Mississippi State Bulldogs

Mississippi State vs. South Alabama: game time, TV channel, radio, odds and more

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

The Mississippi State Bulldogs will face the South Alabama Jaguars in Week 1 of the 2016 football season.

Date: September 3, 2016

Game time: 11:00 AM Central

Location: Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville, Mississippi

TV channel: SEC Network

Radio: list of MSU affiliates

Point spread: Mississippi State -28

Over/Under: 54

New in 2016: we introduce to you, The Cowbell Chant#HailState pic.twitter.com/dy3BE3IwTu

— MSU Football (@HailStateFB) September 2, 2016

This will be the third meeting all-time between Mississippi State and South Alabama. In 2012, the Bulldogs won 30-10 in Starkville, and won again in 2014 at Mobile 35-3.

Despite losing arguably the best player in program history (Dak Prescott), Mississippi State is still favored by four touchdowns in this one. That’s a really big spread that was actually over 30 earlier in the summer. But it’s gone down a bit despite South Alabama losing their entire defensive line for the year due to injury.

MSU will try to use those injuries up front for the Jaguars to their advantage as they search for a running back from six options: Brandon Holloway, Ashton Shumpert, Aeries Williams, Dontavian Lee, Alec Murphy and Nick Gibson.

South Alabama is led by head coach Joey Jones who is the only coach the program has ever known (8 years). This is USA’s fifth year in FBS. They went 5-7 in 2015 but only return 9 of 22 starters from that team. MSU went 9-4 in 2015 and returns 11 of 22 from last year.

The Jaguar program has had some moderate success since joining the Sun Belt in 2012. After a 2-11 initial season, they’ve won at least five games each season and went to the Camellia bowl in 2014.

MSU has experienced unprecedented bowl success under Dan Mullen, having currently gone to six in a row dating back to 2010.

This game figures to be an easy win for a SEC team on their own field to open the season.