College Football Roundup | Auburn's Irons gets 2 TDs vs. old team

COLUMBIA, S.C. — It couldn't have been a better trip back to South Carolina for Auburn's Kenny Irons — he saw some good friends and showed his old school why it never should have let him leave.

The former Gamecocks running back ran for 117 yards and two touchdowns as the second-ranked Tigers beat South Carolina 24-17 on Thursday night.

"It felt pretty good ... a good feeling," Irons said.

Even better, he said, was that Auburn (5-0, 3-0 Southeastern Conference) picked up a key win that kept its unbeaten season — and its hopes of reaching the national-title game — alive.

With all that success, Irons barely thinks about being buried on South Carolina's depth chart in 2003, which ultimately led him to transfer.

"There are no hard feelings," Irons said. "It's all fun and games on the field."

Still, Auburn needed a last-second defensive stop to get out of Williams-Brice Stadium with a victory. The Gamecocks (3-2, 1-2) rallied from 24-10 down. They drove to Auburn's 6, but Patrick Lee knocked away Syvelle Newton's floating pass to Sidney Rice with 19 seconds to go.

Along with Irons' ground game and their rock-solid defense, the Tigers displayed a passing game that helped them take every snap of the third quarter.

Neither coach could remember a game where one team so dominated a quarter of play.

"I think that's a first for me," South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said. "I haven't seen a game where one team had it for the entire quarter."

Brandon Cox completed nine of 13 passes for 125 yards in the third to keep Auburn moving and the South Carolina offense off the field. Auburn settled for John Vaughn's 24-yard field goal, then successfully pulled off an onside kick.

Irons finished the ensuing drive on the first play of the fourth quarter, scoring on fourth-and-goal from the 1 to put Auburn ahead 24-10.

South Carolina cut the deficit to 24-17 on Newton's 25-yard TD pass to Jared Cook with 8:25 to go. It looked like the Gamecocks had the tying TD on their final drive, but Newton's perfect pass bounced off Cook's hands as he crossed into the end zone. Then Rice was denied.

"It's like I told the guys: We're not good enough to beat a team like Auburn," Spurrier said.

BYU 31, at No. 17 TCU 17

John Beck threw for 321 yards with three second-half touchdowns as Brigham Young ended No. 17 Texas Christian's winning streak at 13 games. The streak was the longest in NCAA Division I-A.

"There wasn't much that didn't go right," BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said. "This is a big-time win. It was on the road against a ranked team in a short week."

BYU (3-2, 1-0 Mountain West) beat a Top 25 team for the first time since 1999, a stretch of 12 games since a victory over Colorado State.

Beck completed 23 of 37 passes just five days after sitting out a 38-0 victory over Utah State to rest his sore ankles. He threw a 40-yard TD strike to Michael Reed to start the second half, added a 26-yarder to Matt Allen, and got the third score on Jonny Harline's one-handed, 4-yard grab with a defender on his back.

TCU (3-1, 0-1) hadn't lost since a 21-10 defeat at Southern Methodist in the second game last season. Jeff Ballard, 26 of 49 for 296 yards with a TD and an interception, lost for the first time in 12 starts as TCU's quarterback.

Note

• For the first time in more than 30 years, Notre Dame will make 5,000 season tickets available starting next season, charging a fee to help pay for more than $40 million in repairs to Notre Dame Stadium.