Texas Christian’s Streak Ends at 13

Jeff Ballard and Texas Christian couldn’t pull off another comeback against Brigham Young. John Beck made sure of it with another impressive game against the Horned Frogs at Fort Worth.

Beck threw for 321 yards with three second-half touchdowns and this time the Cougars held on for a 31-17 victory Thursday night to end No. 17 TCU’s winning streak at 13 games.

The streak had been the longest current one in NCAA Division I-A.

No. 1 Ohio State and No. 4 West Virginia have each won 11 games in a row, now the best in 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 overall, 1-0 in the Mountain West Conference, beat a top-25 team for the first time since 1999, a stretch of 12 games since a victory over Colorado State.

The Cougars went to double overtime at then-No. 23 Boston College earlier this month before losing, 23-20.

There was no repeat of last September, when BYU blew a 16-point lead late in the third quarter at home against TCU and lost, 51-50, in overtime.

TCU (3-1, 0-1) hadn’t lost since a 21-10 defeat at Southern Methodist in the second game last season.

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Kenny Irons ran for 117 yards and two touchdowns in his return to South Carolina and No. 2 Auburn knocked away a last-chance pass to keep its unbeaten season alive with a 24-17 victory over the Gamecocks at Columbia, S.C.

Along with Irons’ ground game and their rock-solid defense, the Tigers, 5-0 overall, 3-0 Southeastern Conference, displayed a passing game that helped them take every snap of the third quarter.

Brandon Cox completed nine of 13 passes for 125 passes in the third period to keep Auburn moving and the South Carolina offense off the field.

On the opening drive of the second half, Cox connected with Lee Guess for 12 yards on a third-and-11 play. The quarterback later connected with Tommy Trott on an 11-yarder that set up John Vaughn’s 24-yard field goal.

Then with the Gamecocks (3-2, 1-2) feeling good about holding Auburn out of the end zone, Coach Tommy Tuberville took a page from Steve Spurrier’s book and stunned the Gamecocks with a perfectly executed onside kick.

No South Carolina player was within three yards of the ball when it landed, and Jerraud Powers recovered for Auburn.