Will Rogers tied Dak Prescott’s school record for career touchdown passes.

But he came up short in his attempt to break the record.

And that was the theme of No. 16 Mississippi State’s 27-17 loss at No. 22 Kentucky on Saturday night.

The Bulldogs came up short in virtually every area.

They did so by failing to meet the level to which they had been performing in winning 5 of the previous 6 games.

Rogers had averaged nearly 4 touchdown passes a game, but managed just 1 against the Wildcats in matching Prescott’s record of 70.

He also had an interception after not throwing any in the past 3 games. The 1 TD/1 INT line matched his output in the Bulldogs’ other loss – a 31-16 setback at LSU in their SEC opener.

Rogers managed just 203 passing yards, 11 fewer than his previous low this season in the LSU game. It was the 2nd-lowest total in a game he started in 3 seasons.

The shortcomings of Rogers and the passing game were the most glaring, but far from the only ones.

Much of State’s success had been the result of improved balance on offense.

It was just 7 days earlier, in a 40-17 rout of Arkansas, that the Bulldogs had a 100-yard rusher for the 1st time in Leach’s 3 seasons. Dillon Johnson finished with exactly 100 yards (on 17 carries) that day. State finished with its most rushing yards during Leach’s tenure (173).

Against Kentucky, the Bulldogs had their fewest rushing attempts for Leach (10). They netted a mere 22 yards.

They weren’t effective rushing, then they fell behind, then they gave up on the run. Instead of rushing and passing well in complementary fashion as they had been doing most of the season, they were ineffective in both.

State’s ineptitude was best illustrated by a sequence at the end of the 1st half.

They faced a 4th-and-8 at the Wildcats 35. Leach chose not to try a 53-yard field goal even though Massimo Biscardi had made a season-long 48-yarder earlier in the quarter for the game’s only points at that juncture.

Leach could have punted to back up the Kentucky offense, but that’s not his nature. So he trusted Rogers to get the 1st down, but Rogers threw an incompletion and Kentucky took over. The Wildcats had just 47 seconds to try to get into scoring range. But their challenge became much easier with significant help from the Bulldogs.

State committed defensive holding twice and unnecessary roughness once, handing Kentucky 35 of the 55 yards it traveled to kick a tying field goal. (For good measure the Bulldogs, who finished with 13 penalties for 109 yards, were also offside on the field goal).

Rogers got his record-tying touchdown pass with a connection with Austin Williams from 1 yard out for a brief 3rd-quarter lead. The defense chipped in a score on a pick-6 by Emmanuel Forbes.

Forbes, like Rogers, tied a record. It was his 5th career interception return for a touchdown, tying the SEC mark held by Tennessee’s Jackie Matthews (1969-1971).

But the defense came up short as well.

It allowed more than twice as many yards as Kentucky (478-225). That disparity helped the Wildcats possess the ball for 39 minutes, 22 seconds.

State had won 3 games in a row, including back-to-back SEC wins against Texas A&M and Arkansas, because Rogers was ultra-efficient and the rushing game was complementary, as was the defense.

But in all of those areas, the Bulldogs came up short of the standard they had established – just as Rogers came up short of his standard in his attempt to surpass Prescott.