Starkville, Mississippi is just over 80 miles away from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Depending on whether there are many cops on Highway 82, you can make the jump from T'town to Clanga in 75 minutes.
Despite the relatively short trip between the two schools, the programs and cultures could not be more dissimilar. Mississippi State is a small, Morrill land grant university. It is a rural university, with a largely rural in-state student body all set in a sleepy town of 24,000. What athletic success the Bulldogs have sustained has largely been in baseball, where MSU has a storied tradition of excellent individual players and nationally-competitive teams.