Like a cracked levee, UK’s season’s dreams have been slowly leaking away.Its season-long goals are still achievable, but the holes in the UK rush defense has been getting bigger and bigger by the game. The Cats rank dead last in the Southeastern Conference in rush defense, giving up a 195.9 yards per game.The levee nearly broke Saturday against Mississippi State when Anthony Dixon and the Bulldog rushing attack ran right through the UK defense for 348 yards. MSU tailbacks ran through gaping holes all evening long, pushing the Cats to a critical point in the yearlong goal to make it to a fourth straight bowl game.If the defense doesn’t patch the leak soon and start stopping the run, the levee is going to break and take UK’s season with it. On Saturday, the Mississippi State offense found a glaring weakness in the UK defense and it exploited it to the fullest. The MSU coaching staff noticed it was ripping off chunks of yards every time it ran the counter, so it kept running it and running it and running it some more.”It’s like you play your friend in a video game,” defensive tackle Ricky Lumpkin said. “You play your friend you’re both the same (in terms of talent), but he finds that one play and keeps doing it and you can’t stop it. We could not stop the counter. They ran that counter left and right and every which way and we could not stop it.”When you’re ripping off 7.7 yards a carry, who can blame them for running the same play?”Why would they stop running it?” Lumpkin said. “I would have kept running the same play too if they couldn’t stop it. There is no need to open up your whole playbook if one particular running play is breaking off seven yards a carry.”The UK coaching staff, players and even fans knew what was coming on just about every play, yet no one could stop Dixon and Co.It left defensive coordinator Steve Brown scratching his head in the press box Saturday night. Brown said they rehearsed the MSU counter more than 50 times in practice last week after watching the Bulldogs chew up the Vanderbilt rush defense a week earlier.But Dixon quickly turned Brown’s night into a real life Halloween nightmare. Brown said his players were in position to make plays on most downs, but it was the plays where they didn’t “scrape” right that Mississippi State really took advantage of UK.”As a coach you try to do everything you can to adjust and change things because they do it right in practice,” Brown said. “Everything seems perfect and you’re thinking OK, we’ve got that taken care of, and then it doesn’t work. All of a sudden you’re thinking is it what we’re trying to do and should we change things or move guys? And then you look at the film on Sunday and you see that when we were in position and made the right plays, there was nothing or a 2-yard gain. … It’s just a matter of guys being more physical and focused and playing a whole 60 minutes.”Brown wasn’t the only one frustrated Saturday. It was equally if not more head scratching for the players on the field.”You don’t understand how frustrating it is,” Lumpkin said. “It was bad because we knew it was coming. You see them, you see the same blocking scheme, you know what’s coming, you see you’re about to get double-teamed or you know where the ball is going and you just can’t stop it. We ran every defense and just couldn’t stop it.”Going forward, UK will have to repair the problem or it could become a blueprint for opposing teams and a recipe for disaster for the Cats.Although Dixon shed his fair share of tacklers last week, UK’s coaches say the Cats’ tackling has not been the main problem. Head coach Rich Brooks believes it’s UK’s gap control, or lack thereof.”Our tackles were getting knocked out and our gaps got moved from here to over there,” Brooks said of the Mississippi State game. “You have to hold that gap because that gap gets a lot bigger if you don’t hold that gap. If you get knocked over two gaps then all of a sudden you’ve got real holes in your defense and the linebackers have a tougher fit getting into it, not only the ‘backers but the safety coming down. Sometimes we had the safety come down and jump out on the pitch, which was already taken by the nickel rather than fitting in outside the linebacker where he is supposed to fit.”It was a calamity of mistakes.”Mistakes that must be corrected for a critical four-game stretch to end the season. UK’s defense entered the season highly touted and respected, but various injuries (especially to the secondary), key personnel losses (preseason All-American cornerback Trevard Lindley), the yearlong suspension and eventual departure of defensive end Jeremy Jarmon, and now a recent team bout with the flu hasn’t made things easy.Still, Brown said there are no excuses. The run defense must improve. “It’s tough because we haven’t really, except for maybe early in the year, played with all of our bullets,” Brown said. “But, that’s what we’ve got 127 guys on this team because we’ve got to pick up the slack and do the best we can. It’s not just affecting us, it’s affecting everybody. We have who we have and we’ve got to go do it.”

Lindley available? With each passing day and workout, cornerback Trevard Lindley is getting closer to returning to the playing field.

The senior corner did not suffer any setbacks after Tuesday’s practice and participated in drills again on Wednesday. Brooks hinted that he could see some time against Eastern Kentucky.

“It’s encouraging that he’s gone through two days, even though he’s probably not at 100 percent, at least he’s out there going through the reps,” Brooks said. “He’s going to be sore. It’s been over a month now, so I think hopefully he’ll be ready to take some snaps this week (in the game).”Brooks said Lindley would make a huge difference in the UK defense.

“If he’s well, it makes a major, major difference in our defense because you usually don’t have to worry too much about the guy he’s covering,” Brooks said. “That makes a pretty significant difference. You think back at a few games that we’ve played it might have made a major difference.”