SEC Unfiltered: Week 5 offers the SEC's game of the year as well as the mismatch of the year

Welcome to SEC Unfiltered, the USA TODAY NETWORK's newsletter on SEC sports. Look for this newsletter in your inbox Monday through Friday. Today, Tuscaloosa News sports columnist Chase Goodbread takes over:

Perhaps it's fitting that on the day Alabama and Georgia clash in Tuscaloosa in one of the highest-stakes matchups of the SEC schedule, we'll also get the league's worst car wreck of a mismatch: Mississippi State at Texas.

Unranked vs. No. 1.

Uninspired vs. Unstoppable.

Outmanned vs. Outstanding.

As if it weren't lopsided enough on paper, Texas will be at home for its first SEC game since becoming a member. They'll come away wondering if they actually joined the Sun Belt.

New Bulldogs coach Jeff Lebby is getting a hard-to-watch idea of just how big the rebuilding job will be in Starkville, and he's not even into the toughest stretch of the schedule yet. MSU lost at home to Toledo two weeks ago, and it wasn't even close (41-17). Last week, the Bulldogs' defense made an anemic Florida offense look like a well-oiled machine in a 45-28 loss. To make matters worse, MSU starting quarterback Blake Shapen is now out for the season with a shoulder injury. That puts freshman QB Michael Van Buren Jr. at the helm of a leaky ship for his first career start in Austin, Texas. Ouch.

Texas, too, could be playing a backup quarterback in Arch Manning, but it's an entirely different two-quarterback story in Burnt Orange Country. Manning made his first career start last week against Louisiana-Monroe and looks like an effective heir apparent for starter Quinn Ewers, whose status for the Mississippi State game is uncertain due to an oblique injury.

What's not uncertain is how this game will turn out.

It's early in the season, but at this point, MSU looks like the worst team in the league. Lebby simply doesn't have the athletes to be effective with the innovative passing attack he was known for as an offensive coordinator. With the quarterback situation down to freshman options, he likely doesn't have the passer for it, either. And the MSU defense that's usually pretty salty is instead looking much too sweet.

Maybe by season's end, Texas won't look like the SEC's best team, and perhaps MSU won't look like its worst.

But you can bet that's how it'll look on Saturday.

Get the latest news and insight on SEC football by subscribing to the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: SEC Unfiltered: Week 5 offers the SEC's game of the year as well as the mismatch of the year