Mississippi at Mississippi State Line

Written by Steve Janus

This Saturday the Mississippi State Bulldogs will host the Mississippi Rebels as these two in state rivals face off in the Egg Bowl to decide who finishes at the bottom of the SEC West. Neither team has lived up to their expectations this season. Mississippi State is just 5-6 overall and 1-6 in conference play, while the Rebels are 2-9 and are without a SEC win at 0-7. The Bulldogs have won each of the last two meetings and three in a row at home in the series.

Taking a look at the week 13 college football lines, oddsmakers currently have Mississippi State favored by 17-points over Mississippi with the total set at 46.5 points.

Mississippi:

The closest the Rebels have come to a win inside the conference was a 24-29 loss at home to Arkansas. Every other game has been decided by at least 14 points, including a 13-30 loss at Kentucky for their only conference win of the season. Since losing to the Wildcats, the Rebels have lost back-to-back home games against Louisiana Tech and LSU by a combined 69 points. The latest being a 3-52 loss to top-ranked LSU. As bad as things have gone for Mississippi this season, you can expect them to come out and put everything on the line to beat Mississippi State.

Offensively the Rebels have been a complete mess all season. They come in averaging just under 13 ppg in conference play, struggling to do much of anything in both the pass and run game. Mississippi averages just 288.5 yards of total offense a game, and were completely shutdown in their last game against LSU. The Rebels managed just 195 yards of total offense. While sophomore quarterback Barry Burnetti went just 5 of 10 for 30 yards passing, he did lead the team with 74 rushing yards, thanks in large part to a nice 47 yard run.

The only other offensive threat the Rebels have right now is senior running back Brandon Bolden, but he has really struggled since rushing for 114 yards against Auburn. They are going to need Burnetti and Bolden to both have a big game if they are going to pull off the huge upset. The good news is the Bulldogs haven’t exactly had a whole lot of success against the run of late. In their last three games against Tennessee-Martin, Alabama, and Arkansas they have allowed an average of 219 rushing yards.

Mississippi State:

A lot of people, including myself, thought the Bulldogs were going to make some noise in the SEC this season, but have instead will end up with two conference wins at best. With their latest 17-44 loss at Arkansas, the Bulldogs will finish the season 0-6 against conference opponents with a winning record. Despite all of that, Mississippi State can still become bowl eligible with a win over Ole Miss this Saturday.

The Bulldogs offense managed just 211 yards of total offense against the Razorbacks, and 88 of those yards came on their final two drivers with Arkansas already having the win in the bag. Because Mississippi State was down big early they were never able to get their running game going, which is what they do best offensively. Vick Ballard led the team with just 54 yards on 13 attempts and the Bulldogs as a team managed just 84 yards. The passing game wasn’t much better between the combo of Dylan Favre and Tyler Russell, who combined to go 15 of 31 for just 127 yards. Favre did throw a touchdown pass, but it came in garbage time with 15 seconds to play in the 4th quarter.

As bad as the offense was against Arkansas, Mississippi State should have a much easier time moving the ball against the Rebels defense. Mississippi’s biggest problem all season has been stopping the run. They come in allowing 222.9 ypg on the ground, and you can expect the Bulldogs to attack their weakness head on in this one.

Betting Trends:

Mississippi is 1-7 ATS in their last 8 conference games.

Mississippi State is 4-12 ATS in their last 16 games as a favorite of 10.5 or greater.

Be sure to stop back and check out who Steve Janus has picked to win this week in college football.

Comments

Got something to say?