With an Iron will, there's a way to ignore Tide's Heisman shutout

AUBURN, Ala. -- If Mark Ingram's Heisman chances are shot, the candidate had sort of a concession speech ready.

"I don't think anybody has ever really focused on it," Alabama's tailback said Friday night of the fun-fact asterisk that has hovered around him and Alabama this season.

The program has produced everything -- countless All-Americans, SEC and national championships, even a cozier-than-it-would-like relationship with NCAA enforcement folks. Nowhere in those decades of excellence (and some controversy) has a 'Bama player won a Heisman, the game's most meaningful recognition of the nation's best player. Imagine if the Yankees or Celtics had never had an MVP.

Now imagine that the Tide don't give a rip if the streak continues. Certainly not after a 26-21 win over Auburn that kept alive, by the slimmest of margins, Alabama's chase for something much more important than The Stiff-Arm.

Try the glass football. Alabama is still alive in what has become an almost stultifying national championship race because they couldn't have The Full Ingram, the nation's No. 5 rusher. The Auburn defense made sure of it. A smothering load-the-box D limited the sophomore to a season-low 30 yards on 16 carries.

Maybe that singular dedication to stopping Ingram had something with him being on the bench when 'Bama scored the winning touchdown with 84 ticks left. The beaten-but-not-bowed Ingram was on the bench with a sore hip suffered on that game-winning drive. He watched as third-string tailback Roy Upchurch caught the game-winning pass from Greg McElroy, keeping the Alabama dream alive, even if the Heisman dream may have been crushed.

"The history and tradition [of Alabama] is about great teams having great coaches and great players and bonding together," Ingram said. "With all All-Americans that came through here, it's kind of surprising [it's never happened]."

But that's all it is, surprising, because we found out at Jordan-Hare Stadium why an Alabama player has never won the ultimate individual prize. There's too many suckers like Ingram around. It was hard to find a most valuable player for the most significant Alabama Iron Bowl win in years.

Upchurch, a seldom-used senior, caught the winner, the first touchdown reception of his 37-game career. Freshman sensation Trent Richardson, Ingram's backup, showed flashes of why he could be chasing the Heisman if Ingram wasn't. Richardson had a modest 51 rushing yards, but, like the rest of his teammates, didn't blink in the bright lights of Jordan-Hare when his team trailed 14-0.

A case can be made for cornerback/returner Javier Arenas. In addition to contributing a sack, he returned a kickoff 46 yards to jump-start a second-half rally. His 56-yard punt return led to the field goal that cut the lead to 21-17 in the third quarter.

Quarterback Greg McElroy (218 yards, two touchdowns passes) completed all seven of his throws on the game-winning drive, four of them to Julio Jones (nine catches, 83 yards).

"We're going to go out fighting," said Ingram, who said he'll be fine for next week's Armageddon in Atlanta. "We're not going to let somebody just come and take it away from us."

Don't feel sorry for Ingram. He still has a rather huge SEC Championship Game next week to make his final Heisman statement. The bigger statement for 'Bama is that it will arrive in Atlanta with an unblemished regular-season record for the second consecutive year.

"Only the strong survive," Nick Saban summed up, "but the strong still get their ass whipped."

That's the message the Alabama coach was trying to get across all week. Auburn has known for some time that the state rivalry is threatening to turn in favor of the Crimson Tide. Big time. Even when the Tigers were finishing off their sixth victory in a row in 2007, Saban was in his first year on the job assembling the talent for what you've seen the past two seasons.

Since then Auburn has disposed of the coach who was in charge of that streak (Tommy Tuberville) and tried to stem the flow of the red Tide. As he prepared for his third Iron Bowl, Saban had to know he had the advantage now. He also had to know this was going to be an everything-on-the-table effort by the Tigers.

But how do you simulate being down by two touchdowns barely nine minutes into the game? How do you respond to your best back being stalked by a defense that was 10th in the SEC and 88th nationally against the run? Auburn's push was characterized, quite graphically, at halftime as Saban spoke to the Alabama radio network while heading to the locker room.

Alabama's Mark Ingram has little room to move on his 16-carry, 30-yard day. (US Presswire)

The coach said he knew that his team would have to survive "a s--- storm like this."

Whoever was in charge of the network's seven-second delay button was about as sharp as the Tide in the first quarter. The, uh, thunder crap came early and often. On Auburn's first two possessions, totaling 16 plays, Alabama saw an end around that went for a 67-yard touchdown, an onside kick (recovered by Auburn), a double pass, a flea flicker, a quarterback draw and a bevy of direct snaps.

If this rivalry wasn't such a blood-letting, you'd have sworn Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn was auditioning for his next job (perhaps as the head coach at Louisville).

"We wanted to come out here and get ourselves into a battle," Auburn quarterback Chris Todd said, "because that's what the Iron Bowl is."

There are Iron Bowls and iron wills. 'Bama didn't have to practice much of the latter. It hadn't trailed this late in a game all season. There's no way to simulate being 79 yards away, down by one with 8½ minutes left, on the road, with the national championship at stake.

Saban talked a lot about character and will afterward, but how was he supposed to know? His defense hadn't given up a touchdown in the first quarter all season until Terrell Zachery ran that end round 67 yards for a touchdown. There was a lot of adjusting to do.

"That's just like a cold shower," Upchurch said later, "waking us up."

Some coaches spike seasons away -- talking to you, Les Miles -- and other coaches take control. Trailing 21-20, Alabama showed its iron will on that last drive. It was facing third-and-3 from the Auburn 4 in the final two minutes. Saban called timeout and overruled a run call.

"I just didn't really want to play for a field goal," he said. "I guess I tried to talk them into throwing a pass."

There wasn't any "talk them into" about it when Saban is involved. The Upchurch package was inserted with the senior at tailback and nose tackle Terrence Cody at fullback.

"I was on the sideline yelling and screaming," Upchurch said. "I'm always [like], 'Give the ball, give me the ball!'"

Upchurch has never started a game in his four seasons, but the 30th catch of his career -- a floater from McElroy -- made up for it. Somewhere TCU and Cincinnati were cringing. Their chances of getting to the BCS title game got a little less likely as Saban replaced that halftime curse with a wagging No. 1 finger as he walked off the field.

"This may have been one of the greatest drives I've ever been associated with in the fourth quarter to win the game," he said.

Beats a Heisman any day.