CATS lose 28-13 in Starkville.
STARKVILLE, September 21, 2019 – Bradley Charles – Bluegrass
Sports Nation
Today, the Kentucky Wildcats played on the road against the
Mississippi State Bulldogs. The Bulldogs never trailed. They took a 7-0 lead
with 13:35 to go in the first quarter and never looked back, winning the game
28-13. I like to take a positive approach even after losses, but the truth of
the matter is that Kentucky did practically nothing well. However, there were
some bright spots from the game, which will be mentioned later in the article.
The Cats struggled to protect Sawyer Smith, while conversely
getting basically no pressure on Mississippi State’s quarterback Garrett
Shrader. Mississippi State recorded three sacks and five hurries while Kentucky
recorded just two sacks and no hurries. With that said, since the Cats were
trailing basically from start to finish, they were often in obvious passing
situations. However, Kentucky typically just rushed three defenders, on third
down especially, which allowed the Bulldogs to have great success in the
passing game. Mississippi State took a different approach by bringing pressure
often, tallying 13 broken up passes on 41 passing attempts by the Cats, which
comes just shy of 32%.
Kentucky struggled on both sides of the ball on third down. Kentucky
went one of 12 on third down, compared to Mississippi State’s six for 10.
Mississippi State averaged 11.8 yards per play on third down, compared to
Kentucky’s average of 1.5.
Kentucky went 2-4 on field goal attempts. Despite punter Max
Duffy playing well once again, the Kentucky punt coverage was lacking at times,
struggling to touch the ball dead before it entered the end zone.
The worst news of all is that Sawyer Smith suffered an
injury to his throwing arm. While it is unclear at this point as to what the
injury is, it was evident when watching the game that Smith was playing through
pain. As the game progressed, his throwing motion changed, becoming almost
painfully awkward to watch. Give Smith credit for playing through the pain, but
ultimately this is terrible news for BBN.
There were some positives to take away from tonight’s game.
A.J. Rose played well, showing why he is Kentucky’s starting running back. Rose
had nine carries which resulted in 105 yards, with his longest run going for
31-yards. Junior wide receiver Josh Ali caught five passes for 61 yards, both
career highs. Defensively, cornerback Brandin Echols played well, totaling 10
tackles, to go along with a forced fumble and a sack. Sophomore linebacker
DeAndre Square tallied nine tackles and one sack.
If you want to take the positive approach, the Cats lost by
only 15 points even though it would have been hard for them to play any worse
than they did today. The Kentucky of old would have played well, relatively
speaking, and still lost by 30+. It shows you how far this program has come
under Mark Stoops. Kentucky went on the road with a backup quarterback, played
poorly, had essentially every 50-50 play go in favor of the Bulldogs and still
only lost by 15 points; which included Kentucky missing two field goal attempts
and the Bulldogs scoring a touchdown with less than two minutes to go in the
game. It is good to know that even when Kentucky played poorly and had
everything go against them, they had opportunities to win the game late while
on the road against a quality SEC team in Mississippi State. This being said,
it was ultimately a poor performance with which BBN should rightfully feel
disappointed.
Sawyer Smith and the Cats saw their first road environment
of the season against the Bulldogs. Hopefully, this will better prepare them
for their next task which is at South Carolina on Saturday, September 28th. The
game is scheduled to start at 7:30 and will air on the SEC Network.
BSN will be in Columbia, South Carolina, next week to bring
you all of the action as the Cats look for their first win of the season in
conference play!
