Its season cast in a different light, can Kentucky football rebound from regret?

We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Rarely does Kentucky football miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Saturday was rinse and repeat. Facing Ole Miss at Kroger Field, Kentucky owned a golden opportunity to become 7-2 overall and 4-2 in the SEC. A nine-win season and the program’s first winning conference finish since 1977 were well within grasp.

Instead, Ole Miss won 37-34. The Rebels scored the winning touchdown with five seconds remaining. UK had driven 95 yards for a four-point lead with 2:14 left. All Coach Mark Stoops’ defense had to do was keep Ole Miss out of the end zone. Seventy-one yards and 14 plays later, it failed to do the job.

“We didn’t finish,” said outside linebacker Josh Allen.

The defeat doesn’t ruin Kentucky’s season, but it did cast it in a different light. The Cats can still beat Vanderbilt (on the road) and Louisville (at home) and finish 8-4. But if the 45-7 blowout loss at Mississippi State on Oct. 21 exposed the Cats as unworthy of their 5-1 record, Saturday’s loss proved they are no better than their fellow conference mates.

The Vegas odds-makers were telling us that by making UK a 3-point favorite. That’s the equivalent of home-field advantage. Never mind Kentucky was 6-2, Ole Miss 3-5. Jeff Sagarin’s computer numbers ranked Kentucky No. 68 nationally; Ole Miss No. 69.

Alabama and Georgia are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the SEC. Auburn probably occupies the next tier. The rest of the teams are as capable of losing as they are winning on any given Saturday, no matter the competition.

Call it progress Kentucky is part of that pack. Stoops’ SEC record was 4-20 his first three seasons. It is 7-7 since. Call it frustration, however, that the long-suffering Kentucky football fan is weary waiting for a breakthrough. To them, Saturday’s last-second heartbreak was same old, same old.

Of one thing there is no debate: Kentucky’s pass defense is abysmal. After allowing 382 passing yards to Ole Miss on Saturday — the most since Mississippi State threw for 382 yards on UK in 2015 (those Bulldogs were led by a quarterback named Dak Prescott) — UK is now 105th in the nation and dead last in the SEC in pass efficiency defense.

That’s squarely on Stoops. He cut his coaching teeth as a secondary coach before becoming a defensive coordinator and then a head coach. He has been publicly bullish on his current group, professing he possessed future superstars among his cornerbacks. That prediction hasn’t panned out.

Through nine games, the Cats have allowed 13 completions of 40 or more yards, including eight touchdowns. Ole Miss hit two of those throws on Saturday, the longest a 58-yard strike from quarterback Jordan Ta’amu to wideout D.K. Metcalf that tied matters at 27 with 1:59 left in the third quarter.

(Accompanying note: The UK defense has gone three straight games without forcing a turnover.)

On Ole Miss’ game-winning drive, Ta’amu methodically marched the visitors down the field, no one play gaining more than 13 yards. UK cornerback Lonnie Johnson was chest-to-chest with Metcalf on the seven-yard fade pass the Ole Miss receiver somehow caught for the winning score.

Now we’ll see if UK is good enough to put regret in the rear-view. Music City has played sad songs for Stoops. His team lost 22-6 at Vanderbilt in 2013. It not only lost 21-17 at Vandy in 2015 but got embarrassed.

That was the infamous game in which the Cats failed to see a Commodores’ “lonesome end” come on to the field late. Uncovered, Caleb Scott caught an easy 37-yard touchdown pass 37 seconds before halftime for a 21-10 Vandy lead. Kentucky never recovered.

Saturday, Vanderbilt snapped a five-game losing streak with a 31-17 win over Western Kentucky. Three of the Commodores’ four wins have come at home. They know they can beat Kentucky. And, as Ole Miss proved Saturday, the Cats should know that, too.

This story was originally published November 5, 2017 at 3:31 PM with the headline "Its season cast in a different light, can Kentucky football rebound from regret?."