Miss State Coach Shares Thoughts About Alabama Defense

Rolling into week five of the 2023 season, the Alabama Crimson Tide is set to take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs Saturday night in Starkville. The season has had its highs and lows already, but one of the high points so far has been Alabama's defense.

Get our free mobile app

For the past two weeks, the Alabama defense has held their opponents to just 13 points combined.

The Tide defense held the South Florida Bulls to only three points in Tampa and former Alabama OC Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss Rebels to 10 in Bryant-Denny. The Rebs scored a touchdown in the first quarter. However, they would not see the endzone again. Alabama won 24-10.

Mississippi State Coach Zach Arnett, who took over after the passing of Mike Leach, talked about the Alabama defensive line recently.

"They don't have a weakness," Arnett said according to AL.com.

"They have a big, strong, physical defensive line who they can eat and swallow up blocks if they want to play that style. They can penetrate and get in the backfield if they want to play more of an attacking style."

He continued:

"They got linebackers who can read and react phenomenal, can cover routes edge rushers who are second to none in the country. The secondary's extremely talented. They tackle well, they get downhill and support the run very well. And then they play all their pattern-match coverages and man coverages really good, so when you combine all those things together, you have a really good defense executing any scheme."

Alabama looks to go 4-1 while Mississippi State tries to break a two-game losing streak and improve to 2-3. The game kicks off at 8 p.m. and fans can stream the game on the 95.3 The Bear or Tide 100.9 apps. Both are available for free in the app store.