Rapid Reaction: Kentucky's defense makes history in win over Mississippi State
A week after getting shredded by Ole Miss QB Matt Corral, Kentucky had a chance to flip the script against Mississippi State QB KJ Costello. Mission accomplished. The Wildcats’ defense stood tall in UK’s 24-2 win over MSU and former UK offensive coordinator Mike Leach’s Air Raid attack.
It was the first time in Leach’s 19-year career as a head coach that his offense did not score. The game ended, fittingly, with an interception, Kentucky’s 6th of the night.
After a scoreless 1st quarter, Kentucky got on the board when senior QB Terry Wilson found sophomore TE Keaton Upshaw on a 12-yard scoring strike with 12:13 to play in the 2nd quarter. That pass was set up by a 51-yard run from Wilson. Those plays were rare offensive highlights for UK on a week when the Wildcats had 100 total yards early in the 4th quarter.
Kentucky improved on its 7-0 lead late in the 2nd quarter when linebacker Josh Paschal dropped into coverage and nabbed a Costello pass at the UK 20. With only green grass ahead of him, the 280-pound Paschal rumbled 78 yards to the MSU 2. On the following play, sophomore RB Chris Rodriguez rumbled into the end zone to extend the Kentucky lead to 14-0. On the final play of the half, UK ended an MSU drive when linebacker Jamin Davis corralled a Costello pass in the end zone.
The teams traded turnovers early in the 3rd quarter, with LSU transfer Kelvin Joseph grabbing his first interception of the season for Kentucky. Midway through the 3rd quarter, Kentucky long snapper Cade Degraw snapped the ball well over the head of punter Max Duffy, who chased it down and booted the ball through his own end zone for a safety that got MSU on the board.
State was threatening early in the 4th quarter, but Kentucky nabbed another interception, with linebacker Jamar Watson ending the MSU threat. Later in the quarter, UK linebacker Jordan Wright grabbed an 8-yard pick-6 for the final margin.
After Kentucky’s offense was brilliant last week, the UK offensive attack struggled against State. MSU outgained Kentucky, but Kentucky meanwhile flipped the script on a -4 turnover margin entering the game. Kentucky’s now in the odd position of being 0-2 when outgaining the opposing offense, and 1-0 when being outgained.
While Costello again completed a high percentage of passes, Kentucky did a good job limiting yards after the catch, and also benefited from 4 interceptions from Costello. Backup QB Will Rogers entered the game in the 3rd quarter but also struggled to move the offense before adding to the turnover parade.
The Wildcats picked up their first win of the season ahead of next week’s matchup at 2-1 Tennessee. After 3 weeks, only Vanderbilt remains winless in the SEC, while only Alabama and Georgia are unbeaten. For Kentucky, the outlook at 1-2 still features the opportunity to wreak havoc on an already unpredictable SEC season.
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Lol sweet jesus. Hard to even be mad at this point, that was so bad it’s almost comical. 4 picks for KJ, should have been two pick sixs but instead was just the one. KJ has 11 turn overs in three games. He shouldn’t start another game.
Time to declare this season a lost cause and get Rogers as many reps as we can for next year. What a shame too, because this defense is really, REALLY good. Kentucky only got 10 points by driving the field. They scored 41 on Ole Miss.
Wow is LSU awful, apparently.
Also, I know it’s too early as it has only been three games, but I want to point out again that I didn’t want Leach, I wanted Bill Clark.
Hahahahaha you’re an idiot
Lol hey bud, missed you.
Thanks for making our fan base look like trash like you constantly do
come back to bed, I’m cold
Bu bu buuuu you said State would win hahahaha. Your picks are awful per usual
Imagine getting mad at somebody for thinking their team would beat Kentucky at football. What hubris!
Lol mad?
Hard to argue with any of what Coozie says. He wasn’t my first choice either, but I was hoping Leach was smarter than he’s appearing. The Ark game reminded me of Mooehead but this effort looks more like a Croom team. The AD is really beginning to look bad with his hires. Leach needs to incorporate about half of Mullen’s old playbook into his offense. What’s the old saying about there are 3 things that can hapopen when you pass the ball and 2 of them are bad? If the offense stays this one dimensional, we are looking at one of the worst seasons in MSU history. Maybe I should thank Moorehead and Leach for making me care less about football because this is too painful to watch. Vany MIGHT be a win but I’d hate to bet on it just now. 2-8. Some much for a bowl.
You’re just talking about interceptions. Don’t forget the fumbles.
This game is basically ireffutable proof that Brad White mad defensive adjustments after last week’s game, while Eddie Gran made zero offensive adjustments. It may be Leach’s first year at State, but he’s proved plenty of times including already this year that his offense can put up great numbers. So for our defense to do what it did is pretty promising.
On the flip side, Miss. State’s defense kept Eddie Gran confused the entire game. Or he’s just stubborn and refuses to change his playcalling and what QB he wants on the field.
If you’re one of the people trumpeting a QB change, then honestly go kick rocks. There’s no good reason at all to scrub Wilson.
Now with Rose, I am driving the bus to start Rodriguez. Rose has a good mix of talents but has proven time and again to fumble too much. Let Rod eat.
If we want to truly compete Terry ain’t the guy. I’ve rooted for him and will support whoever, but Terry’s ceiling is not up to code
I was the first to Rodriguez the best last year on one of these stories.
And I’m right about the QB situation too. When one isn’t getting it done for over half the game, you sub in the other to see what difference it might make. Maybe Wilson is the one, but nobody can say they know for sure after these first 3 games.
The problem is that Eddie Gran is either too stupid or too stubborn to change anything, just like making Rodriguez do nothing for large chunks of the game tonight, when he was the guy actually making positive yardage.
I’ve been a supporter of Terry for a while, but I don’t think he makes good decisions in the passing game. As to your statement about ‘no good reason to scrub Wilson’ you obviously didn’t look at his passing stats from tonight’s game: 8 of 20 for 73 yards. Yes, that is a good reason to open up the QB competition. I’m not saying just bench Terry for the rest of the season, but if the offense keeps stalling due to short completions or incomplete passes then it is time to give Gatewood or Allen some real game time and not mop pup duty.
As for the running back situation, I’m in agreement with you about starting Rodriguez, and have been since late last year.
Yet Wilson was 14/18 last week? He is fine. And more than obviously, and emotional leader on the team.
Jared Lorenzen and Tim Couch are walking through that door. Kentucky fans need to get that. Gatewood or Allen may be that one day but they aren’t now.
I’m gonna have to respectfully disagree with that. Wilson can’t throw the ball down the field consistenly, and as we saw tonight, that’s a recipe for disaster against teams that are good against defending the run. We had a very hard time driving the ball down the field against MSU, and our defense undoubtedly won that game big time. Rodriguez should start over Rose, no questions asked. Rose fumbles way too much for a 5th year senior. We had a good offensive game overall against Ole Miss because their defense is terrible. However, while our defense looked bad against Ole Miss, in reality they weren’t that bad since Ole Miss’ offense put up 650 total yards tonight against Alabama. Ole Miss’ offense is just really, really good and our defense getting 6 interceptions and 7 total turnovers tonight is more than a bounce back.
Eddie Gran calls read options, screens, and draws instead of passes because he doesn’t trust Wilson to throw the ball. Wilson will overthrow it, throw it behind the receiver, or completely miss the receiver oftentimes. I like Terry Wilson, he’s a great guy and emotional leader, as you said, but him not being able to throw the ball consistently down the field or make smart decisions in the passing game is a big problem. Kentucky hasn’t had a reliable passing game for almost 3 seasons, and you could make the argument it’s been even longer than that. In situations like tonight where we don’t find success running the ball and we continue to run it every single play against a good run defense, Gran HAS to put in Gatewood or Allen who can throw it so we can stay in the game. Running the ball every single time won’t work against Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and other decent SEC teams. We won’t be facing an Ole Miss defense every single week. While I can agree with the assertion we don’t need to bench Wilson, we most definitely need to be bringing in our passing QBs more to remain competitive. I’d like someone who can throw the ball a lot better than Wilson to be our starter next year, even if it comes at the expense of having a less agile QB, because Smoke and Rodriguez will both be back next season.
Good win Cats! It’s now obvious that rushing 3 and dropping 8 is the key to stopping the Air Raid.
The blueprint!
Lol yep. Seems it really is that easy. Our offense is useless against any team with a coordinator not named Bo Pellini.
Our game against vandy will end in a 10-2 win in 8 OT after State accidentally deflects the ball away from a defender into the hands of a WR who gets scared and tries to hide in the end zone.
Man I’m not rubbing it in, but when Munme was here we’d beat Soith Carolina 57-34 then lose to Tennessee and Florida 53-7. Gimmicks don’t work in this conference.
It’s not gimmicks. It’s Leach. He so f’n stubborn. He should be an OC, not a Head Coach, b/c a head coach still has the humility to lay down his pride and make adjustments.
Yep. Part of why I didn’t want Leach, but here we are.
I bet LSU does it next year! Lol
Wish our D-Coord had watched film and used it THIS yr! Lol.
Y’all should leave that dude in Missouri.
You LSU tards were so convinced that losing Brady & Aranda would mean nothing…bwhahahahahaha!!!
@auphinlhan: Don’t know if you’ve been watching but our Offense is still elite. You clowns said losing Brady would kill our offense. It hasn’t. They’re performing at a high level.
Will admit that Aranda appears to be a more substantial loss than anticipated. I liked the Bo hire. He routinely had top 5 Defs while at LSU before. I think going from a 3-4 to a 4-3 with not having time to fully implement it is an issue. But Bo simply isn’t making adjustments.
Still, I’ll take our current issues of figuring out how to get 4 and 5* Def players to lineup properly over that erratic short-bus ride you Auburn “tards” are experiencing with Gus….
Hahaha I love when our “fans” get brought back to reality.
Whatever the f that means.
You start Cedrick Dort over Joseph and the D wakes up! Congrats to Joseph for his okay. It we reset the tone! Win next week and we’re still live!
Thank God someone had a good defensive effort today. The SEC looked like the f-ing Big 12 this weekend. There are some defensive coordinators that should be jobless by next week, but I guarantee all of them will still be coaching their next games. Offense is fun to watch, but turning into a slightly better version of the Big 12 is just embarrassing.
Who needs defense when the air raid is so fun to watch?!
Congrats, Wildcats.
Nothing to do with this game, but this is a crazy year in the SEC. I can’t remember this much parity or unpredictability or whatever you want to call it. Would not surprise me if Alabama loses a game or two. After watching them against Ole Miss, I think the only thing we can be sure of is that Vandy is 14th.
Vandy? Don’t count Miss State out yet.
We can be sure that LSU is terrible..
Hasn’t KJ Costello made history by now? 14 turnovers in three games HAS to be some sort of record.
Mike Henig had 6 picks in one game, and I doubt Costello can top that. He shows the potential though.
Mike Henig will forever be the worst QB at State. Croom recruited him because the threw an interception in high school and showed hustle running him down to tackle him. Lowest bar ever.
LOL
Good job Cats! It wasn’t pretty, but it was a win.
I know many Kentucky fans are enamored with the shiny new toy and want to move on from Terry, but as someone who was at the game and saw the routes develop, the struggles today were on Eddie Gran, not Terry. He didn’t play well, but outside of a couple missed short passes it was not his fault most of the time. Kentucky looks running the veer mesh, but MSU sold out to stop it. That didn’t stop Eddie from repeatedly calling it and it going nowhere. The passing game consisted of screens and bombs, very few intermediate pass plays were called. Those intermediate pass plays were there the whole game and he did well the few times they were called (see the three PA passes to each of the TEs that resulted in a TD, a first down, and a drop). But Eddie kept calling the veer mesh, it would get blown up, and then UK would have to throw deep.
There’s no other way to say, but you’re pretty naive if you think Gatewood will come in and be a better passer.
Defensively, UK gave MSU 4-5 yard completions every play and bet that Costello wouldn’t be disciplined enough to take them. Had he, UK would’ve eventually had to cover it (4-5 every play equals first downs) and then he could’ve thrown downfield (see Kyle Trask in the Florida game last year). Great game, but Leach needs a more disciplined QB for his system to work in the SEC
This right here! What brainesman said in his last paragraph!
The fault has been with Gran from the start. His play calling and schemes didn’t win for us the past two years, Snell and Bowden led us to victory with pure guts and determination.
He’s too stubborn to try anything outside his few bubble screens and running attacks. Gatewood may not be the answer, but Wilson isn’t getting the job done, either through lack of ability or just as likely lack of coaching.
I’d agree with that. If we had anything but a turnover king for a QB, UK may not have won. In fact Kentucky is kind of in the same boat as Mississippi State a pretty solid defense but a questionable offense.
The big difference between the UK and State is identity. Everyone knows UK is going to run QB draws and bootlegs mixed with off-tackle misdirection runs. State? What is their identity besides turning the ball over and no experience or big arm at the QB spot or in the bullpen?
You all are missing the point. It has nothing to do with five-yard cushions it has more to do with decision making. The last pick-six by KJ was within the five-yard range!
Let’s see.. we run for 400 and lose but only 140 total offense and win. That was a weird game. At least we beat somebody.
Game 1: Costello sets the world on fire
Game 2: Costello comes back to earth trying to play the same game vs. a different (and more appropriate) defense.
Game 3: Costello starts really pressing, trying to recapture the magic.
Game 4: Maybe he and Leach figure it out? This offense is not as good as it looked vs. LSU, but it’s not as bad as it has looked the last two weeks. Take what the defense gives you. Stop auditioning for the NFL and just do your job on each play. (/clichés)
If you think that the problem is just taking what the defense is giving the offense, then let’s talk in two weeks and see if you feel the same way!
Welcome to the SEC Coach Leach :-)
The UK-MSU game was very strange, as well as most all of the other SEC games. Welcome to 2020…