No. 4 Alabama rallied in the fourth quarter with a late fumble recovery and last-minute touchdown by Germie Bernard to earn a 29-22 win at South Carolina on Saturday.
The victory was the seventh in a row for coach Kalen DeBoer’s Crimson Tide (7-1, 5-0 SEC) and helps them remain one of the top contenders in the SEC and College Football Playoff race.
The Tide had to rally because of some early hiccups, including a rough sequence early in the third quarter. On fourth-and-1, Alabama’s Heisman Trophy contender, Ty Simpson, saw standout receiver Ryan Williams open, but Williams dropped a would-be conversion. On the next play, South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers hit Nyck Harbor for a 54-yard touchdown that cut Alabama’s lead to 14-12.
South Carolina (3-5, 1-5) went ahead on a field goal late in the third quarter and temporarily seized control on another special teams play. After a Gamecocks punt hit Alabama’s Keon Sabb in the leg, Harbor recovered to give South Carolina the ball in Tide territory. That miscue set up Sellers’ 10-yard touchdown run and gave the Gamecocks a 22-14 lead with 10 minutes to go.
Alabama responded with a 14-play, 79-yard drive capped off by Simpson’s touchdown pass to Bernard. Simpson hit the two-point conversion, too, with a game-tying throw to Josh Cuevas. Simpson finished 24-for-43 for 252 yards and two touchdowns.
South Carolina had a chance to win late, but Alabama’s Deontae Lawson dislodged the ball from Sellers’ arms. Tim Keenan III recovered the fumble inside the South Carolina 40. Five plays later, Bernard ripped off a 25-yard touchdown run with 34 seconds left for the win.
GERMIE BERNARD PUTS THE TIDE ON TOP WITH A 25-YARD TOUCHDOWN 🔥 pic.twitter.com/hcAgIp1rZW
— ESPN (@espn) October 25, 2025
DeBoer’s Tide had lost four consecutive games against unranked opponents on the road, including their only loss this year (31-17 at Florida State in Week 1).
Alabama’s road triumph follows a stretch of four victories over ranked opponents in consecutive weeks (Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri and Tennessee). The Tide are off next week before back-to-back games against two more ranked opponents, LSU and Oklahoma.
South Carolina narrowly missed its fourth win over a top-10 opponent under coach Shane Beamer. The Gamecocks need three more victories to secure bowl eligibility. They play at No. 8 Ole Miss next week.
CFP, SEC implications of Alabama’s win
This was due to be a separation Saturday in the SEC, with three games between one-loss teams. Alabama getting upset by a four-loss team would have muddied things up for the SEC in the championship game and the CFP race.
Instead, Alabama remains, along with Texas A&M, pending its game against LSU on Saturday night, as the only unbeaten SEC teams in conference play. The Crimson Tide also owns head-to-head tiebreakers over Georgia and Vanderbilt, two of the remaining one-loss teams. Alabama is in good shape to make the SEC championship, though its schedule is not without hurdles: LSU, Oklahoma and at Auburn.
In the CFP, Alabama will finish the day as one of five SEC teams with one or fewer losses. That means those five teams — Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Georgia and Vanderbilt — can likely afford one more loss down the stretch and still make the Playoff. Of course, that’s hard to say for certain, as things don’t happen in a vacuum, but 10-2 out of this year’s SEC would seem a safe bet. And the Tide and the others could all still finish better than that.
