Game Information
Missouri Tigers (6-3) vs Mississippi State Bulldogs (5-5)
Time: 6:45pm CT Saturday
How to watch: SEC Network
DraftKings Odds
Spread: Mizzou -7
Total: 51.5
The Missouri Tigers play their final home game of the season when they host the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Saturday night.
The Tigers are out of the race for the College Football Playoff after last week’s 38-17 shellacking at the hands of Texas A&M, as true freshman quarterback Matt Zollers struggled mightily against the Aggies.
If you’re a Missouri fan, the hope is Zollers can manage the game against Mississippi State and the Tigers can lean on their run game to scratch out a victory and clinch a winning season.
But I saw nothing from Zollers last week that gives me confidence to want to bet Mizzou to win by two scores here.
Mississippi State has a 1-5 record in SEC play, but they are 4-2 against the spread - and 7 is a key number to get if you want to bet the Bulldogs on Saturday.
The only two teams to beat Mississippi State by more than 7 points are Texas A&M and Georgia, who are two of the top five teams in the country.
The Bulldogs won at Arkansas, they lost at Florida by only 2, and they lost by 7 to two ranked teams in Tennessee and Texas, with the Texas defeat coming in overtime after Mississippi State blew a 17-point 4th quarter lead. So this is not a horrible football team.
I also question the Tigers’ motivation in this one. Mizzou’s CFP dreams are dead, and I am not expecting the atmosphere in Columbia to be as electric as it has been for prior games this season.
Mississippi State needs one more win to become bowl-eligible, and after going 2-10 and 5-7 the last two seasons, I think this is the type of program where making a bowl would actually mean something in 2025. There’s a very good chance the Bulldogs want this game more than the Tigers do.
The vibes in Columbia are not good heading into Saturday. I think there’s a decent chance the Bulldogs win this game outright, so I will gladly take the 7 points for Mississippi State to cover the spread.
Pick: Mississippi State +7 at -112 on DraftKings (would not take 6.5 or less)
Eric Sontag hosts Domesticated Gamblers every Wednesday night on the STL Sports Central YouTube channel. Follow him on X @GamblingDads, and click here for his daily picks on all of our St. Louis area sports teams. Get Eric's picks for all sports by following him in the Action Network app with the username "esontag". Disclaimer