While Mississippi State may not pose the challenge of some of the Tide's other opponents in 2015, they are big and physical
Facing the threat of a Manny Diaz defense sounds almost like a contradiction in terms, given the former Texas defensive coordinator's maligned reputation following a disastrous flame-out in Austin in the waning days of the Mac Brown Era of Longhorn football. Granted, Diaz has seen struggles in some of his major college stops (the aforementioned Longhorns program as well as his short stint with the Arkansas Razorbacks), but one could argue that it wasn't the coordinator at fault in both of those situations, based on Diaz' relative success at other stops during his career, namely Mississippi State and Louisiana Tech.