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LEXINGTON, Ky. -- It took Mississippi State 115 years to reach No. 1 in the polls. The Bulldogs then spent a bye week lapping up congratulatory back slaps at home in Starkville before taking that digit into an actual game. So some might see the warts from Saturday’s 45-31 win at Kentucky, which wasn’t decided until the final couple of minutes, and question why they didn’t dominate like a top-ranked team. But the simple answer is they didn’t really know how to play that role. Head coach Dan Mullen thought his team was so tightly wound in the first half -- dropping passes, missing blocks and tackles, trying not to make mistakes instead of being aggressive -- that his big halftime speech was more like a yoga session. Take a deep breath, he told his guys.  “We felt a little pressure because now you have a target on your back,” defensive tackle Kaleb Eulls said. “It was like first-time jitters, playing as No. 1 for the first time.”
The Bulldogs’ final exhale didn’t arrive until much later. Three different times in the second half, they grabbed a 14-point lead only to see Kentucky score a touchdown to make it a one-score game again. The resilient Wildcats sliced the lead to 38-31 with 2:31 left and went for the onside kick. But the ball zoomed straight to the 230-pound Christian Holmes, and the player nicknamed “Turtle” ran like a rabbit for the 61-yard, decisive score. Holmes said he scored on a similar play in practice last week, but he was so surprised to do so in an actual game that the referee had to ask him for the ball. “I still had it high and tight,” Holmes said. “I was so excited, I didn’t know what to do.” This wasn’t exactly how Mississippi State would have scripted its first game as No. 1, especially in giving up 504 yards of offense to an unranked opponent. But afterward, Mullen and his players seemed loose and relaxed while cracking jokes with reporters. The burden of that initial ranking had clearly been lifted. “Hopefully, we get all that ranking stuff behind us now,” Mullen said. “You can drop us if you want, I don’t really care. It certainly will ease the pressure right now." Josh Robinson helped make sure that the Bulldogs didn’t enjoy a short-lived time at the top. The junior tailback ran for a career-high 198 yards on 23 carries, including a 73-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter that gave his team some breathing room. Chugging his tree-trunk legs, the 5-foot-9 Robinson was virtually impossible for the Wildcats to bring down, never more so than on a 22-yard run in which it seemed like everybody in the stadium got a piece of him. “They don’t call me ‘The Human Bowling Ball’ for nothing,” he said. “I try to live up to that name the best I can.” Robinson, who had a 197-yard day earlier this year at LSU, joked that he begged Mullen for another carry when the team was in victory formation so he could get to 200. Mullen told him he had had 59 minutes to get those extra two yards. If he keeps making highlight-reel plays like he did Saturday, Robinson will get to 200 some day. He didn’t think anything he did against Kentucky was too special. “Go to YouTube and type in J-Rob,” he said. “You’ll see that a lot.” Robinson was the offensive star on a day when Heisman Trophy candidate Dak Prescott put up his usual efficient numbers (18-for-33 for 216 yards passing, 18 carries for 88 yards, a touchdown pass and two rushing touchdowns). Prescott wore a walking boot on his left foot to the postgame news conference. But before Mississippi State fans could sound the alarm cowbells, he shrugged it off as merely precautionary. Still, details like that get magnified beyond just the Magnolia State when you’re the No. 1 team in the country. The polls people care about will change on Tuesday night when the College Football Playoff selection committee releases its first Top 25. The Bulldogs may or may not be on top of that one, but they will surely check in safely in the top four. Mullen said he probably won’t watch the reveal of the first committee poll. “I imagine we’ll be in the mix, and that will be a great honor for us,” he said. “If the playoffs were next week, I’d definitely be watching. But since they don’t start for quite a long time, I don’t know. I might be having dinner.” The Bulldogs got their first game as a No. 1 team out of the way. Now they relax before trying to finish there. “You can just refocus on what you do,” Eulls said. “No worrying about the rankings at all, just what you’re doing.”
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