Game Analysis

Lean – Mississippi (+7)  28   ALABAMA  30

Mississippi has clearly been better through 3 weeks than Alabama has, as the Rebels are dominating their opponents by an average score of 53-17 while Bama lost by 10 at home to Texas and struggled to beat USF last week (17-3 final score). Going back to Jalen Milroe at quarterback should help, as Ty Buchner and Ty Simpson combined for just 2.7 yards per pass play against the Bulls last week. Milroe hasn’t been great but averaging 7.0 yards per pass play against Texas is certainly good and Milroe has run for 139 yards on 15 runs in his two games.

Alabama’s defense is not as good as it’s been in recent years with Will Anderson now in the NFL and the Tide gave up 34 points on 460 yards at 6.4 yards per play to Texas on this field two weeks ago. Mississippi’s offense is playing at a higher level than the Texas attack so the Rebels could certainly top 30 points too. All of those points that Ole Miss is putting up has overshadowed how good the Rebels’ defense has been. That unit has yielded just 4.4 yppl while facing teams that would combine to average 5.5 yppl against an average defense (adjusted for facing Tulane’s backup QB).

Based on this season only I’d favor Mississippi by 3.4 points (with Milroe at QB for the Tide), but I would have had Bama favored by 10 before the season started and the true line is somewhere in between. I’m going to weigh the season to date metrics a bit more than normal and lean with Mississippi plus the points.