The Kentucky Wildcats suffered their second loss of the year in a convincing 41-3 defeat at the hands of unranked LSU Tigers in Death Valley Saturday night. The loss dropped Kentucky to 5-2 on the season, 2-2 in the SEC and 0-2 in road games in 2014.

Here are the five biggest takeaways from the Wildcats’ crushing defeat:

1. Although it may not seem like it, Saturday’s loss will benefit Kentucky in the future. The Wildcats had never faced circumstances like they did Saturday night, and those circumstances got the best of them. A night game in Death Valley can be a struggle even for veteran teams, and it was obvious Kentucky’s youth was overwhelmed by the hostile environment and the speed of a perennial NFL factory in LSU. This won’t be the last time Stoops Troops play a difficult road game against a quality opponent, and Saturday’s lopsided loss was a learning experience for these Wildcats to dwell on when faced with similar circumstances in the future. A 5-1 record was nice, but learning how to handle top-tier teams on the road will allow Kentucky to make 5-1 starts a regular occurrence going forward.

2. Kentucky tried to do too much against LSU, and deviating from its strengths cost the team. Kentucky tried to keep the LSU defense off balance by giving a lot of different looks on offense and by getting the ball to a lot of different players early in the game. The LSU defense looked as fast as any defense Kentucky has faced all year, so the concept of changing things up to keep the defense guessing was not totally absurd. However, it seemed as though Kentucky was confusing itself as much as it was the Tigers, which ended up holding the offense back. LSU struggled to stop the run early in the season, yet the Cats only called a handful of traditional run plays in the first half when the game was still close. It ran some WildKemp packages with Jojo Kemp (Boom Williams ran the Wildcat package too), but LSU’s defense wasn’t fooled. It ran a few different kinds of screens to Ryan Timmons, Williams and Demarco Robinson, but, again, the Tigers continued to beat Kentucky’s blockers to open space. Had the Wildcats stuck to their normal offensive strategies, it might have been a totally different game, but you can’t fault the UK coaches for taking a risk.

3. The Cats special teams had their worst performance of the year. LSU beat Kentucky in every phase of the special teams, and it wasn’t even close. The Tigers ran the opening kickoff back 49 yards to set up a touchdown on their opening drive, ran a punt back for a touchdown later in the first quarter, and recovered a bizarre onside kick late in the first half to sneak one more field goal in before the intermission. That’s 17 first half points allowed by the special teams alone. Kentucky had a mere one punt return yard, and none of its three kickoff returns made it any further than a touchback would have placed the ball. The Wildcats started drives deep in their own end of the field for most of the first half, limiting an already struggling offense even further. It was a special teams nightmare for a Kentucky team that hadn’t struggled in that area of the game much in the first half of the season, and special teams are a big reason the Cats lost the game.

4. Somehow, Patrick Towles played another turnover-free game. Aside from his three interceptions in a triple-overtime loss to Florida in the Swamp, Towles has just one interception in his six other starts this season. He did not turn the ball over a single time against LSU, and although it didn’t seem to impact the outcome of the game, it is still a promising sign for the future to see a first-time starter protect the ball the way he did in Death Valley. Towles had to escape a heavy pass rush by scrambling through his own end zone multiple times during the game, and he never made a costly error in those situations. As Kentucky’s talent develops and matures, having a quarterback who protects the football will make that offensive progression all the easier.

5. Kentucky is not a true SEC East contender, at least not this year. I saved this takeaway for last to try and spare Kentucky fans from further pain, but it needs to be discussed. Kentucky still has a tremendous chance at reaching a bowl game, needing just one win in its final five contests to earn bowl eligibility. However, at 5-2 with two SEC losses, winning the East seems impossible at this point. Kentucky still has two games remaining against top 1o teams in Mississippi State and Georgia, and neither of those games will be easy. The Wildcats’ other three teams remaining on the schedule — Missouri, Tennessee and Louisville — are all road games, and Kentucky is 0-2 on the road this season despite a 5-0 record at home. Last night’s game proved Kentucky is talented but raw and undeveloped, and those aren’t the makings of a division title-winning team. The Cats have taken a big step forward this year and will continue to progress under Mark Stoops going forward, and they could win the East in a year or two, but this year is not the year.