The Alabama Crimson Tide take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Check out our college football odds series for our Alabama Mississippi State prediction and pick. Find how to watch Alabama Mississippi State.

The Alabama Crimson Tide are a highly flawed football team. They still have to face LSU later this season. They still have to face Tennessee this season. Chances are they will lose a few more games. However, as alarming as their situation might be, they have served notice to their opponents: If you don't have a good enough offense, we will bury you with our defense and toughness.

The Alabama offense is a mess, there's no doubt about it, but the Tide were able to beat South Florida by giving up only three points to the Bulls. This past weekend, they won comfortably despite scoring a very pedestrian 24 points. They held Ole Miss to just 10 points and exhibited legitimate mastery of the Rebels at the line of scrimmage. Their defense carried the day by smothering Lane Kiffin's Oxford attack. Alabama was ordinary on offense and yet attained full control of the game midway through the second half. It never seemed as though Alabama — once it got a second-half lead — was going to give up that lead. It was less about Nick Saban being a great coach, more about an Alabama opponent not having anything close to the level of offensive talent which could put Alabama's defense in bad spots.

If teams can't make big downfield plays against Alabama's defense, particularly in the passing game, they will struggle against the Crimson Tide. That is something we have learned from the first month of the season.

Here are the Alabama-Mississippi State College Football odds, courtesy of FanDuel.

College Football Odds: Alabama-Mississippi State Odds

Alabama Crimson Tide: -14.5 (-110)

Mississippi State Bulldogs: +14.5 (-110)

Over: 46.5 (-110)

Under: 46.5 (-110)

How To Watch Alabama vs Mississippi State

TV: ESPN

Stream: ESPN Plus

Time: 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT

*Watch Alabama vs Mississippi State LIVE on fuboTV (click for free trial)*

Why Alabama Could Cover the Spread

The Mississippi State Bulldogs, as you know, are playing this season one year after the death of previous coach Mike Leach, who ran the air raid offense. New head coach Zach Arnett decided not to retain the air raid system. He wanted to move to a different offensive approach and structure. Yet, he didn't have the personnel to run the new offense. He kept a lot of the players who ran the air raid under Leach. This created a mismatched reality in the MSU locker room. The Bulldogs are operating an offense their current personnel is not designed to run. This has led to a lot of struggles and growing pains for the Bulldogs. It leaves their offense in disarray, perfectly vulnerable in the face of Alabama's strong and nasty defense. MSU has to be able to score to keep this game close. The Bulldogs aren't likely to do that.

Why Mississippi State Could Cover the Spread

The Alabama offense is a disaster. We have seen the rotations at quarterback. We have seen the weak and flawed offensive line play. We have seen the uninspired play calling from offensive coordinator Tommy Rees. We have seen this team struggle to score more than 24 points on a regular basis this year. If Bama scores 24, chances are MSU will score at least 10 points and thereby cover the spread.

Final Alabama-Mississippi State Prediction & Pick

The MSU defense will limit the Bama offense, and that will be enough to get Mississippi State to cover the spread.

Final Alabama-Mississippi State Prediction & Pick: Mississippi State +14.5