JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Louisville football team could never find the form it had to close the regular season with three straight blowout wins against Virginia, Syracuse and Kentucky. The Cardinals lost an ugly TaxSlayer Bowl against Mississippi State 31-27 on Saturday at EverBank Field.

Louisville finishes its 2017 season 8-5 heading into a 2018 offseason that will be filled with questions. Here are four takeaways from Saturday:

1. Both teams were sloppy.

Neither Louisville nor Mississippi State really deserved to win Saturday. The teams committed a combined for seven turnovers — four interceptions by Lamar Jackson, along with one by Mississippi State’s Keytaon Thompson and two Mississippi State fumbles.

At the same time, those seven turnovers generated just 13 points. Both teams missed short field goals, Louisville after recovering a muffed punt. The Bulldogs committed 11 penalties for 100 yards.

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2. Lamar Jackson was human, at times.

Jackson threw two bad interceptions in the second quarter, sailing a pass once and throwing behind his receiver on the next series. Saturday was just the third time in the past two seasons that Jackson has thrown two picks in the same game.

He threw another early in the fourth quarter when he fired a pass through the hands of Jaylen Smith to Mississippi State’s Mark McLaurin. And one more to McLaurin in the final minutes of the game.

Overall, Mississippi State did a nice job bottling up Jackson to the best extent possible. The Bulldogs sacked Jackson six times, including two in Louisville's final possession. But Jackson wiggled his way out of several others, and even on one of the sacks, he disappeared from a mob of defenders to limit the loss to two yards.

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3. Louisville needs to find some cornerbacks.

Louisville’s defense has been largely solid with Jaire Alexander on the field and porous without Alexander. The junior cornerback announced last week he would skip the TaxSlayer Bowl and declare for the NFL draft. The Cards had to find an alternative answer at cornerback.

The results left much to be desired. Against a backup quarterback in Thompson who was missing his top wide receiver in Keith Mixon, Louisville often struggled in pass coverage and in tackling in the secondary.

Freshman Russ Yeast and senior Ronald Walker rotated at Alexander’s position. Mississippi State’s Reggie Todd beat Trumaine Washington deep a couple of times but couldn’t bring in the ball.

4. Montez Sweat and the MSU front were as advertised.

Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham departed for Florida, but he left behind a physical, aggressive defensive front. The Bulldogs managed to swallow up the elusive Jackson for those sacks, using them to stymie Louisville drives. On other plays, they flushed Jackson from the pocket and made him force throws.

Montez Sweat led the charge with three tackles for loss for the Bulldogs. Jonathan Abram and Gerri Green added 1.5 sacks each.

Jake Lourim: 502-582-4168; jlourim@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @jakelourim. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/jakel.