Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 56-16 win over New Mexico State
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Game day: Kentucky 56, New Mexico State 16
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-New Mexico State football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 56-16 football win over New Mexico State:
1. Kentucky took care of business. Against struggling NMSU (1-10), UK exerted its superiority.
The Wildcats rolled up 707 yards of total offense.
UK threw for 459 yards.
UK quarterback Will Levis finished with 419 yards passing and four touchdowns.
Slot receiver Wan’Dale Robinson caught eight passes for 181 yards.
Super-senior wideout Josh Ali had seven catches for 164 yards and two TDs.
Tight end Justin Rigg, another super-senior playing for the final time at Kroger Field, caught two touchdowns, too.
Junior running back Christopher Rodriguez ran 16 times for 119 yards and a score.
Kavosiey Smoke ripped off a 23-yard TD run.
Backup quarterback Beau Allen directed a seven-play, 82-yard touchdown drive that ended when he ran it in from 3 yards to score.
Defensively, Kentucky held NMSU under 300 total yards (282).
Super-senior defensive back Quandre Mosely had a first-half pick-six.
Standout defensive end Josh Paschal bowed out at Kroger Field with six tackles, a sack and 1.5 tackles for loss.
In his home career finale, standout safety Yusuf Corker had seven tackles.
There was so much good for Kentucky — and yet ...
2. It would be nice if UK had played “tighter.” Heading into the season-ending battle for the Governor’s Cup against a Louisville team that appears to be peaking, Kentucky did not play as crisply, especially early, as one would have liked.
On UK’s first offensive possession, Levis missed a shotgun snap that New Mexico State middle linebacker Trevor Brohard turned into a 25-yard scoop-and-score touchdown.
Levis came close to throwing pick-sixes on back-to-back throws on one first-quarter possession.
On the same series, the Cats almost had a punt blocked.
After a touchdown, UK took a delay of game penalty on an extra point.
The Cats had back-to-back personal fouls to advance a New Mexico State drive that led to a field goal.
With Kentucky driving late in half one, Rodriguez lost a fumble at the New Mexico State 2-yard line.
In the third quarter, Levis threw an interception at the NMSU 1-yard line attempting to hit Chauncey Magwood at the goal line.
Overall, the Wildcats turned the ball over four times in total.
Against a Louisville offense that is rolling, Kentucky almost certainly cannot make this number of miscues and win next week.
3. Wan’Dale closing on major UK record. Kentucky junior slot receiver Wan’Dale Robinson had another monster game.
The former Western Hills High School star caught eight passes for 181 yards. That gives him 1,067 receiving yards on the season.
Robinson’s eight receptions give him 85 in 2021. That ties the Nebraska transfer with Craig Yeast (85 receptions in 1998) for second most in a single season in Kentucky football history.
The transfer from Nebraska needs six more catches to break the UK single-season receptions record (90) set by James Whalen Jr. in 1999 during Hal Mumme’s “Air Raid” era.
4. Mark Stoops closing on “The Bear.” With the victory, the Kentucky head coach is now 57-53. After starting his UK coaching career 12-26, Stoops has gone 45-27 since.
Stoops now needs four more victories to pass Paul “Bear” Bryant (60-23-5 from 1946-53) as Kentucky’s all-time football wins leader.
With UK standing 8-3 on the year going into next week’s season finale at archrival Louisville, Stoops has become the first Kentucky coach to produce two eight-win regular seasons since Fran Curci did it in 1976 (8-3 with the aid of a forfeit from Mississippi State of a game the Cats lost on the field) and 1977 (10-1).
In 2018, Stoops led the Wildcats to a 9-3 regular season that became a 10-win campaign when the Wildcats beat No. 12 Penn State 27-24 in the VRBO Citrus Bowl.
5. Doug Martin vs. alma mater. The New Mexico State head coach is now 0-3 against his college alma mater.
An early 1980s-era UK quarterback, Martin is 0-2 against the Wildcats as NMSU head man. The Aggies lost a wild, 62-42 shootout in Lexington in 2016.
As Kent State head man, Martin also coached once against UK. The 2007 Wildcats, coached by Rich Brooks and quarterbacked by Andre Woodson, blitzed the Golden Flashes 56-20.
In the last year of his contract at NMSU, there’s no certainty that Martin, 58, will get another chance to coach against Kentucky as a head man.
Fashion police
For its 2021 home finale and Senior Day, Kentucky wore while helmets over blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and blue pants.
It is only the third time since the start of the 2015 season that UK has worn white helmets over all-blue uniforms. The Wildcats are now 2-1 in those games.
This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 3:32 PM.
