Notes: Why Mississippi State is no ordinary road test for Alabama football | Goodbread
SEC coaches rarely if ever miss a chance to extoll the difficulty of playing away games in the league of leagues. If I've heard it once …
'Everywhere in the SEC is a tough place to play.'
To whatever extent that's true (minor quibble: Dudley Field in Nashville), it doesn't capture the variance by degree. And the degree of Alabama football's noise challenge at Mississippi State this Saturday has the needle in the red zone.
No, not so much for the cowbells; more for the target.
Problems with road noise radiate from the offensive line, which happens to be the biggest sore spot of Alabama's overall play one month into the season. There have been multiple issues, including communication problems, which stand to be exacerbated in Starkville.
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Not their first road game, you say?
A USF crowd scattered around an NFL venue isn't nearly as loud as Davis-Wade Stadium, with or without cowbells, I say. Its construction, with that tall-standing upper deck that seems to loom over the field, generates the decibels of a bowled-in stadium despite being open at one end. Between a true freshman at left tackle and shotgun snap problems at center, the addition of Davis-Wade noise could be a combustible mix for this line.
As for the cowbells, they'll have to make their difference before Seth McLaughlin hovers over the ball, which is when league rules require artificial noise to stop.
But that won't make it easy to hear.
On the Bulldogs
Nick Saban's best records against SEC opponents over 16-plus years at Alabama:
That's the historical hurdle MSU faces Saturday when it hosts the Crimson Tide on the wrong end of a 15-game losing streak in the series; the Bulldogs caught Saban at the right time — his first season in 2007 — to notch the win column. Since then, it's been all Alabama, including the last seven in a row in Starkville. … If the last two weeks are any indication, MSU's pass defense could be just the right stepping stone for Jalen Milroe's development. LSU's Jayden Daniels and South Carolina's Spencer Rattler, the last two quarterbacks to face the Bulldogs, combined to complete 48 of 54 passes. … Staff connections: MSU's offensive line is coached by former UA OL Will Friend, while it's D-line is coached by David Turner, who coached that position at Alabama under Mike Shula in 2006.
Around the SEC
With the news that Texas A&M QB Conner Weigman has been lost to a season-ending injury, it's now Max Johnson time in College Station. Johnson is 0-2 for his career against Alabama, with both losses coming when he was at LSU in 2020-2021. … Former Alabama coach Paul W. "Bear" Bryant is the last coach at Kentucky to beat Florida three years in a row. UK's Mark Stoops can join him with a home win over the Gators on Saturday. … The Goodspread SEC Pick of the Week blazed on last Saturday with another winner thanks to a second-half scoring frenzy in the LSU-Arkansas game. This week's play: Tennessee-South Carolina under 64. Season: 3-0-1. All-time: 13-3-1 (.794).
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23 and the Talkin' Tide podcast. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Notes: Why MSU is no ordinary road test for Alabama football
