12-man penalty bails Bama out of botched-snap meltdown, but Auburn got the stop anyway

The Tigers got a bad break. Then they dealt with it.

Alabama is doing something it hardly ever does in the fourth quarter of the Iron Bowl against Auburn on Saturday: The Tide are falling apart.

But there’s a twist here. This whole mess on fourth down didn’t count:

The miscommunication that led to a snap flying past quarterback Jalen Hurts on a fourth-and-about-9, trailing 26-14 with less than 10 minutes to play, was the second snap-related fumble in two plays for the Tide. College football’s most notoriously stout team suddenly became anything but, as the Tide melted down.

Hurts was clearly nowhere near the same page as his center, Bradley Bozeman. Something was amiss with Alabama’s cadence, and the ball came when Hurts wasn’t expecting it.

Alabama got bailed out because Auburn had too many guys on the field. But then the Tide turned it over on downs anyway.

The snap was so egregiously early that Auburn didn’t get its guys off the field in time, and Alabama got another life because of a 12-man penalty.

CBS shows it here:

On review, Auburn took a pre-snap penalty, bumping Alabama up to a fourth-and-about 4. But the Tigers got a stop here and took the ball anyway.

It was a rough break for Auburn. The Tigers made sure it didn’t hurt.