as the biggest story in college football — if not the biggest story in all of sports — after opening the Deion Sanders era with wins against TCU, Nebraska and Colorado State. The Buffaloes would win just once from there, capping the regular season with quarterback Shedeur Sanders sidelined for a 23-17 loss to Utah. Playing fourth-string quarterback Luke Bottari, the Utes would make only 10 pass attempts against 53 carries for 268 yards.

The five-win club

Multiple teams went into rivalry weekend needing one win to land in bowl play but came up short. BYU and Washington State just missed on upsets. There’s also Navy, which trailed SMU 52-7 at halftime in a blowout loss. Minnesota couldn’t get over the hump after losing to Wisconsin for the first time in three years (though the Gophers should be the lone 5-7 team selected for a bowl). Illinois lost a shootout to Northwestern, 45-43. South Carolina was shut down in a 16-7 loss to Clemson. Florida lost, and to cap Saturday night, Colorado State lost to Hawaii as time expired. Earlier this week, Mississippi State dropped the Egg Bowl to Mississippi, Central Michigan lost to Toledo, TCU was destroyed by Oklahoma and, worst of all, Nebraska lost 13-10 to Iowa to end Matt Rhule’s first season.

The glad-its-over club

Well, at least it’s over. Mercifully, we won’t have to watch Baylor, Cincinnati, Nevada, Indiana, Pittsburgh and Houston ever again. The Bears couldn’t get a late defensive stop and lost 34-31 to West Virginia, raising the odds the program moves on from Dave Aranda. Cincinnati won more than 50 games the previous five years under Luke Fickell but went 3-9 under Scott Satterfield, closing with a 49-16 loss at home to Kansas. Pittsburgh also finished 3-9, and the less said about the Panthers the better.

Wide receiver Diontae Johnson had a ‘heated argument’ with teammate and safety Minkah Fitzpatrick in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ locker room after the team’s loss last Sunday to the Cleveland Browns, according to a report Saturday from ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Schefter added that defensive tackle Cameron Heyward and linebacker T.J. Watt broke up the altercation.

The Steelers are scheduled to meet the Cincinnati Bengals in an NFL Week 12 game Sunday afternoon at Paycor Stadium.

Fitzpatrick has been ruled out ahead of Sunday’s game because of a hamstring injury.

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Johnson had two catches for 16 yards on eight targets against Cleveland. He has 26 receptions for 335 yards in the six games in which he’s played this season, his fifth with the Steelers.

Max Verstappen scored a comfortable 19th victory of the season ahead of Charles Leclerc at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to complete one of the most dominant campaigns in Formula 1 history.

Leclerc offered the reigning champion a stiff challenge off the line with a fractionally better start, but was hemmed onto the apex at the first turn, forcing him to find another way through.

The Ferrari driver got the better run out of the Turn 5 hairpin and was late on the brakes into turn 6, but Verstappen toughed it out around the outside to take the inside through the chicane exit at Turn 7.

Leclerc’s last chance was to look around the outside at the parabolic Turn 9, but the door was shut to him there too. He had no choice but to fall into line, allowing Verstappen a chance to break free from DRS reach by the time the drag reduction system was activated on the third lap.

Red Bull pre-empted the powerful undercut by bringing the Dutchman in for his first stop early, on lap 16, ensuring he remained well out of reach when Leclerc stopped on the following tour. All that was left for him to do was to massage open the gap to an eventual 17.9s to claim the final win of the year.

“It was an incredible season,” he said. “It was a bit emotional on the in-lap – it was the last time I was sitting in the car which has given me a lot.

“I have to say a big thank you to everyone at Red Bull. It’s been an incredible year. It will be hard to do something similar again, but we definitely enjoyed this year.”

Pérez had been recovering from ninth on the grid with a late second stop that put him on an aggressive final stint to haul himself up the order. But the Mexican wasn’t clean in his forward parries, fumbling an attempted overtake on Lando Norris for fourth place at the chicane.

Pérez dived down the McLaren’s inside but washed out slightly wide, banging wheels with the Briton and sending him spearing off the road. The stewards took a dim view of the incident and slapped him with a 5s penalty for causing a collision, to be applied after the flag.

His pace was nonetheless strong, and before long Pérez was breathing down the necks of Leclerc and George Russell, who had spent the race closely matched in second and third. With Ferrari and Mercedes locked in a four-point battle for second in the constructors standings, Leclerc spied an opportunity to put his thumb on the scales.

When Pérez barged past Russell with four laps remaining, Leclerc slowed, allowing the Red Bull Racing driver to speed past him down the back straight in the hope that in clean air he could build enough of a gap to partially offset his penalty.

If Pérez dropped to third, behind Leclerc but ahead of Russell, the points difference would be enough to move Ferrari up to second. It was a good plan in theory, but the lap count conspired against it. Pérez ran out of time to build the gap, falling short by just 1.125s.

Leclerc and Russell were promoted back to second and third, and Mercedes sealed the runner-up position in the championship.

“I tried to give him DRS and a slipstream, but that unfortunately wasn’t really enough,” Leclerc lamented. “On a weekend like this there wasn’t one thing we could’ve done better. We did an incredible job, doing everything right … it’s just a shame that we finished third in the constructors.”

Russell said he was nervous in the final five laps as he waited for the arithmetic to shake out.

“Checo came from nowhere,” he said. “I don’t know what happened there, but he had great pace.

“It was really tense at the end. The tires were dropping off. I’m really pleased to have secured P2 for the team.”

Lando Norris claimed fifth despite an attempt to undercut his way onto the podium with an early second stop. He was comfortably covered by Russell and Leclerc ahead of him on subsequent laps and was later no match for the recovering Pérez.

His McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, finished 7s behind him, having been slower in the opening stint and then losing race time by having to pit second in both stop windows on an evening the undercut was usually very powerful.

Fernando Alonso finished seventh in a vain attempt to lift Aston Martin back to fourth in the constructors standings ahead of McLaren.

Yuki Tsunoda finished eighth as the best-placed entry on a one-stop strategy. The Japanese driver led the race for the first time in his career before his first stop and was exhibiting strong pace, but his tires faded badly late, dropping him from his target of sixth — which would have elevated AlphaTauri to seventh in the standings ahead of Williams — to eighth.

Lewis Hamilton couldn’t make a move through Turn 9 stick, leaving him ninth ahead of Lance Stroll.

Daniel Ricciardo finished 11th ahead of Esteban Ocon and a frustrated Pierre Gasly, who saw a points finish evaporate to poor strategy decisions to pit late, handing undercuts to all his chief rivals.

Alex Albon was 14th ahead of Nico Hülkenberg, Logan Sargeant, Carlos Sainz — who save his final pit stop until the final lap in the hope of picking up a safety car that never came — Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen.