Kentucky Football: Paul Finebaum Calls MSST Game A Must Win

College football analyst Paul Finebaum said what everyone around Lexington has been thinking: the Kentucky football team needs to defeat Mississippi State.

The Kentucky football program will square off against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at 7:30 p.m. on the SEC Network. The game will feature two teams in dire need of a victory as they pursue a bowl game appearance.

If the 3-3 Wildcats hope to reach six wins, then defeating Mississippi State will be a necessary task.

Kentucky has won three of its past four games, but it has a long road to an elusive bowl game. There are two ranked opponnets remaining on the schedule, as well as three road games against SEC opponents.

Per Joe Mussatto of SEC Country, college football analyst Paul Finebaum stressed how important it is for Kentucky to win this game.

To keep people engaged you have to win right now. You can’t lose a game like this and have people believe you’re going to beat Tennessee and beat other schools on the schedule. Yeah, it’s a, I don’t want to say it’s a defining game for Mark Stoops. I think that’s overstatement. I think he has been able to stabilize it. But I will say this, I think it would be a big setback. It would be a major setback if the Cats lost.

That’s about as accurate a take as one could have on the current subject matter.

The Wildcats need to keep fans and potential opponents engaged by winning the games it should win. Losing to the Louisville Cardinals or Tennessee Volunteers would be forgivable based on talent, but Kentucky shouldn’t enter those games as an afterthought.

By defending home turf and defeating Mississippi State, the Wildcats would go a long way towards establishing themselves as a threat.

Kentucky has a running game that has the potential to rank amongst the best in the country. Boom Williams and Benny Snell Jr. are producing at star-caliber levels, and Jojo Kemp has nine rushing touchdowns over his past 16 appearances.

The passing attack has simply been too inconsistent for that three-headed monster to establish itself against elite opponents.

Stephen Johnson has thrown for a combined 273 passing yards over the past three weeks—an average of 91.0 per game. He threw for 89 yards against Alabama, and had 49 yards and an interception on 10-of-24 passing against Vanderbilt.

Kentucky has still won three of its past four games, but it cannot become complacent.

Kentucky must stabilize its passing attack and defeat Mississippi State.