Tagovailoa injured in Alabama’s 38-7 win at MSU

STARKVILLE, Miss. — What figured to be Tua Tagovailoa’s final series of the day against Mississippi State ended with Alabama’s star quarterback being carted off the field with a hip injury.

Now the question is not how much Alabama should play Tagovailoa against an overmatched opponent, but whether he will ever play for the Crimson Tide again?

Tagovailoa was injured while being dragged down late in the first half, with the Tide up four touchdowns, and No. 4 Alabama went on to beat Mississippi State 38-7 Saturday in a game that might have cost the Crimson Tide one of the best players in college football.

Tagovailoa was tackled from behind by Bulldogs linebacker Leo Lewis. Tagovailoa’s helmet came off and he stayed down on the ground for several minutes as Alabama medical staff attended to him. He needed help getting to his feet and was carted off the field with 3:01 left in the second quarter. He also had a bloody nose.

“He has a hip injury. It’s going to be evaluated. I don’t think it’s related to any other injury that he has,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “It’s kind of a freak thing that you seldom see. So, I don’t really have anything else to say about that, and we’ll kind of go from there.”

Tagovailoa had been nursing an ankle injury and Alabama was considering holding him out of this game.

“We can second guess ourselves all we want,” Saban said. “I really don’t make decisions based on players getting hurt.”

The junior needed surgery four weeks ago for a high ankle sprain on his right leg that caused him to miss a game and a half. Saban told ESPN at halftime the plan was to remove Tagovailoa from the game before the series when the quarterback was injury. Alabama was leading 35-7, but it was decided to let Tagovailoa play one more possession to get some work in the two-minute drill.

Alabama officials confirmed Tagovailoa was flown by helicopter to the St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. He was 14 of 18 for 256 yards and two touchdown passes against Mississippi State, giving him 31 TD passes on the season. He was replaced in the second half by Mac Jones, who went 7 for 11 for 94 yards.

The Crimson Tide (9-1, 6-1 Southeastern Conference) were coming off a 46-41 loss to LSU that nudged it out of College Football Playoff position to fifth in the latest selection committee rankings. Now Alabama is facing the possibility of trying to impress the committee without Tagovailoa, the Heisman Trophy runner-up from last season and a potential top-10 selection in the NFL draft.

Tagovailoa played well against LSU, passing for more than 400 yards, but he was gimpy at times, favoring his right ankle. Saban said Tagovailoa was a game-time decision against Mississippi State. He started and the Tide jumped out to a 14-0 lead on a touchdown run and a touchdown catch by Najee Harris, who finished with four TDs.

Mississippi State (4-6, 2-5) cut the lead to 14-7 on a 1-yard scoring run by Kylin Hill. The Bulldogs must now win out to be bowl eligible.

Harris finished with 88 yards rushing and 51 yards receiving. Jerry Jeudy had seven catches for 114 yards receiving for Alabama.

Tommy Stevens was 12 of 21 passing for Mississippi State and had just 82 yards passing. Stevens did rush for 96 yards on 10 carries.

No. 11 Florida 23, Missouri 6

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Kyle Trask threw two touchdown passes after a sluggish first half by No. 11 Florida and the Gators beat Missouri 23-6 on Saturday.

Trask completed 23 of 35 passes for 282 yards. That was plenty of offense for Florida (9-2, 6-2 Southeastern Conference), which held Missouri to 204 total yards.

“We’ve had a couple games like this where it was a little bit of a slow start this season,” Trask said. “It taught our guys to stick with it. That’s why we’re never panicking, even in a situation like this where it’s so low-scoring at halftime and it seems like there’s not a lot positive going on.”

Linebacker Jon Greenard spent most of the day in the Tigers’ backfield, finishing with two sacks and five tackles for loss. The Tigers (5-5, 2-4) have lost four straight games and haven’t scored a touchdown in the last two.

“Didn’t do enough pass game or run game,” Missouri coach Barry Odom said. “Converting on third downs, we came up short. Lot of questions. We’ve got answers, but we’ve got to go execute.”

Florida led 6-3 after a first half in which the teams combined for 10 punts. The Gators struggled up front offensively in the first half, allowing four sacks to a team that had only 14 sacks on the season entering the game. They gained just 29 yards on the ground before intermission and finished with 56 rushing yards.

It was a similar story for Missouri, which welcomed Kelly Bryant back at quarterback after he missed last week’s game at Georgia with a hamstring injury. Bryant repeatedly slipped out of the arms of blitzers to extend plays, but the Tigers struggled to put drives together without any help from its running game. Bryant completed 25 of 38 passes for 204 yards and one interception. Missouri’s only scores came on two Tucker McCann field goals.

The Gators finally got going in the third quarter when Trask connected with Josh Hammond for a 34-yard touchdown pass and hit Lamical Perine for a 15-yard TD. Van Jefferson finished with six catches for 82 yards, and Trevon Grimes had three catches for 66 yards.

No. 5 Georgia 21, No. 13 Auburn 14

AUBURN, Ala. — Jake Fromm passed for three touchdowns and No. 5 Georgia’s defense produced two late stops, clinching the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division title with a 21-14 victory over No. 13 Auburn on Saturday.

The Bulldogs (9-1, 6-1 SEC, No. 4 CFP) sailed through three quarters with a 21-0 lead before Auburn (7-3, 4-3) rallied in the fourth.

Georgia held on to become the first team to win three consecutive SEC East titles since Florida won five in a row from 1992-96.

Fromm and De’Andre Swift delivered enough offense to keep the Bulldogs on track for a shot at the College Football Playoffs. Most of the way, though, it was clear the game featured two of the league’s top defenses.

Auburn scored two touchdowns in the fourth, then had a pair of drives stopped on fourth down in the final minutes. Freshman Bo Nix threw three incompletions and was sacked on the Tigers’ final drive starting from their 27.

Fromm was 13-of-28 passing for just 110 yards, but had a 51-yard touchdown pass to Dominick Blaylock and a pair of 5-yarders to Eli Wolf and Brian Herrien. Swift ran for 106 yards on 17 carries.

Nix completed 30 of 50 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown. He also ran 13 times for 42 yards. Seth Williams caught 13 passes for 121 yards.

The Tigers finally scored on Nix’s 3-yard touchdown pass to Eli Stove with 10:04 left, taking advantage of a pass interference call on the previous third-down play. Auburn appeared to recover an onside kick but it was overturned upon review because of an illegal block by Anthony Schwartz.

A Georgia three-and-out and three minutes later, Nix dove into the end zone for a 2-yard score after a play fake.

It was the first rushing touchdown the Bulldogs had allowed all season.

Auburn again drove into Georgia territory with Nix running for 8 yards on a fourth-and-5 play. Harold Joiner couldn’t collect a pass that was slightly behind him on the next fourth-down play.

Kentucky 38, Vanderbilt 14

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Kentucky rushed for a season-high 398 yards and kept its bowl hopes alive with a 38-14 win over Vanderbilt on Saturday.

Lynn Bowden and Chris Rodriguez both rushed for over 100 yards for the Wildcats (5-5, 3-5 Southeastern Conference).

Rodriguez led the way, rushing for 129 yards and two touchdowns against the Commodores (2-8, 1-6). Bowden, in his fifth game at quarterback since movng over form wide receiver, added 110 yards rushing and one TD.

Kavosiey Smoke rushed for 95 yards and one TD for the Wildcats in a matchup between two teams near the bottom of the SEC’s Eastern Division.

The Wildcats scored 38 consecutive points after falling behind by two touchdowns early in the game.

It was the largest margin of victory in the series since 2001.

Kentucky rambled for 529 yards in total offense and nearly doubled Vanderbilt in time of possession.

Vanderbilt scored two touchdowns in 45 seconds to take a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.