Stock watch: Who’s rising, who’s falling after Kentucky football’s loss at Ole Miss

Kentucky football’s record is no longer unblemished.

But even in a 22-19 loss at Ole Miss characterized by self-inflicted mistakes there were some positive developments for the Wildcats.

“We’ve still got everything that we want on the table for us,” quarterback Will Levis said after the loss. “Just gotta take it one week, one game, one day at a time. I’m really proud of the way guys battled today. We had a lot of guys banged up. We showed that we can win games like this, that we should win games like this.

“So we’re obviously doing this right, and we’ve just got to keep trusting the preparation.”

Kentucky will likely be favored in upcoming home games against South Carolina and Mississippi State, but some of the issues on display in Oxford will need to be fixed to feel comfortable about either outcome. Mark Stoops and company will also need to build on the positive steps taken at Ole Miss to win those games and carry momentum into what looks like a pivotal trip to Tennessee to close October.

The weekly stock watch examines what is trending up and what is trending down for the Wildcats.

RISING

Barion Brown: The freshman wide receiver introduced himself to the college football world with a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in his debut, but he has become a more active part of the offense in the last two weeks.

Against Ole Miss, Brown totaled two catches for 81 yards. In his last two games, Brown has six catches for 232 yards and two touchdowns.

“Every week, we’re trying to find different ways to get him the ball because he’s a great player and definitely player of the game today,” Levis said. “He made a bunch of plays, both on kickoff return and offensively. He would have won us that game with the play he made on that screen. Just gotta find ways to get him the ball.”

Brown just missed returning two more kickoffs for touchdowns. One, he returned 85 yards to set up Kentucky’s first touchdown. Another, he returned 54 yards and was only stopped when he was tripped by a teammate.

It looked like Brown might put the Wildcats ahead on what ended up being a 51-yard catch-and-run on a screen pass on the final UK drive, too.

The encouraging news for Kentucky is there is room for even more big plays from Brown. He was targeted on three other deep balls that were just fractions off from becoming game-changing plays. Two of the deep passes, including one on the first play of the final drive, were close enough for Brown to get a hand on.

“We felt like we had a couple opportunities,” Stoops said. “He missed the one there late on the last drive, as well. Just out of reach. And he’ll continue to work on that. I expect him to make that play. I’ve seen him make it in practice.”

The run game: The return of star running back Chris Rodriguez from a four-game suspension did not return Kentucky to its former run-first approach, but it did provide a threat the offense had lacked in the season’s first month.

“It was great having him back,” offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello said. “He ran tough. I love him. He’s just got the right mindset. He made a big difference today, and he just has a physicality that you appreciate and value being on the field.”

Rodriguez finished the game with 19 plays for 72 yards and one touchdown. On multiple occasions Rodriguez pounded through tackles to turn what looked like a nothing play into a productive gain. He also added three catches for 40 yards.

As expected, there was also some rust on display as Rodriguez tallied nine carries for 45 yards in the first half and 10 carries for just 27 yards in the second half.

“I thought he did some good things,” Stoops said. “… I don’t want to say he’s out of shape, but there’s just a difference in playing games when you’re amped up. I could tell it was wearing on him a little bit late in the game.”

FALLING

Kicking: Matt Ruffolo was included in the rising section of last week’s stock watch, but his 2020 Ole Miss nightmares returned with a missed 39-yard field goal attempt and a blocked extra-point attempt. Another extra-point try failed after a bad snap and hold prevented Ruffolo from even making an attempt.

“We left five points on the board right there,” Stoops said.

Ruffolo cannot be blamed for the snaps — backup snapper Clay Perry played in the second half — but one has to wonder if the talk about his 2020 missed extra-point in overtime in a one-point loss to Ole Miss leading up to this week’s game affected his confidence.

First-quarter play: Even in its 4-0 start, Kentucky was struggling to jump out to early leads. That trend continued in Oxford as Ole Miss gained an early 14-0 advantage before UK scored its first points.

In five first quarters this season, UK has now been outscored 31-20. While Kentucky was able to overcome its slow starts in the first four games, it felt like only a matter of time before always playing catch up proved too much to overcome.

That happened Saturday.

Kentucky’s defense has surrendered three or fewer points in the second half in four of five games this season. The team’s ability to make halftime adjustments is impressive, but a faster start would help lessen the pressure on Will Levis and the offense.

Third-down defense: Kentucky entered the game ranked seventh nationally in third-down defense (23.6%) but surrendered a season-worst 7 of 14 conversions on third down.

“Where I thought where we were the most poor today was third down,” defensive coordinator Brad White said. “It was things that we practiced. That’s where it’s a little bit frustrating. It’s not like it was anything we didn’t know was coming.”

White was particularly annoyed that Ole Miss converted 2 of 5 third-and-long situations. That success appeared to play into the thinking of Stoops when he declined a holding penalty on a third-and-23 play in the second quarter.

Instead of backing Ole Miss up another 10 yards for a second third-down attempt, Stoops elected to take the result of the play to force a fourth down. Rebels kicker Jonathan Cruz made him pay for that decision with a 53-yard field goal that just cleared the crossbar.

“We didn’t do well enough on third-and-long,” White said. “We’ve got to be cleaner in that area. We’ll go back and get that fixed. That’s not been an area of concern up to this point.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with the tempo or anything in that regard. We were just not clean enough from a coverage standpoint behind it, especially in that middle, intermediate.”