Mississippi State looks to start the season off 3-0 for the second time since 1999 as it takes on South Alabama in a bit of a rarity: an SEC team playing at a Sun Belt team. Yes, the two teams are squaring off at historic (no, really, it is) Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Alabama, and not the Bulldogs’ friendly confines in Starkville.
How to watch Mississippi State vs. South Alabama: Game time, TV schedule, live online streaming and more
The Bulldogs try to stay hot on offense, and the Jaguars look for the young program’s biggest win ever.
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South Alabama is one of the newest football programs in the FBS, having been established in 2009 and only becoming postseason-eligible just last season. The Jaguars went 6-6 (4-3 in the Sun Belt) last season and are looking to earn their first bowl bid in school history this year.
Mississippi State is none too eager to be a willing accomplice in this postseason quest, of course, and having ripped Southern Miss and UAB by a combined score of 96-34 in the two previous weeks, the Bulldogs will be looking to sustain that momentum through this Week 3 matchup and into the SEC West gauntlet, which starts next week with a trip to LSU.
How to witness
TV: This week’s game kicks off at 4 p.m. ET on ESPNEWS. Eamon McAnaney and Dan Hawkins are on the call.
Radio: Mississippi State’s radio affiliates are listed here, and the game will be on Sirius/XM radio as well. For the South Alabama call, tune in to WNSP 105.5 FM in, you guessed it, southern Alabama.
Online streaming: As with all ESPN-family games, you can catch the action on WatchESPN.
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The numbers
Rankings and records: As mentioned earlier, Mississippi State is 2-0 on the season, and South Alabama is 1-0 after winning at Kent State last week. Neither team is ranked, though MSU is decently high on the list of teams also receiving votes in both polls.
Vegas: Mississippi State is favored by 14, a slight creep up from the 13 at opening, and the over/under is holding at 54 points.
Weather forecast: It’ll be hot and humid in Mobile as kickoff temperatures should be around 90 degrees, with a 60% chance of thunderstorms. Lightning is obviously a concern.
Three names to know
Mississippi State will likely go as far as QB Dak Prescott can take it this year. Prescott, a junior, split time with putative starter Tyler Russell last year and spent most of the season starting as Russell recovered slowly from a concussion. Prescott has looked significantly sharper this year (NOTE: also has not played a single SEC defense yet), and he threw four touchdowns in each of the Bulldogs' first two games. If this season is where he makes the leap to legitimate SEC starting QB, the Bulldogs could have good reason to dream of a decent bowl this year. Also, Prescott's arm has been inside a live cow.
While Prescott's also a serviceable runner with the ball, the Bulldogs really need RB Josh Robinson to get on track as the primary running threat in the offense. So far, so good this season; Robinson topped 100 total yards from scrimmage in each of the first two games, including a 17-yard scamper for a touchdown against UAB last week.
South Alabama's head coach is Joey Jones, a former Alabama wide receiver who went on to a brief career in the USFL and NFL. This is his first job at so much as a scholarship-granting level of football; he spent two years at D-III Birmingham-Southern before taking the USA job. Jones has been an unqualified success at South Alabama, leading the Jaguars to a 25-15 record against a transitional slate of opponents and, as mentioned earlier, a .500 record in the first full season of FBS play. Maybe Jones stays there and continues to build the program for another decade or so. Maybe someone at a Power 5 school badly needs to turn the football program around and sees Jones as the right guy to do it within the next year or two. Keep an eye on him; he's doing impressive things down there.
Two things at stake
Mississippi State would love to be halfway to bowl eligibility through the first three weeks, and to do so in comfort with the ability to get some work for backups would be even better. That’s hardly a guarantee against a surprisingly stout South Alabama squad, though, so the Bulldogs have to establish their will on both sides of the line or they’re in for a fight.
As mentioned before, this is USA’s second season as a full-status member of the FBS, and as such there are precious few “big” victories in the team’s history; likely the biggest is last year’s season-ending throttling of Sun Belt champs Louisiana-Lafayette, 30-8. The Jaguars are getting another chance to knock off a Power 5 conference member here after coming agonizingly short against Tennessee last season, and they’d like to finish off their first real signature win this time around.
Further reading
To read up on MSU, read For Whom The Cowbell Tolls and SEC site Team Speed Kills, while Underdog Dynasty will be rooting for South Alabama this weekend.
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