Our Cats Illustrated staff offers their first impressions of Kentucky’s first SEC road trip of the season, a 28-13 loss at Mississippi State...

JUSTIN ROWLAND:

Kentucky didn't start to recover from the first quarter pick six until about halfway through the third quarter when Brandin Echols forced a turnover and UK followed that up with a touchdown march. While UK built some momentum late, MSU successfully milked the clock and the 'Cats just didn't have much margin for error. The first half was very worrisome, because it gave the appearance of Kentucky not responding well to that loss to the Gators. The second half was a more inspiring effort and there were some things for UK to build on. But this team still has to find an identity. It's not the run-heavy powerhouse it was last year. It can pass the ball better, but the throw game has had too many mistakes and too much is anticipated. A lot's riding on the South Carolina game.

TRAVIS GRAF:

The Cats’ first-half performance was the team’s biggest clunker since the Tennessee game in 2018. Kentucky started the game off by handing the Bulldogs seven free points, then proceeded to allow Mississippi State to convert one chunk yardage play after another. Kentucky consistently got behind the chains on offense, when the running backs were picking up nice yardage on every attempt. The Cats dug themselves into such a big hole that the running game couldn’t be used as much as they liked. Kentucky left a few touchdowns and a couple field goals on the board with drops and missed chip shots. The Cats didn’t lay down in the second half, they showed some fight. At the end of the day, they just couldn’t make the big plays that they needed to to win this ball game.

JEFF DRUMMOND:

Kentucky returns home with no toes after shooting all of them off in Starkville today. I don’t want to say they gave away a game because Mississippi State did a lot of nice things to earn the win, but when you drop three potential TD passes, miss two field goals, hurt yourself with undisciplined penalties, and let a quarterback run for 100-plus yards, that’s a bad day at the office. Really bad. The Cats have a lot of issues right now that need cleaned up, and there’s very little time to do it because an important road game looms next week at South Carolina. The Gamecocks will be foaming at the mouth to end their losing skid to UK, so the possibility of starting 0-3 in league play is very real for Mark Stoops’ club. He’ll need to get their heads back in the right place next week in practice.