ATLANTA – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Alabama QB  Jalen Milroe passed for two touchdowns and No. 8 Alabama rolled to a crucial upset by dispatching top-ranked Georgia 27-24 in the Southeastern Conference title game on Saturday in Georgia.

Jermaine Burton and Jamarion Miller caught touchdown passes and Roydell Williams scored on a run as the Crimson Tide (12-1) won their 11th consecutive game. The victory snapped Georgia’s SEC record 29-game winning streak and greatly bolsters Alabama’s hopes of crashing the four-team College Football Playoff field.

Kendall Milton rushed for two touchdowns and Carson Beck added one for Georgia (12-1). Beck completed 21 of 29 passes for 243 yards. Bulldogs star Brock Bowers played despite an ankle injury but was largely ineffective, with five receptions for 53 yards.

Milroe was 13-of-23 passing for 192 yards for the Crimson Tide and was named MVP of the game. The two-time defending national champion Bulldogs lost to Alabama for the eighth time in the past nine meetings.

No. 7 Texas 49, No. 18 Oklahoma State 21

Quinn Ewers passed for a record 452 yards and four touchdowns, and the Longhorns’ defense did the rest in a shellacking of the Cowboys in the Big 12 championship game in Arlington, Texas.

Texas (12-1) captured its first Big 12 title since 2009. Ewers completed his first 12 passes of the game to eight different receivers and finished 35-for-46 while throwing for the most yards ever in a Big 12 championship game.

The Longhorns’ defense did not allow Oklahoma State (9-4) to broach the 200-yard barrier until the 10-minute mark of the fourth quarter. Cowboys quarterback Alan Bowman threw for 250 yards and three touchdowns, but star running back Ollie Gordon, the Big 12’s offensive player of the year, managed only 34 yards on 13 carries.

SMU 26, No. 22 Tulane 14

Kevin Jennings threw a touchdown pass in his first college start, the Mustangs’ defense dominated and SMU defeated the Green Wave in the American Athletic Conference championship game in New Orleans.

Jennings, a redshirt freshman who had thrown just 24 passes this season, stepped in for injured Preston Stone and overcame three turnovers by passing for 203 yards and rushing for 63. The Mustangs (11-2) won the conference title in their last season before departing for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Michael Pratt passed for 238 yards, but Makhi Hughes, the AAC’s leading rusher who rushed for at least 100 yards in seven of his past eight games entering Saturday, managed just 44 yards on 11 carries for the Green Wave (11-2), who had won 10 straight games.

–Field Level Media

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NEW YORK – (Wire Service and Staff Report) – Defending national champion Alabama will open the 2021 season in the same position it ended last year – at No. 1.

The Crimson Tide are the favorites to repeat, receiving 47 first-place votes in the Associated Press preseason college football poll. Oklahoma is No. 2 with six votes and Clemson is third, also with six first-places votes. No. 4 Ohio State (one vote) and Georgia (three) round out the top five.

Alabama opens the season Sept. 4 against No. 14 Miami in Atlanta as the Tide seek a seventh national championship under coach Nick Saban. Clemson and Georgia will meet that day, as well, in Charlotte, N.C.

Texas A&M, Iowa State, Cincinnati, Notre Dame and North Carolina round out the top 10. The Cyclones match their highest national ranking ever. The Aggies and Fighting Irish finished No. 4-5 in the final poll of 2020.

The poll features five teams each from the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten and Pac-12, three from the Atlantic Coast Conference and three from the Big 12.

The Sun Belt Conference has two teams in the AP Top 25: No. 22 Coastal Carolina and No. 23 Louisiana.

The rest of the list:
11. Oregon
12. Wisconsin
13. Florida
14. Miami
15. Southern Cal
16. LSU
17. Indiana
18. Iowa
19. Penn State
20. Washington
21. Texas
22. Coastal Carolina
23. Louisiana
24. Utah
25. Arizona St.

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