Photo: Regina Rickert
Mississippi State rolled into Commonwealth Stadium as the #1 team in the country and defeated Kentucky 45-31. Kentucky is now 5-3 on the season and 2-3 in the Southeastern Conference.
*The Good*
*Patrick Towles had the best game of his career. Towles was 24-of-43 passing for a career-high 390 yards and two touchdowns. Towles led UK with a career-best 76 yards rushing on 23 carries with 2 touchdowns, including a career-long 48-yard rush in the third quarter.
*The 58 yard touchdown pass that Javess Blue hauled in from Patrick Towles in the third quarter was one of the best passes I have seen by a quarterback at any level. We will see Patrick playing on Sundays in the NFL.
*Demarco Robinson had four catches for a career-high 86 yards and a touchdown. Robinson caught his first TD of the year, a 67 yard catch.
*Ryan Timmons led UK with five catches for a 114 yards.
*Bud Dupree had 10 tackles, including 1.5 tackles for loss. Dupree had one sack to give him four on the season and 20 in his career.
*Za’Darius Smith had eight tackles, one sack and 2.5 tackles for loss.
*Josh Forrest had another solid game. Forrest finished with with nine tackles and an interception (his second of the season).
*Landon Foster punted six times for a 47.8-yard average, with three downed inside the 20-yard line. Foster now has a career-high 20 punts downed inside the 20 on the season.
*The stadium was electric yesterday, one of the best atmospheres I’ve seen. I know I’ve been critical of the students before for not showing up for games, but yesterday they were there in full force. 64,791 fans were in attendance, it was good to see a stadium nearly sold out.
*The Bad*
*Kentucky’s defense still can’t stop the run. Kentucky gave up a whopping 326 yards rushing Saturday. Two MSU players accounted for over 280 of those yards. Josh Robinson gain 198 yards on 23 carries including a 73 yard touchdown run. Dak Prescott scorched Kentucky’s defense for another 88 yards on the ground.
Here is what Coach Stoops had to say about the defense.
COACH STOOPS: We need to play better. They have a lot to do with that, with the dimension of their quarterback run game, how powerful they are, their running backs, they’re very good.
The 77yarder, whatever, we had a desperation call on there. They split us. The rest is history. I’d like to have that one back. But, again, they ran it pretty well all night. I think we’re getting better.
But that’s a good, strong, physical team. Again, that’s why they’re the No. 1 offensive team in our league, the No. 1 team in the country.
*Kentucky’s tackling was the worst it has been all season.
COACH STOOPS: I think you have to credit them. Obviously, we have to do things better, be more physical, make tackles.
Yeah, we need to do better. But you have to give them credit for what they did. They made us miss. We had guys bouncing off them a couple different times. That’s what I said earlier in the week. That’s what you look like when you’re a big, strong, physical football team. They broke tackles and made plays when they had to.
*I thought the offensive line struggled all night. Kentucky’s offensive line allowed 7 sacks costing the Cats to lose 45 yards, something that cannot happen.
*The Ugly*
For the second week in a row Kentucky messed up an onside kick. It was just ugly.
