Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 27-17 win over Mississippi State

Five things you need to know from No. 22 Kentucky’s 27-17 win over No. 16 Mississippi State in SEC football at Kroger Field:

1. A vintage “C-Rod” performance. In a pivotal game in the UK season, Kentucky star running back Christopher Rodriguez turned in one of the best games of his stellar career.

With UK needing to control the ball and keep the prolific MSU offense off the field, Rodriguez repeatedly punished Bulldogs defenders, driving through tackles for more yards. The 5-foot-11, 224-pound redshirt senior ran for 196 yards and two touchdowns.

The second of his TDs, a 7-yard run with 5:30 left in the game, saw C-Rod power through what seemed the entire Mississippi State defense to record the game-sealing score.

The 196 yards pushed the career total of Rodriguez to 3,134. That moved him past Rafael Little (2,996) for fourth on the all-time UK rushing list and made “C-Rod” only the fourth Kentucky rusher to exceed 3,000 yards in his career.

Next up on the all-time Kentucky rushing list is Moe Williams (1993-95) with 3,333 yards in third.

2. Will Levis returns. After missing last week’s loss to South Carolina with a left foot injury, the Kentucky QB returned with his own gutty effort.

As has been his fate in 2022, Levis took several hard shots from opposing pass rushers. Included was one that appeared to injure his left shoulder and forced Levis to briefly leave the playing field for the UK locker room.

Just as Stephen Johnson did against Tennessee in 2017, Levis ran back onto the field with his helmet on to a rousing crowd reaction.

Levis completed 17 of 23 passes for 230 yards and a touchdown with one interception. The TD came on a fourth-and-goal play from the MSU 4, a strike that became the first touchdown reception of Rahsaan Lewis’s UK career.

After Mississippi State’s Emmanuel Forbes jumped a Levis screen-pass attempt and returned it 59 yards for a touchdown to pull the Bulldogs within 20-17 with 8:33 left in the game, the Kentucky quarterback was unbowed.

With UK facing third-and-4 from its own 43, Levis stood in against two blitzers and hit former Frederick Douglass High School star Dekel Crowdus with a 50-yard pass that set up the game-clinching TD by Rodriguez.

Levis is now 15-4 as the Kentucky starting QB.

3. Offensive line steps up. The much-maligned Kentucky offensive line played its best game of 2022 so far.

UK surrendered only one sack, its lowest total of the season, and four tackles for loss.

Against an MSU 3-3-5 defensive scheme that had thwarted Kentucky two straight years, the UK offensive line opened some big holes in the running game.

Kentucky finished the game with 239 rushing yards on 48 carries.

4. Brad White wins rubber match with Mike Leach. Two years ago, the Kentucky defense coordinated by White held Leach’s version of the Air Raid without a TD and intercepted six passes in a 24-2 UK win.

Last season, MSU QB Will Rogers completed 36 of 39 passes for 344 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions as the Bulldogs dominated Kentucky 31-17.

On Saturday night, it was White’s “D” that controlled the game.

Kentucky held the nation’s fourth-leading passing team — averaging 354.7 yards through the air entering the contest — to 203 yards and gave up only one defensive TD.

UK super-senior linebacker DeAndre Square led the Wildcats’ defensive effort with 11 tackles, half of a TFL and the game-clinching interception with 4:01 left in the game.

5. Home cooking. The home-field advantage is alive and well in the Kentucky-Mississippi State football series. With UK’s victory, the home team has now won every UK-MSU game since 2015.

The last road win in the Kentucky-Mississippi State series came in 2014, when current-Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott led the No. 1 Bulldogs to a 45-31 win over UK in the venue then known as Commonwealth Stadium.

With the victory, Mark Stoops now has a 6-16 record vs. SEC West teams. After starting 1-9 against West Division foes, Stoops has gone 5-7 since 2018.

Stoops is now 4-6 vs. Mississippi State, Kentucky’s permanent West Division opponent. Under Stoops, UK is 0-3 vs. Alabama; 1-0 vs. Arkansas; 0-2 vs. Auburn; 1-1 vs. LSU; 0-3 vs. Mississippi; and 0-1 vs. Texas A&M.

The UK head man is now 11-21 vs. ranked teams. After starting 2-12 against teams ranked in the AP Top 25 through the 2017 season, Stoops has gone 9-9 since.

Fashion police

For its sixth game of 2022, Kentucky wore blue helmets, blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and blue pants. It was the first time this season UK went with all-blue uniforms.

Last season, the Wildcats went 2-1 in all-blue, beating Missouri and Florida, but losing to Tennessee.

Kentucky is now 8-2 in all-blue since the start of the 2015 season.