STARKVILLE — Mississippi State’s loss to No. 12 Alabama on Saturday night was the closest game the teams have played against each other in six years.

The fact that it was still a 40-17 Bulldogs defeat, their 16th straight loss to the Crimson Tide, says all that needs to be said about this “rivalry” — one MSU (2-3, 0-3 Southeastern Conference) is surely glad will be put on hold next season when the SEC goes away from its longstanding divisional format. They may be closer to each other geographically than any two other SEC schools, but they remain light years apart on the football field.

“Everything that you need to do to be successful, we need to be better at,” senior quarterback Will Rogers said. “That starts with me. I need to be a better player, I need to practice better, I need to do everything better. We’ll learn from this and we’ll get back to work.”

Rogers, coming off a collegiate career-high 487 passing yards last week at South Carolina, finished 15-of-27 for just 107 yards with a touchdown and three interceptions against an Alabama secondary featuring three bona fide NFL prospects at cornerback. A week after Lideatrick “Tulu” Griffin set a Bulldogs single-game program record with 256 receiving yards, the Crimson Tide (4-1, 2-0) held the speedster to 21 yards on five catches.

Defensively, MSU still has problems stopping both the run and the pass. Alabama ran the ball 43 times Saturday night with just 13 pass attempts, and even accounting for sacks, the Tide racked up nearly 200 yards on the ground. Quarterback Jalen Milroe completed 10 of 12 passes for 164 yards, meaning through three SEC games, starting quarterbacks are 58-for-66 with 813 passing yards against the Bulldogs.

Yet, it was Milroe’s legs that were responsible for the game’s first big play. After each team punted on its first two possessions, Milroe found daylight and outraced cornerback Decamerion Richardson and safety Corey Ellington for a 53-yard touchdown to open the scoring.

“He’s just a really good athlete,” MSU head coach Zach Arnett said. “With an athlete the caliber of Jalen Milroe, usually you’re underneath coverages itching to come up on him, because if you sit back and try to match all the routes, he pulls it down and runs for a first down.”

The Bulldogs’ defensive line was low on depth to begin the night, missing starter De’Monte Russell as well as Kalvin Dinkins and Trevion Williams, and starting defensive tackle Jaden Crumedy left the game with an injury late in the third quarter.

MSU did sack Milroe four times — Russell’s younger brother, redshirt freshman Donterry Russell, had 2.5 tackles for loss with 1.5 sacks — but was otherwise overmatched against Alabama’s behemoth of an offensive line.

“We have to stop the run better,” Arnett said. “When they saw some of our depth issues up front, it was only going to lead to further 12 personnel (one running back and two tight ends). We can’t put a bunch of big guys up there to match their big guys. They’re good coaches; obviously they picked up on that pretty easily.”

Three plays after Milroe’s long touchdown run, it was the Crimson Tide defensive line’s turn to come up big. On a third-and-6, Jah-Marien Latham pressured Rogers and got a piece of his throw, deflecting the ball to star edge rusher Chris Braswell for the interception. Braswell shook free of running back Jeffery Pittman and led a convoy of blockers to the end zone for a pick-six to make it 14-0.

The Bulldogs got on the board early in the second quarter, using a 29-yard Jo’Quavious “Woody” Marks run — MSU’s longest offensive play of the night — to set up a 31-yard Kyle Ferrie field goal.

After Alabama responded with a field goal of its own, the Bulldogs embarked on their best drive of the game, converting twice on third-and-8 and going 64 yards in nine plays. Backup quarterback Mike Wright capped it by perfectly selling a fake handoff to Marks and sprinting through a big hole for a 15-yard score.

But as they did all night, the Crimson Tide had an answer. Alabama took more than five minutes off the clock on a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, and when MSU got the ball back with just over a minute left in the first half, Rogers threw an interception straight to linebacker Jihaad Campbell, giving the Tide the ball right back on the Bulldogs’ 31-yard line.

Three plays later, Milroe scored again on a 10-yard scramble, and all of a sudden MSU trailed 31-10 at halftime.

“(We were) trying to steal points before halftime, and we ended up giving them seven again,” Rogers said. “It was definitely tough to bounce back from that.”

The Bulldogs did bounce back nicely on their first possession of the second half, going 75 yards in 11 plays with 59 of those yards on the ground. Rogers showed off his wheels on a 15-yard scramble, and Pittman picked up a pair of first downs with chunk plays.

On third-and-goal at the 1, Rogers hit Pittman in the flat, and the junior college transfer stretched the ball just across the goal line for his second touchdown reception of the year. It was MSU’s first passing touchdown against Alabama since Dak Prescott connected with Jameon Lewis in the final minute of a 25-20 Bulldogs loss in 2014.

MSU kept the Crimson Tide out of the end zone for the entire second half, but after Pittman’s touchdown, the Bulldogs could only muster one first down until their final drive, by which time the game was well out of hand. They turned the ball over on downs twice to go along with Rogers’ third interception. Rogers has thrown three picks in a game just twice in his four years with MSU, and both have come at home against Alabama.

The Bulldogs, losers of three straight, will get a much-needed break from SEC play next Saturday when Western Michigan visits Davis Wade Stadium.

“We’ve got three games in the month of October. To be honest, we need to go 3-0,” Arnett said. “But you can’t until you go 1-0. So the only thing we’re focused on right now is preparing for the next game, because that’s the only game you can prepare for. It’s an opportunity to play a quality football team and hopefully execute better and win.”