Kamario Taylor left the game at one point during Mississippi State's comeback before the offense resumed play, and Sanfrisco Magee caught the decisive score, extending his streak to five straight games with a touchdown catch. That finished a 31-24 win over Missouri, a comeback from 24-17 down in the third quarter, and Taylor's day ended at 27-of-38 for 360 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. Fluff Bothwell ran for the tying score. Mississippi State is 4-0, 2-0 in the SEC, and it just recorded its first win over a ranked opponent while ranked itself since October 2014, when Dak Prescott's team beat Auburn.
Now No. 7 Alabama comes to Davis Wade at 11 a.m. Central Saturday on ABC, with the Bulldogs up to No. 16 in the Week 5 AP poll, their highest ranking in four years. The teams played every year for 76 straight seasons before realignment and the end of divisions took the game off the annual calendar; they skipped 2024.
The unit that will decide it is the thinnest one
Here is the uncomfortable part of a 4-0 start. Against Missouri, Mississippi State's defense did not force a single turnover, no interceptions, no fumbles, and gave up 414 total yards to Missouri. A week earlier at South Carolina the defense picked off LaNorris Sellers twice and turned the game; this time it created nothing, and it allowed 24 points. That is the unit Alabama is built to lean on.
The front is also short-handed. Against Missouri, with fifth-year defensive lineman Trevion Williams out after being carted off at South Carolina, grad transfer Eddie Kelly Jr. was cleared to play against the program he used to play for, Kelly spent time at Missouri and West Virginia before Starkville, and the Bulldogs finished the day with two total sacks.
This is the group Zach Arnett came back to run, with Matt Brock, his old Mississippi State colleague and the 2023 defensive coordinator, returning alongside him as co-coordinator and linebackers coach. The school sold that hire on a physical, attacking identity, and Arnett's 2020-22 Bulldog defenses each finished fifth in the SEC in total defense. Four games in, the evidence is genuinely mixed rather than bad. Saturday is the sort of afternoon that clarifies it.
What Alabama is actually bringing
The good news for a defense with holes is that Alabama is not arriving at full strength up front. Right tackle Jayvin James left the South Carolina game in a walking boot, left guard William Sanders also exited, and James's availability had not been confirmed as of Saturday. Kalen DeBoer said of James only that "we'll kind of see what that looks like here the next couple days." And beneath that win, Alabama's rushing output was 124 yards while its defense gave up 216 rushing yards, including a 56-yard run on the game's first play from scrimmage.
So the way this goes well is narrow but real. It requires Bothwell and Taylor finding the same room South Carolina found on the ground, and a thinned-out Mississippi State front getting home against two backup or hobbled Alabama offensive linemen. If Kelly and the rest of the interior cannot make Alabama's run game uncomfortable, Taylor throwing for 360 again probably will not be enough.
How much it's worth
The simulations give Mississippi State a 28% chance to win. That is not a coin flip, but it is a live number for a team picked next-to-last in the SEC in July. The payoff splits sharply. A win puts the Bulldogs' playoff odds at about 13% and their SEC championship game odds near 10%, while a loss drops those to roughly 5% and 1%. Those are two different versions of October, not a number that slides one way during the game.
And October keeps coming. Alabama is the second of five consecutive ranked SEC opponents. Missouri, Alabama, at LSU, Oklahoma, at Texas. That is also why the 2025 memory sits so close to the surface. That team started 4-0, then lost eight of its final nine, with one-score SEC losses to Tennessee, Florida and Texas. Nobody needs to relitigate it. It just means a fan is allowed to enjoy this without treating it as settled.
Lebby's own read on Missouri was that "things weren't perfect ... there's all kinds of mistakes that will need to get cleaned up, but, man, put your cleats in the ground, go play the next play." Beating Alabama would not require perfection either.
Full projections and matchup detail are in the interactive guide, and the modeling is explained in the methodology.