TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Jonathan Allen returned a fumble 30 yards for a touchdown late in the third quarter to help No. 1 Alabama beat sixth-ranked Texas A&M 33-14 Saturday.
The Crimson Tide (8-0, 5-0 Southeastern Conference) moved on as the powerhouse league's last unbeaten team, getting yet another in a long string of defensive scores. Allen, a lineman, scooped up the ball after Ryan Anderson knocked it loose from Keith Ford to finally build a cushion over the Aggies (6-1, 4-1), who led 14-13 well into the third.
It was 20-14 when Allen extended Alabama's streak to 10 games with a score on defense or special teams, half the duration of a winning streak now at 20 going into an open date.
"I think that was the real turning point in the game, because it changed the momentum of the game," Tide coach Nick Saban said. "Those plays are always huge in games, but that one was especially huge."
However, the Tide defense sustained a big loss when safety Eddie Jackson was injured in the fourth quarter and didn't come back after punt return. Saban said Jackson, a senior and team leader, is out for the season with a broken leg.
Alabama's freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts then galloped 37 yards for another score, stepping out of a defender's grasp and making a nifty move to get past another. The Tide was rolling again, a powerful encore to easy wins over ranked Tennessee and Arkansas teams.
The Aggies seemed likely to put up the biggest fight, with a defense that kept the pressure on Hurts and a handful of big runs by quarterback Trevor Knight. Then Allen and Anderson changed that in an instant. Costly penalties hurt the Aggies too, including a roughing the passer penalty to keep Alabama's go-ahead touchdown drive going.
"You really have five minutes in the game that determined what happened," Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said. "We extended the drive with the roughing the passer, then we extended the drive again, I think it was an offsides. So you back that up with a fumble returned for a touchdown in a game like this, against a team like that, that can't happen."
Alabama racked up five sacks of Knight, who had engineered Oklahoma's Sugar Bowl upset of Alabama as a redshirt freshman with a 348-yard, four-touchdown performance. He passed for 164 and ran for 24 in the semi-rematch.
Hurts passed for 166 yards and rushed for 93 more, throwing for a pair of touchdowns while getting intercepted twice. Damien Harris rushed 17 times for 126 yards.
Alabama had retaken the lead on Hurts 4-yard TD pass to Calvin Ridley.
South Carolina 34,
Massachusetts 28
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Freshman Jake Bentley threw for two touchdowns and 201 yards in his first college game and South Carolina matched its victory total from last year with a 34-28 victory over Massachusetts on Saturday.
South Carolina coach Will Muschamp was expecting to redshirt Bentley this season before the team's mounting offensive problems -- they entered dead last in points per game in the Football Bowl Subdivision -- left the first-year coach open to any solution.
Bentley proved the right answer against the Minutemen (1-7). He led the Gamecocks (3-4) to touchdowns on their first two series, and then threw a pair of pretty fade passes for TD, the first from 16 yards out to K.C. Crosby and later a 24-yarder to Bryan Edwards to lead 27-7.
When UMass cut things to 34-28 with less than 5 minutes left, Bentley accounted for 30 yards to help the Gamecocks run out the clock.
It was the first time South Carolina had scored more than 20 points in a game this season.
UMass did its share to help with three turnovers in the opening half, two which led to two South Carolina scores.
Tight end Adam Breneman had two TD catches for Massachusetts, which fell to 0-3 against Southeastern Conference teams this fall.
Sports on 10/23/2016