UL Monroe vs Mississippi State Prediction, Picks & Odds — Sep 5, 2026
Mississippi State kept the run game, replaced the receivers
Starkville returns 87% of last season's rushing production and almost none of its passing, and ULM's run defense was the one place its 2025 defense held up.
What follows is the preview as it was published before kickoff — unedited.
Box score, drives and the model's numbers →Mississippi State averaged 30.4 points a game last season and still finished 5-8, which tells you the offense was the functional half of that team. Its rushing production returns at 87%, its passing production at 14%. Fluff Bothwell is back with his 32% carry share; four-star receivers Jordan Mosley and Ferzell Shepard are not. Against a ULM defense that surrendered 31.9 points a game, that split decides whether this is a four-touchdown afternoon or a slog that never covers.
UL Monroe wins
The range of outcomes for this game. Each bar is how often the final margin lands in that range — the more it leans toward Mississippi State, the more likely Mississippi State wins.
A margin of 20 or more projects at 61%, and a one-score finish is given roughly a 1-in-7 chance, a game with a long tail on one side and almost nothing on the other. ULM scored 16.6 points a game last season, and an offense at that level does not climb out of a two-score hole; it manages the damage. Everything that follows is about how fast Mississippi State digs that hole, not whether it is the better team.
State has one proven target and a room full of new ones
Fourteen percent of last season's passing production returns in Starkville. Mosley and Shepard are gone, Markus Allen with them, which is a passing attack rebuilt at the catch point rather than adjusted. What survived is the best piece: Anthony Evans III commanded a 22% target share at +0.47 EPA per play, a per-target return good enough that a secondary has to decide where its help goes before the snap, and he projects for 41 to 113 receiving yards.
The 40 outgoing transfers read worse than the situation is. Mississippi State signed the #26 class with three blue-chips and added Marquis Johnson from Missouri and left tackle Ja'Elyne Matthews from Florida State, a program churning depth rather than one stripped for parts. The churn still costs something in early September: one established target, a quarterback in Kamario Taylor with seven career games, and a route tree nobody has run together in a live stadium.
The backfield is intact, and it's aimed at ULM's best unit
Eighty-seven percent of Mississippi State's rushing production is back, led by Bothwell, who carried a 32% share at +0.13 EPA per play. He projects for 36 to 101 rushing yards with a 45% chance of finding the end zone, with Xavier Gayten at 13 to 37 behind him. The complication is that ULM's rush defense ranked #53 nationally, its only above-average unit, and that specific matchup tilts a shade toward the underdog.
ULM sent defensive linemen Tae Woody and Jaden Hamlin out through the portal, so the #53 run defense and the #57 tackle-for-loss finish were built partly on snaps that no longer exist. Noah Flemmings (3.5 sacks, 80 tackles) is the returning tone-setter, and he now sets it in front of a rebuilt interior, a linebacker asked to cover the gaps behind him rather than shoot them. Marcus Ross and Jabari Tiller, two sacks apiece, are the rest of the returning disruption.
ULM carries the mirror-image continuity problem: 52% of its passing production returns but only 16% of its rushing. A 28.5-point underdog shortens a game by running it, and ULM has to rebuild that from 16% while Mississippi State keeps 87% of its own. Pushed into the air, ULM stops the clock on every incompletion and risks the drive on every completion against a secondary that intercepted 12 passes last season.
Neither defense gets home; only one of them takes the ball away
Mississippi State finished with 20 sacks (#99) and 54 tackles for loss (#113), near the bottom of the country at creating negative plays. Its 12 interceptions (#31) came from coverage rather than pressure, and the source is still on the roster: Kelley Jones broke up 11 passes with two picks, while Isaac Smith (64 tackles) and Zakari Tillman each added one. Aidan Armenta will get clean pockets; what he will not get is a safe throw into Jones's third of the field.
ULM's defense has the harder version of that problem. Five interceptions ranked #113, a unit that essentially never ended a drive with the ball, so every stop had to be earned across three or four plays. Armenta's projected 91 to 159 passing yards is the shape of the day that follows: fewer possessions, more punts, and a scoreboard that moves in one direction while ULM's field position quietly gets worse.
The quarterbacks are a wash, and that's the honest read
Armenta enters with +0.138 career EPA per play across two FBS seasons; Taylor with +0.136 across one. Both are returning starters with the job locked, and two thousandths of a point is not an edge in either direction. Neither has thrown a pass this season, and neither one is the reason Mississippi State is favored by 28.5, which is the least interesting position on the field this Saturday.
A #26 recruiting class with three blue-chips against a #152 class with none is a 112-spot gap in the raw material each staff works with, and five-star safety Bralan Womack signals trajectory rather than this weekend, since freshmen rarely start openers. What that gap buys Mississippi State is the fourth and fifth defensive linemen, the backup corner, and the drive that keeps working after somebody rolls an ankle in the second quarter.
ULM's path is the run defense and the clock
The projected margin is 24 against a number of 28.5, and the favorite covers only about a third of the time here, so a methodical Mississippi State win that still loses the ticket is the single most likely outcome. ULM's portal work was a genuine net gain of 16 stars, with Parker Fulghum arriving from Clemson and Damarcco Blanton from Arkansas State to work alongside Nic Trujillo (22% target share, +0.13 EPA) and JP Coulter, whose +0.36 on an 11% share is real efficiency on small volume.
Each ingredient of our projection and the side it favors — bars toward Mississippi State are why it's the pick (home field is counted separately).
What each side actually has to do
Mississippi State needs Bothwell to win against the one ULM unit that graded out respectably, because a passing game rebuilt around Evans III alone will not carry the early scoring. ULM needs its remade front to hold up without Woody and Hamlin, and it needs to avoid handing Jones the two possessions that turn a three-touchdown loss into a five-touchdown one. Mississippi State wins this game; the 28.5 is where ULM's afternoon is actually decided.
Frequently asked questions
- Who is predicted to win UL Monroe vs Mississippi State?
- Our projection favors Mississippi State with a 94% win probability. The projected final score is Mississippi State 36–UL Monroe 12.
- What is the predicted score for UL Monroe vs Mississippi State?
- We project Mississippi State 36–UL Monroe 12, a combined 48 points.
- What is the spread for UL Monroe vs Mississippi State, and which side does the model like?
- The betting line is Mississippi State −28.5. Our projection has Mississippi State winning by about 23, inside the number — the points are the value side.
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