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Thank goodness we won't be seeing Anthony Dixon again.

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Well, I know we have some pretty unhappy Wildcat football fans around the Commonwealth today, and your humble correspondent is one of them.  I truly hate to see UK drop homecoming games to opponents that they should beat (note:  that is not a knock against Mississippi St.'s terrific effort yesterday, they were plenty good enough to beat us sight unseen), if only due to home field advantage, but it is what it is.  We win one on the Plains, and we drop one to the Dawgs.  That's football in the SEC.

So were do we go from here?  Well, I think our two coordinators need to do some serious soul-searching about their respective theories of football, and learn to make better in-game adjustments.  The coaching staff is an important part of any football team, and in yesterday's game, I think they really let the team down.  I could go on and on about this, but I won't, both out of respect to the team and to the fine job that Brooks & Co. have done and continue to do.  This just wasn't their finest hour.  It happens to us all.

From looking backward to looking forward, we have a much-inferior opponent in Eastern Kentucky University coming in to Commonwealth Stadium next week.  With that said, and UK coming off this bitter defeat, I expect the Wildcats to play true to their name versus the Colonels.  We'll have more on that later in the week.

But if UK cannot beat Eastern, the rest of this season means little, so I will do the uncharacteristic and look past EKU to Vanderbilt.  Vandy just lost what was mostly a pretty competitive game to top 15 Georgia Tech.  That game is make-or-break for Kentucky, as the last two games of the season bring us in front of Georgia between the hedges, and hosting a resurgent Tennessee team that crushed South Carolina on Rocky Top yesterday.  Not exactly the kind of games, given last night's performance, that inspire confidence.

Let's complete our look behind us with today's news about the game.

• Kentucky postgame notes | Vaught's Views

• Cobb questions UK’s emotion, effort | Vaught's Views
  Well, I suppose he can't criticize the coaching like we can. And if this team is whipped physically now, our prospects of more than one more win are significantly diminished. This is a tough stretch, but the 'Cats are teetering on the brink of disaster mentally. The coaching staff too, it seems. Time to man up.

• Kentucky Sports Radio " Blog Archive " Thirty Thousand UK Offensive Coordinators Agree: Moar Cobb Please
  Fake Gimel has a look back at the game.

• " Post-game thoughts on loss to Mississippi State John Clay’s Sidelines
  John Clay has some very cogent thoughts about yesterday's game. I can't find much to disagree with.

• Cats don't go to Cobb in key situation | courier-journal.com | The Courier-Journal
  In defending the decision not to insert Cobb at quarterback in the fourth quarter, Phillips noted that Newton scored UK's second touchdown of the night on an 11-yard run in the second quarter.
  
  "He's the same kind of guy (as Cobb), just a little more beef," Phillips said.
  
  Oh, puuleaaze. Phillips, there is no excuse for that decision. It was brain-dead. Just own up to it, and have done. Good grief.
  
  Sorry for all the criticism, and I understand that things that look dumb in retrospect sometimes seem like a good idea at the time. All I ask is for people not to defend the indefensible. We all make errors in judgment, it happens. But don't defend errors, admit them, learn from them and move on. Not getting Cobb, the 5th best player in the SEC in all-purpose yards and the guy who led us to victory at Auburn, the ball even once in the fourth quarter barring injury cannot be rationally defended. Period.

• Wildcats get run over | KentuckySports.com
  "You've got to give him credit; he ended up being a lot better than we thought," UK defensive coordinator Steve Brown said. "He's a daggone-good back. For someone to be able to rush for that many yards, we've got to take a close look at what we're doing schematically and personnel-wise."
  
  Sigh. Ya think?

• MSU running game whistling Dixon | KentuckySports.com
  The offense Mullen called for Meyer at Florida was built on misdirection. On Saturday night, Mississippi State ran counter plays with Dixon repeatedly.
  
  Kentucky couldn't stop it.
  
  "All day. All day. It was unbelievable," Brown said of MSU's success with the counter play. "We didn't do a good job of making it bounce east and west. It seemed like it was always going downhill on us."
  
  Hey, Brown, here's a hint -- try the 4-3 next time -- you know, the defense that served us so well all year?

• UK's 'Wildcat' was on endangered list | KentuckySports.com
  "We're in a position where because the Wildcat had been successful, and it wasn't successful tonight, so we decided not to use it," said UK Coach Rich Brooks. "When we don't use it, we open ourselves up to be second-guessed on it. And I can second-guess myself on it as well."
  
  AAARRGGHH! Second guess my gluteus maximus -- let Cobb throw the dang ball out of the Wildcat and it will work fine. Here's a hint, coach -- the only thing that makes UK's Wildcat such a threat is Cobb's ability to throw!

• Two Steps Back, Kentucky falls 31-24 " Ninety Percent Scar Tissue- Ramblings of a Cubs fan
  Pretty much hits the nail on the head, if you ask me.