Five things you need to know from UK football’s maddening 22-19 loss to Mississippi
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Game day: No. 14 Mississippi 22, No. 7 Kentucky 19
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Ole Miss football game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss.
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Five things you need to know from No. 7 Kentucky’s 22-19 loss to No. 14 Mississippi in SEC football at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss.:
1. Kentucky beat itself. In a game in which UK showed tremendous fight and grit, the Wildcats beat themselves with mistakes.
Two late Will Levis fumbles were killers for Kentucky.
Trailing 22-19 but driving as the game clock ticked toward three minutes left, Kentucky faced a third-and-2 at the Ole Miss 19. Levis had the first down on a keeper off left tackle — but Mississippi safety A.J. Finley knocked the ball from his hands and recovered the fumble with 2:50 left in the game.
After the UK defense forced an Ole Miss three-and-out and a punt, Kentucky had another golden chance to win. Barion Brown took an outside screen from Levis 51 yards to give the Wildcats a first-and-goal at the Mississippi 7-yard line.
On the next play, Levis hit Dane Key with a 7-yard pass on a fade pattern for what would have been the go-ahead touchdown — except Kentucky was called for an illegal shift on the play.
Facing first-and-goal from the 12, Levis dropped back to pass. While the Kentucky quarterback looked to his left waiting for a receiver to come open, Mississippi’s Jared Ivey hit Levis from behind, stripped the ball and Tavius Robinson recovered it to end Kentucky’s hopes of victory.
In the first half, Levis gave Ole Miss a safety when he was called for intentional grounding in the Kentucky end zone.
The reason UK was behind late in the game in the first place was a series of first-half follies with the Wildcats’ place-kicking.
Two years ago, Matt Ruffolo missed a 49-yard field goal and an overtime extra point in a 42-41 OT loss to Ole Miss in Lexington.
On Saturday, Ruffolo missed a 39-yard field-goal try, had an extra point blocked and saw a second PAT foiled by a bad snap.
Lack of confidence in the place-kicking unit led head coach Mark Stoops to eschew a 50-yard field-goal try on the first play of the fourth quarter only to see a Levis pass to Christopher Rodriguez fail on a fourth-and-3 play from the Rebels’ 32-yard-line.
Simply put, a team can’t attain the level of goals that Kentucky now aspires to as a program while incurring so many self-inflicted wounds on the road against a ranked team.
2. Margin of error now gone. If you assume that Georgia will come to Kroger Field on Nov. 19 with an undefeated record — which I do — Kentucky now must go unbeaten the rest of the way itself to get to the Bulldogs with the SEC East title at stake.
That means, of course, that UK must take care of business in home SEC games against South Carolina, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt and in a road game at Missouri.
It also means that UK must beat Tennessee in Neyland Stadium — a venue in which UK has won one time (2020) since 1984.
3. C-Rod’s return. In his first game of 2022 after missing the year’s first four contests due to a suspension, Kentucky star running back Christopher Rodriguez showed what UK has been missing.
Running through tackles and moving the pile, Rodriguez carried 19 times for 72 yards and a touchdown. He also caught three passes for 40 yards.
With UK struggling as it is in the offensive line, having C-Rod back is beyond crucial.
4. The wild, wild West. Kentucky’s loss kept Mark Stoops winless as UK head man in road games vs. SEC West foes. Stoops is now 0-11 in such games.
Overall, UK has now lost 15 straight road contests vs. West Division foes. Kentucky’s most recent win at an SEC West venue was a 21-14 victory at Auburn in 2009.
5. Cats have streaks busted. Kentucky’s loss ended an eight-game win streak for the Wildcats that began with the final four games of 2021. UK has not won nine in a row since Fran Curci’s 1977 Wildcats won their final nine games en route to a 10-1 season.
The loss to No. 14 Ole Miss kept UK from winning a third straight game over a ranked foe for the first time since Curci’s 1977 Cats beat No. 17 West Virginia, No. 4 Penn State and No. 16 LSU in order.
Earlier this season, UK beat No. 12 Florida and finished the 2021 season with a win over No. 15 Iowa in the VRBO Citrus Bowl.
Fashion police
For its fifth game of 2022, Kentucky wore white helmets, white jerseys with blue letters and numbers and white pants.
The loss was the first for UK in the last four games in which it has worn all white.
This story was originally published October 1, 2022 at 3:38 PM.
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