Kentucky football leads the nation in one unusual stat, and it’s making a difference.

Opponents are committing more penalties per game against Kentucky than anyone else in the country.

Cats’ foes are averaging 10.5 penalties each game this season for an average of 90 yards per game.

Sixteen flags of both the pre- and post-snap variety proved costly for Mississippi State in Saturday’s 28-7 UK victory at Kroger Field.

Coach Joe Moorhead called it “a lack of composure” by his players.

“It was an emotional game,” Moorhead said of the Bulldogs’ 16 penalties for 139 yards against UK. “We talked in the preseason about showing our emotions without being emotional and we didn’t do that today.”

For the most part, unbeaten Kentucky was able to keep its composure against Mississippi State, which wasn’t easy at times, Coach Mark Stoops said after the win, which propelled the Cats to a No. 17 national ranking.

“We were actively discussing that on the sideline because some of our guys were getting extremely frustrated and we hugged them,” Stoops said, specifically mentioning senior right guard Bunchy Stallings, who was being tested often.

Coaches told the newly named Southeastern Conference Offensive Lineman of the Week and other players to “have the good pride,” Stoops said, noting on his radio show Monday night that the Bulldogs were working hard to bait players like Stallings into retaliating.

“There were some things going on. It was very chippy and, to his credit, he took the high road and played with that good pride we talk about all the time,” Stoops added.

Sometimes that’s hard for players, but this Kentucky team has shown great maturity even in bad situations this season. Stoops often tells them that “there’s a point sometimes when you have to accept things for your team.

“It takes a stronger man and it takes a big person to swallow that bad pride and have good pride and do that for your team. There was many cases of that (on Saturday).”

Kentucky’s done a fairly good job this season of keeping its composure. Of the Cats’ 27 penalties, 12 came at Florida.

Many of them have gotten cleaned up, especially the pre-snap variety. Stoops didn’t seem to mind many of those because they came from UK being aggressive. Kentucky is ninth in the league in penalties per game at 6.8 (costing UK about 66 yards each contest).

The Cats’ next opponent, South Carolina, has had a similar number of penalties per game called against it this season as UK.

It will be interesting to see if emotions rise in Saturday’s game, though, after UK’s captains said they felt disrespected last season in Columbia after they said Gamecocks players declined to shake their hands before the coin flip.

“They don’t shake our hands to start,” Stoops said after the Cats’ 23-13 victory at Brice-Williams Stadium last season. “I’ve never seen that, the captains don’t shake our hands. They wanted to go at it, but we were ready, too.”

This story was originally published September 25, 2018 at 8:53 AM.