In one of the uglier losses for Kentucky football over the past few seasons, there weren't many positive takeaways.

Here are five things we learned about UK's football team in the tough defeat.

Kentucky's run game has declined significantly ... This is just not the same physical football team offensively that UK fans have grown accustomed to seeing. The lack of a passing game doesn't help, but UK hasn't exactly had a great passing game to take pressure off the run game for a while. As talented and experienced as the offensive line is, they aren't blowing open as many holes as everyone expected they would. Kentucky had 115 rushing yards on 28 carries, but Chris Rodriguez's 44 yard run at the end of the game and Lynn Bowden's 26-yarder were over half of that total.

UK's rep as a "line of scrimmage program" is taking a bit of a hit on both sides of the ball ... Last year Kentucky had its best run defense in some time. This year appears to be a different story. While Florida couldn't get much going on the ground, Mississippi State had two 100-yard rushers and the Gamecocks, who had 493 rushing yards against Charleston Southern but not much against anyone else until Saturday, rushed for 247 yards and three touchdowns against Kentucky.

The defense played its collective heart out and that effort shouldn't be overlooked ... In spite of South Carolina's rushing yardage total, Kentucky's defense got no help from the offense and still only surrendered 24 points. When we're deciding where this performance ranks among UK's worst in recent memory, it would be helpful to remember that this wasn't exactly an all system's fail effort. This was mostly the offense doing nothing.

Kentucky doesn't have a great answer for the quarterback situation ... Lynn Bowden could take over behind center and provide a completely different look for opposing defenses, but he hasn't been a quarterback since high school, isn't fully trained in the offensive playbook as a signal caller, and one would think that the lack of the passing dimension with him behind center would make it easier for opposing defenses to key in on. It might be their best bet in the short term, but there aren't good answers at quarterback. Sawyer Smith had to play through injury, clearly less than 100-percent, and the staff doesn't think Walker Wood or Amani Gilmore are ready.

There's only one sure-fire win left on the schedule ... It's too early to say Kentucky can't win a few more games, because there are a number of weak opponents still on the schedule. But there's a real chance Arkansas will be a favorite at Kroger Field two Saturdays from now and our take on Kentucky's floor from the preseason should be reevaluated.