Statistics that helped shape the Ole Miss loss to Kentucky

Ole Miss fell to Kentucky, 20-17, on Saturday and dropped to 4-1 on the season. It was the Rebels' SEC opener, and Ole Miss is on the road at South Carolina this week. The Rebels are a 10.5-point favorite in Columbia.

Here's a look at several statistics from Saturday that explain why the Rebels came out on the losing end of the contest.

Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart was 15-for-24 on passes that traveled at least 20 yards during the first four weeks of the season, but the third-year starter was only 1-for-7 in that category against the Wildcats, despite it being 26 percent of his throws on the day.

Overall, Dart was 18-of-27 for 261 yards, but 14 of those completions were inside 10 yards in the air, and he was under pressure on 33 percent of his dropbacks despite Kentucky blitzing on only 15 percent of Ole Miss' pass plays.

On passes without play-action, Dart held the ball for nearly four seconds on average.

Dart targeted Tre Harris 15 times, and that turned into 11 catches for 176 yards, but that was it for wide receiver production. Caden Lee was the only other receiver to have a catch -- grabbing two for 19 yards. Juice Wells was targeted twice for no catches. No other receiver had a target.

Ole Miss targeted running backs six times and a tight end once -- the deep catch and run by Caden Prieskorn on the final drive of the game.

Kentucky ran 75 plays to Ole Miss' 56 plays and dictated game tempo for most of the day. Time of possession is normally an overplayed stat, but it's another measure of the Rebels' inability to stay on the field. The Wildcats -- despite being only 4-for-16 on third down (and 3-of-3 on fourth down) -- held the ball for 39 minutes, 43 seconds of game time.

That left barely more than a third of the game where Ole Miss had the ball, and the Rebels went 1-for-10 on third down and 2-for-2 on fourth down. In the first half, Ole Miss had only 129 total yards, and 83 of those came on the first drive. The Rebels had 17 total yards in the second quarter.

In the first half, Ole Miss ran only four rushing plays with a running back. Two of those weren't in game flow, with Austin Simmons handing off after Dart had to leave the game for a play and Ole Miss hurriedly running a play to avoid a review. Another of the four was from the one-yard line.

Ole Miss running backs forced one missed tackle on the day. Henry Parrish and 13 carries for 62 yards, and Matt Jones had three carries for eight yards.

The Rebels only had two third downs of more than nine yards and averaged 6.9 yards per third down -- two yards fewer on average than Kentucky on its third downs. However, Ole Miss only had two third downs of four or fewer yards.

Ole Miss was again penalized heavily, a trend that has stayed consistent throughout the season. The Rebels were flagged eight times compared to only three for Kentucky.

Five of the penalties were on Ole Miss defensively, and three of them came in coverage to extend possession on one drive in which UK cashed in for seven points at the end of the first half.

Two of the fouls were debatable at best, but they certainly had a hand in the outcome. Avoiding any of the three would have forced a field goal attempt instead of the eventual touchdown.

Ole Miss averages the fifth most penalties in the country and leads the SEC in the category at 9.5 per game.

That's more than two penalties per game more than a year ago when the Rebels were the 14th-most penalized team in the country and second most in the SEC behind Tennessee.