STARKVILLE — Defense won’t win a Southeastern Conference championship for Mississippi State this season. It is helping the Bulldogs win a lot of games, though.

State’s defense forced three turnovers and held Kentucky’s high-powered offense in check, and the offense did just enough to squeeze out a 24-17 victory over the Wildcats on Saturday night.

Quarterback Chris Relf threw for one touchdown and ran for another, and finished with 79 rushing yards for Mississippi State, while tailback Vick Ballard rushed for 103 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries.

No. 23 Mississippi State (7-2, 3-2 SEC) won its sixth consecutive game, its longest winning streak since the 1999 squad started 8-0. MSU has an open date next week before taking on No. 6 Alabama on Nov. 13.

“It feels great to have this kind of winning streak,” Ballard said. “Coming into the season I didn’t know what to expect, but now this whole team is expecting something big. We have proven ourselves to everyone so far and we have two weeks to rest and continue proving ourselves.”

Saturday’s win marked the sixth time in nine games this season that the Bulldogs have held an opponent under 20 points.

They worked for this one. Kentucky (4-5, 1-5), which ranked second in the SEC in scoring offense coming into the game, ran 85 plays and held the ball for 35 minutes and 45 seconds. Despite that, it only gained a modest 347 yards and advanced inside the red zone once. The Wildcats got to the MSU 21 in the final minute, but quarterback Mike Hartline was picked off at the goal line by Johnthan Banks to seal it.

Hartline finished the game 23-of-41 passing for 258 yards and two touchdowns for Kentucky, but also threw three interceptions and was sacked four times. Randall Cobb caught 12 passes for 171 yards and a score.

“We played a lot of players on defense. We rolled them through at times,” Mullen said. “We made the final play at the end. It’s good we have a bye week now. We need it after 85 plays.”

The Bulldogs also needed the strong defensive effort when the offense sputtered after a promising start. Mississippi State scored on its first two possessions, netting a 33-yard field goal by Derek DePasquale and a 54-yard touchdown run by Ballard to take a 10-0 lead with 5:37 left in the first quarter.

Relf added a 21-yard TD pass to Arceto Clark in the second quarter to give State a 17-7 lead, but the Bulldogs only had two more first downs until the fourth quarter.

“We didn’t execute cleanly on offense tonight. We had some big plays, and then some really bad plays,” Mullen said. “We had opportunities for big plays and we’d miss a receiver or fumble a snap.”

Kentucky took advantage of the swoon to get back in the game. Craig McIntosh booted a 43-yard field goal on the final play of the first half to cut it to 17-10, and Mike Hartline’s 2-yard TD pass to Moncell Allen tied it with 1:37 left in the third quarter.

The 12-play, 81-yard touchdown drive was the only time Kentucky got into the red zone. Its other touchdown came on a 48-yard pass from Hartline to Cobb in the first quarter.

Mississippi State finally broke out of its offensive funk in the fourth quarter. Taking over at its own 37 after a Kentucky punt with 13 minutes left, Relf hit Chad Bumphis on a deep pass down the middle for a 35-yard gain. Relf did most of the work from there, carrying three times inside the 20 before scoring on a 4-yard run to put the Bulldogs ahead 24-17 with 10:28 remaining.

“It felt really good. Coaches said we needed to make a big play and we went out and made a big play. The offensive line blocked well and Chad made a great catch,” said Relf, who was 7-of-11 passing for 111 yards.

Kentucky got the ball back at its own 10-yard line with 5:08 to play and made one last push to tie it. The Wildcats converted three third downs and got to the MSU 20 before stalling. On fourth-and-10, Hartline was flushed from the pocket and floated a pass toward the end zone that was picked off by Banks. The Bulldogs were able to then run out the clock on the contest.