Three Plays: Mississippi State owns Kentucky in turnover battle

Kentucky walked away from Davis Wade Stadium with another defeat on Saturday night, but the final score was not indicative of the actual game.

The scoreboard says Kentucky lost by just two touchdowns, but it felt like much more than that. The Wildcats turned the ball over four times in nine possessions while Mississippi State created seven scoring opportunities in 11 possessions.

Mike Leach’s team owned the game on Saturday night and a lot of that was due to the turnover battle. It is going to be hard to lose a game when you look up and your team is plus-four in the turnover column.

However, both sides of the football contributed to the beatdown. KSR has the plays that made the biggest difference as Kentucky drops to 4-2 in SEC play.

Costly middle eight interception

Football games are won and lost in the middle eight. After giving up a touchdown with just 1:40 left in the second quarter to go down 14-10, Kentucky was able to force another stop to create a short field right before halftime.

After a great punt that pinned Mississippi State inside their own five, the Wildcats played some complementary football as the defense forced a three-and-out leading to the Wildcats gaining possession at their own 48 with 37 seconds left until halftime.

Kentucky then put a drive together.

Three completions got Kentucky into the red zone with 14 seconds left. The Wildcats decided to take a shot at the endzone and the one thing that couldn’t happen did.

The Wildcats line up tight end Izayah Cummings into the boundary at X receiver and believe they may have him in a one-on-one matchup but Mississippi State goes to zone coverage. The sophomore gets bumped off his route just enough to mess up the rhythm of the play.

The cornerback does a great job of getting a hand on the football and a fortunate bounce allows the ball to find the safety sitting over the top.

Instead of going into the locker room with some momentum, Mississippi State makes a huge play to get a red zone stop.

Dropped interception

Heading into the second half, all things pointed towards Mississippi State. For Kentucky to climb back into the game and grab some momentum, a big play needed to be made by someone.

The Bulldogs quickly marched down the field on the Wildcats to begin the third quarter. However, Will Rogers made one of his worst throws of the game on first down from just outside the red zone. Unfortunately, Kentucky could not finish the play.

On the mesh concept, Yusuf Corker does a great job as Kentucky goes to a man look. Rogers waits too long to make a decision and delivers a poorly thrown ball. The redshirt senior safety defender does everything but reel in the interception as he undercuts the throw.

Kentucky desperately needed a play at this point of the game and a scoring opportunity stop in the extended red zone could’ve turned the momentum. Mississippi State would go on to settle for a field goal on the possession but this was a missed opportunity for the Wildcats.

Snowball fumble

Kentucky missed a chance at a takeaway, but the defense tightened up to force a field goal as the Wildcats trailed by just one touchdown on their first possession of the second half.

Getting the ball, it felt imperative for the offense to put some first downs together just to get some confidence following the interception to end the first half and to give the defense some time to regroup.

Instead, the Wildcats gave the ball right back to the Bulldogs.

On what appears to be a split zone play with a kick-out block backside by the tight end gets absolutely obliterated by Mississippi State. Randy Charlton runs right through left tackle Dare Rosenthal and that destroys the play. However, Chris Rodriguez Jr. inexplicably drops the ball for his second fumble of the game.

Mississippi State falls on the football and scores a touchdown two plays later. The next possession, Kentucky fumbles on their first play when another pass breakup hangs in the air and finds a Mississippi State defender.

Before the Wildcats could run four plays in the second half, the deficit ballooned to 21 points. Kentucky regained possession and got a chance to settle in with under three minutes left in the third quarter.

Mississippi State won the game with a haymaker barrage in the third quarter. The momentum all got started with a red zone turnover before the halftime break.