TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Johnny Football and Southeastern Conference newbie Texas A&M took down the biggest bully in their new neighborhood and left No. 1 Alabama with badly bruised national championship hopes.
Johnny Manziel, better known around Texas as Johnny Football, staked the 15th-ranked Aggies to a three-touchdown lead in the first quarter, and A&M held on to beat the Crimson Tide, 29-24, on Saturday.
The Aggies (8-2, 5-2), playing in the SEC for the first season after ditching the Big 12, also might have ended the league’s run of BCS titles at six years.
The defending national champion Crimson Tide (9-1, 6-1), who have been No. 1 almost all season, didn’t go quietly.
AJ McCarron nearly pulled off a second straight scintillating comeback. He threw one touchdown pass and motored the ball downfield before Deshazor Everett stepped in front of his fourth-down pass at the goal line with 1:36 left.
Manziel passed for 253 yards and rushed for 92 and led the Aggies to a 20-0 first quarter lead.
“No moment is too big for him,” A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said of his remarkable redshirt freshman.
The Aggies had been 1-10 against top-ranked teams with the only previous win coming 30-26 over Oklahoma in 2002, but Manziel and Sumlin have entered the SEC with speed and swagger — and fit right in.
Alabama managed a second-shot national title after losing to LSU just over a year ago in the regular season but seems a long shot to do it again. Alabama would have secured a spot in the SEC championship game with a victory and only Western Carolina and Auburn remaining.
“Two of the three national championship teams that I coached lost a game,” Tide coach Nick Saban said, counting one at LSU. “There’s still a lot for this team to play for.”
Now, the Tide will have to beat Auburn to clinch the West and get into the SEC title game. As for the national title, Alabama will have to hope for another shake-up in the form of losses by Kansas State, Oregon and Notre Dame. If the Tide wins out and two of those teams go down, a third national championship in four seasons is still in play.
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