STARKVILLE — Jameson Williams caught the ball in the middle of the field with one man in front of him.
Mississippi State’s Martin Emerson stood a few yards ahead of the speedy Alabama wide receiver when he hauled in Bryce Young’s pass at the Crimson Tide 42-yard line just seconds into the third quarter.
Instead of taking on the junior cornerback, Williams sprinted diagonally toward the left sideline, nearing the boundary as he crossed the Mississippi State 30-yard line. He got a block from fellow wide receiver John Metchie III, shook a last-ditch tackle attempt by cornerback Emmanuel Forbes and raced into the end zone.
Once again, Alabama had run away from Mississippi State.
Williams’ 75-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage in the third quarter Saturday characterized the still-wide gap between the Bulldogs (3-3, 1-2 Southeastern Conference) and the Crimson Tide (6-1, 3-1 SEC) in a 49-9 Alabama rout at Davis Wade Stadium.
“We died of self-inflicted wounds because we tried too hard and tried to do extra and tried to do too many different things,” MSU coach Mike Leach said. “We should have played better than we did.”
With the defeat, Mississippi State failed to build on the momentum it earned two weeks ago in a 26-22 win over then-No. 15 Texas Tech in College Station against a Crimson Tide team coming off a loss to those same Aggies.
Of course, beating Alabama is easier said than done, and the Bulldogs have neither said nor done it since 2007. On Saturday, in the 102nd matchup between the two schools, the Tide extended their all-time series record to 83-16-3.
They did it by means of a dominant pass rush, a clutch third-down offense and allowing Mississippi State to make its own mistakes. Quarterback Will Rogers tossed two first-quarter interceptions, including a pick-six to Alabama’s Jordan Battle, and the Bulldogs were behind the 8-ball early.
And against the Crimson Tide, that’s not a place any team wants to be.
Battle jumped Jaden Walley’s route and returned his interception 40 yards for a score to put the Tide up 14-3, and Alabama wasn’t content there. The visitors scored five more touchdowns on the night, pushing the pace.
“We let the logo get us down a little bit,” linebacker Jett Johnson admitted of the Crimson Tide’s vaunted history.
Running back Brian Robinson Jr. had three of them, including a 51-yard touchdown catch-and-run late in the third quarter. Young finished with four touchdown passes, finding John Metchie for the game’s first touchdown — a 46-yard scoring play less than 5 minutes in — and hitting Traeshon Holden for a 29-yard score in the fourth quarter.
Leach criticized his team’s inability to complete sacks against Young, who found a way to escape pressure multiple times on his way to several scores and key first-down conversions.
“I thought we should have got home more,” Leach said. “A couple, we took bad angles.”
Meanwhile, a Bulldogs offense that looked effective against the Aggies faltered considerably Saturday. Mississippi State was held to a triad of Brandon Ruiz field goals and just 299 total yards, a far cry from where their Air Raid offense needed to be.
“I didn’t think we communicated well on offense or defense, and the craziest thing was we hadn’t had a problem with that since the very first part of the season in camp,” Leach said.
Alabama, meanwhile, had no such trouble, operating its talented offense almost at will against a Bulldogs team that came in ranked No. 28 in the country. The Tide averaged 7.9 points per play — although their several long touchdowns skewed that metric — and went 12 of 16 on third down.
Three of those conversions came on one drive, on which Robinson cashed in for a 1-yard score on third down to stretch the lead to 21-3 in the second quarter.
Ruiz, kicking for the first game since leaving midway through a Sept. 11 win over North Carolina State, answered with a 37-yard field goal before the half. The fifth-year senior and one-time Arizona State transfer hit from 44 in the first quarter and connected from 37 again in the third quarter.
“Anytime you get points on the board, that’s a win,” Jett Johnson said. “Credit to Brandon for coming back and doing a great job.”
But field goals aren’t typically enough to take down Alabama. They weren’t Saturday. Instead, Alabama took down Rogers — again and again and again.
The Crimson Tide recorded seven sacks — linebacker Will Anderson Jr. had four of them — as they got consistent pressure on the sophomore signal-caller and flummoxed the Bulldogs’ offense. Rogers finished 35 of 55 passing for 300 yards and did not have a touchdown pass for the first game all season. (He had two or more in every contest to date.)
Running backs Dillon Johnson and Woody Marks fared little better. The duo was held to 10 rushes for 40 yards as the Bulldogs were held to negative-1 rushing yard on the night, factoring in the yardage they lost on sacks.
All told, it was a humbling night for a Mississippi State team that believed it had turned a corner after its upset of the Aggies. That might still be true, but on Saturday, the Crimson Tide left the Bulldogs little chance to show it.
“We didn’t play as well as we can,” Leach said.
Up next, Mississippi State will travel to Vanderbilt (2-5, 0-5 SEC) at 3 p.m. Saturday in Nashville, Tennessee.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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