Inefficient defense, turnovers doom Kentucky in Starkville

Davis Wade Stadium remains a house of horrors for the Kentucky football program.

Behind the best performance of Will Rogers’ career, the Bulldogs cruised on offense collecting 27 first downs and 473 yards with 31 points on the scoreboard. Meanwhile, the Wildcats were held to just 216 yards and one touchdown on offense.

Kentucky now drops to 6-2 on the season and will go back to the drawing board before Tennesse rolls into Kroger Field next weekend.

Before that arrives, KSR has some instant takeaways following another double-digit loss in Starkville.

Precision passing

Will Rogers entered the contest against Kentucky as one of the most effective passers in the SEC. The sophomore quarterback completes over 75 percent of his throws and owns a 50.9 percent passing success rate as he paces this Air Raid attack.

The former three-star recruit just had the best performance of his young career.

Rogers had just three incompletions in the win — one was dropped by a Mississippi State receiver and the other two were pass breakups. The sophomore finished with a 69.23 passing success rate and had five completions 20-plus yards. Creating big plays has been an issue for Mississippi State this season. That wasn’t the case in the win over Kentucky.

Behind their young quarterback, Mississippi State was on time and ahead of schedule against Kentucky. Even when second-and-long showed up, the Bulldogs were able to find chunk yardage to create manageable situations.

Saturday night was a proof of concept moment for Mike Leach at Mississippi State. The Bulldogs appear to have their guy at quarterback.

Kentucky’s turnover issues show up again

Kentucky has major issues in the turnover department. There is no denying that.

For the fourth time this season, Kentucky’s defense failed to produce one takeaway. On the other side, the Wildcats had a season-high four turnovers. One interception eliminated an important scoring opportunity to end the first half. Then, the offense responded by having two turnovers to start the second half that led directly to short fields and 14 points for Mississippi State.

Kentucky had many issues in the loss to Mississippi State, but the most glaring was the ball security. The contest would have been in balance in the fourth quarter if not for the minus-four turnover margin in the game. Finally, turnovers cost Kentucky a game.

The Wildcats are now minus-12 in the turnover column and that could be the worst mark in college football when the sun rises on Sunday morning.

Kicking game delivers

Kentucky had a bad night in a lot of areas, but the kicking game was not a place where the Wildcats struggled.

Matt Ruffolo bounced back and made a 41-yard field goal, Collin Goodfellow boomed a 70-yard punt, and Josh Ali took a punt return 74 yards to the house to give Kentucky an early lead.

When a touchdown is scored on defense or special teams, that team should expect to win a game. Instead, the Wildcats were thumped on the road ruining a strong special teams night.

Lack of explosives

Mississippi State has a gap cancellation defense. Zach Arnett’s version of the 3-3-5 will take chances, shoot gaps, and stop the run at all costs. However, the Bulldogs have a glitchy big-play defense. To put up points, chunk plays must be created.

Kentucky was unable to do that on Saturday night.

In 48 snaps, the Wildcats only produced one play that went over 20 yards. Zero plays went for 25-plus yards. Kentucky converted third downs but could not consistently score due to the inability to produce explosives.

Quietly, the big play has disappeared from the Kentucky offense. Will Levis misfired on two vertical shots and one resulted in an interception. The redshirt junior hasn’t hit on a true vertical shot play since September.

Kentucky has to find that home run threat soon.

Kentucky got Kentucky’d

Mark Stoops likes to keep things simple. The Wildcats want to own the line of scrimmage, use a ball-control offense to control the clock, limit possessions, play complementary football and get teams in a hole early.

On Saturday, Mississippi State did that to Kentucky.

The Bulldogs owned the ball for over 41 minutes, had 13 more first downs, 26 more plays, five more red zone possessions, and outrushed the Wildcats by 40 yards.

Mississippi State controlled the game as soon as Kentucky went up 10-0, and the Wildcats were forced to play left-handed by going pass-heavy in the second half. That is out of Kentucky’s comfort zone.

Mississippi State owned the Wildcats on the line of scrimmage despite throwing the ball 39 times. Kentucky did not match the physicality of the home team.