STARKVILLE — Even after Mississippi State’s deflating loss at Auburn last week, Davis Wade Stadium was full of energy before kickoff Saturday night.

The Bulldogs were back home for the first time in nearly a month, it was Homecoming in Starkville, and MSU was honoring the 1998 SEC West champions — and wearing sharp throwback uniforms for the occasion. During pregame ceremonies, the crowd was as raucous as ever.

Then the game started, and MSU fans were quickly reminded that they were watching not Jackie Sherill’s ‘98 division winners, but rather the 2023 Bulldogs, who have looked spotty on offense without starting quarterback Will Rogers and all out of sorts on defense for much of the year. Kentucky’s defense overwhelmed MSU quarterback Mike Wright, and the Wildcats rolled to an easy 24-3 win.

“I can’t thank our fan base enough for the environments they’ve created every time here,” Bulldogs head coach Zach Arnett said. “I’m disappointed the fans didn’t have a better outcome to celebrate.”

MSU (4-5, 1-5 Southeastern Conference) has now scored a combined 23 points in three games with Wright as the starter. Wright, who racked up 310 all-purpose yards to lead Vanderbilt to a win over Kentucky last season, dealt with a shaky offensive line all night and threw for just 78 yards while running for another 20. True freshman Chris Parson saw his first collegiate action in the second half, completing six of 14 passes for 67 yards.

The Bulldogs went three-and-out six times, punting from behind the chains on four of those occasions. In between the first two of those three-and-outs, the Wildcats (6-3, 3-3) drove 62 yards in three minutes for the game’s first touchdown. Quarterback Devin Leary and the Kentucky offense twice converted on third down, and a 37-yard deep ball to a wide-open Tayvion Robinson set up a four-yard scoring pass to Demie Sumo-Karngbaye.

“We played hard on defense,” linebacker Jett Johnson said. “We were sound schematically and assignment-wise. We had a good plan and we stopped the run fairly well, which limited their playbook a little bit.”

The MSU offense gave that defense a long rest with its third possession, which started at its own 5-yard line, lasted a whopping 20 plays and took nearly 12-and-a-half minutes off the clock. The Bulldogs converted four third downs on the drive, on which five players carried the ball and four caught at least one pass. But after marching 88 yards, MSU could not find the end zone, settling for a 25-yard Kyle Ferrie field goal for what turned out to be its only points all night.

Good pass coverage by Decamerion Richardson forced a Leary incompletion that stalled the Wildcats’ next drive. On the first play of the Bulldogs’ ensuing possession, Wright looked for Lideatrick “Tulu” Griffin over the middle, but linebacker D’Eryk Jackson read his eyes perfectly, jumped the route and intercepted the pass in stride with nothing but open space in front of him on his way to a 28-yard pick six.

“In the short term, turnovers are always deflating,” Arnett said. “To lose a possession, turning it over already hurts you, and obviously for that to end up in points where the defense isn’t even able to come out and try to stop a sudden change… that creates adversity.”

Save for a last-gasp drive at the end of the first half that ended with a Hail Mary that came nowhere close to reaching the end zone, MSU was almost completely unable to move the ball the rest of the game with Wright at quarterback. By that point, the Bulldogs’ deficit was 21-3 as Kentucky used a series of Ray Davis runs, plus a 22-yard end-around by Barion Brown, to set up a short touchdown pass from Leary to Dane Key.

Two MSU drives and two punts later, the Bulldogs trotted out Parson, much to the approval of what remained of the 52,329 fans who had entered Davis Wade Stadium. Parson’s outing got off to a rocky start — he failed to call for the snap in time and received a delay of game penalty on his very first play — but he did make a few nice throws, most notably a 34-yard completion to Griffin that was easily MSU’s longest play of the night.

“(Parson) has an immense amount of confidence in himself,” said safety Shawn Preston Jr., who played against Parson in practice for much of the season when Parson was the scout team quarterback. “This is not high school anymore, it’s almost a job. He’s taken it full stride, he takes accountability in his work. (I’m) truly proud of the kid.”

The offensive line, though, struggled to protect Parson, who was sacked three times in just over a quarter of action for 31 yards lost. Discipline was an issue for the line as well, with left guard Nick Jones penalized for unnecessary roughness and right guard Steven Losoya III flagged for a late hit in the second half.

The Bulldogs’ bowl prospects now hinge on them winning one of their two remaining SEC games — next week at Texas A&M or the Egg Bowl on Nov. 23 at home against No. 10 Ole Miss — as well as their final non-conference matchup against Southern Miss.

“I’m confident our guys are going to come in and work,” Arnett said. “We’re plenty talented enough to be in every game.”