With the balance of power in the SEC on the line, Jonathan Allen did what he does — he made an incredible play.

Like South Carolina Gamecock/Houston Texan Jadeveon Clowney, Allen is a game-breaking defensive end. He’s the kind of player opponents fear and NFL scouts drool over. And in one big play against A&M, he made his own brand of SEC football magic. We’ll compare the two all-world defensive linemen in their biggest moments — which shows that Allen made a play comparable in shock factor to Clowney’s.

RELATED: Jonathan Allen an All-American, but a Heisman candidate?

Take 1

When Clowney’s name comes up, the play that you probably think of is this one.

It’s the hit that launched a thousand offseason Heisman campaigns and probably played a role in Clowney ending up as the top pick in the NFL Draft. To recap for anybody who is fuzzy on the details or somehow missed it, South Carolina narrowly trailed Michigan midway through the fourth quarter of the Outback Bowl following the 2012 season and had just been blatantly robbed on a fourth down spot, which should have changed the complexion of the game. And on the next play …

Clowney blows between the tight end and left tackle. The tackle is Taylor Lewan, who went on to be a first-round draft pick of the Tennessee Titans, but on this play, he looks like he’s stuck in mud. But the play may even leave open such a possibility. Unfortunately for the maize and blue, at about the time that Clowney joins the Wolverine backfield, fullback Joe Kerridge decides to hurry outside to block the cornerback on the outside instead of picking up Clowney.

I’m sure the cornerback was easy to block and the fullback lays a reasonably nice lick, but by that point, South Carolina has the ball again. Kerridge has explained that he was supposed to block the cornerback, but even his own mother has questioned that explanation. Ouch! Clowney — the guy who makes your own mother question your blocking.

Whatever the reason, Lewan misses Clowney, tight end Mike Kwiatkowski misses him, Kerridge misses him. But when Michigan QB Devin Gardner blindly hands the ball off to running back Vincent Smith, Clowney does not miss the Michigan back. Clowney clobbers Smith so hard that his helmet goes flying off as if his actual head had been removed. He simultaneously reaches in — excuse me, sir — and pulls the football away from Smith.

The whole play from Clowney’s standpoint takes about two seconds. And it absolutely amazed everyone who saw it. Such power, such speed, such skill. And the would-be northern conquerors were sent back to colder climates nursing their respective wounds. Welcome to the SEC. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Take 2

Which brings us to Saturday. Allen’s play was a little SEC-on-SEC takedown, which is what life in the best conference in the world is all about. But anyway, the play…

It’s 3rd-and-14, early in the first quarter of the showdown for the (apparent) SEC West title. Alabama leads 3-0, and A&M is hoping to hit a big play and shift the momentum of the game. Not so much.

A&M guard Colton Prater finds himself blocking Allen. Or being assigned to block him. Prater, who is a freshman unlike the Michigan players on Clowney, does at least go through the motions of laying hands on Allen to try to keep him out of the backfield. Prater is part of a line that had posted SEC-leading rushing numbers and amassed 500-plus yards and 40-plus points per game averages.

But he hadn’t tried to block Allen. Allen sheds Prater as if the former was made of electrical current. It looks easier than it is, but the key to the move is getting Prater’s 300-ish pounds of momentum going inside and then blazing past him outside. SEC defenders try this every week, and most weeks, Prater more than holds his own. But not on this play.

As with Clowney, there is a second line of protection. And unlike the poor Michigan fullback who literally ran away from the action, freshman running back Trayveon Williams knows exactly what he is supposed to do and doesn’t do a terrible job. The 200-pound Williams has been one of the best backs in the SEC, but he knows that one-on-one, he can’t block Allen. So he does what he’s coached to do and submarines Allen at the knees, giving himself up to slow both players to a crawl.

The problem is nobody tells Allen about this. He just springs over the prone Williams and slams into A&M QB Trevor Knight with so much forward momentum that it looks as if the two were magnetized. As in the Clowney play, there is literally about two seconds between the ball being snapped and Knight being driven to the ground.

It would be poetic to say the game ended here. More realistically, it was probably salted away at the end of the third quarter, when Allen scooped up an A&M fumble and rumbled in for a touchdown that stretched the Tide lead to two scores. But it was a devastating play that showcased the combination of skill and technique that makes the best players in the best conference so good that it’s almost scary.

Jonathan Allen, meet Jadeveon Clowney. You two guys are going to play a lot of football on Sundays and make a lot of money before your careers are over. And if anybody doubts that, show them the tapes. We in the SEC already know it.