Here are the 5 biggest takeaways from Kentucky’s 45-31 loss to No. 1 Mississippi State in Lexington:

1. Patrick Towles graduated from game-manager to star quarterback with his performance on Saturday. Towles has performed admirably this season as a first-time starter under center in the SEC, and Saturday was the best outing of his career, even in a loss. He threw for 390 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 76 yards and two more touchdowns in matching Mississippi State quarterback and Heisman contender Dak Prescott (216 pass yards, 88 rush yards, three total touchdowns) all afternoon. More importantly, Towles once again protected the football and never turned it over to the MSU defense, keeping UK within striking distance until the very end. Aside from the loss to Florida Towles has thrown just one interception all season. Towles set new career highs for passing yards, rushing yards and total touchdowns in a single game, and did it all on national television against the No. 1 team in the land. We already knew Towles could hack it in the SEC, but Saturday’s game showed he is a star in the making.

2. Kentucky must work on its tackling in practice this week. Prescott and tailback Josh Robinson have been making defenders miss all season in the Mississippi State run game, but they ran through more UK defenders than they did against any other opponent this season. Kentucky missed dozens of tackles, even missing six tackles on one Josh Robinson run in the second half of the game. The Cats were routinely in good position to limit the Bulldogs offense, but they couldn’t finish plays with sound tackles, allowing Mississippi State to eventually run up 45 points on the scoreboard. There are a handful of reasons Kentucky fell short in its upset bid Saturday, but tackling sits atop the list. Kentucky must work on its tackling this week if it hopes to compete with teams like Missouri and Georgia later this season.

3. The Wildcats’ offensive line had its worst game of the season against the Bulldogs. Mississippi State sacked Towles seven times on the afternoon, bringing their total to an SEC-leading 28 on the season. The Cats had only allowed 16 sacks in seven games entering Saturday’s action (an average of just 2.3 sacks per game), but they could not slow down a menacing Mississippi State front seven, forcing Towles to make something out of nothing with his legs time and time again. The Kentucky rushing attack wasn’t much better, rushing for 103 yards on 32 attempts, an average of just 3.2 yards per rush. The Bulldogs controlled the line of scrimmage for most of the game, and as a result Kentucky could never pull closer than seven points on the scoreboard in the second half.

4. Kentucky played as disciplined as it has all season against its best opponent so far in 2014. Not only did the Wildcats turn the ball over just one time all afternoon (a Braylon Heard fumble early in the game), they only committed three penalties for 25 yards, including zero penalties in the first half of the game. The Cats did not beat themselves, and that allowed them the opportunity to score a major upset in Lexington. Although the upset did not come to fruition, if Kentucky can remain this disciplined in protecting the football and limiting self-inflicted errors like penalties and dropped passes, it’ll have a chance to win every game remaining on its schedule, including a game against a top 10 Georgia team.

5. Saturday’s loss reinforced Kentucky’s reliance on home field advantage this season. The Wildcats are a young team, so it should come as no surprise that they’ve played much better at home (5-1) than on the road (0-2) during their 5-3 start to the year. Kentucky lost by 38 on the road against LSU last week (albeit in a night game in Death Valley), but almost beat the No. 1 team in the country inside Commonwealth Stadium just one week later. Kentucky will grow into a team that can threaten SEC foes in their home stadiums in years to come, but this season it’s obvious the young Cats are reliant on the home crowd to lift them in big conference games like the win over South Carolina and Saturday’s close loss to MSU.