Barion Brown relives kickoff return touchdown from Kentucky debut

Barion Brown was viewed as a massive pickup when the four-star high school recruit chose Kentucky over the likes of Alabama, LSU, TCU, and plenty of others. The type of playmaker that can change an entire game with just one single moment of greatness. It didn’t even take a full game for the true freshman to showcase that ability.

In what was Brown’s debut for the Wildcats in the 2022 season-opener against Miami (OH), Brown announced himself to the college football world. Kentucky was struggling unexpectedly with the Redhawks early on, holding a slight 13-10 lead at the halftime break thanks to a Matt Ruffolo field goal that gave the Wildcats a minor advantage right at the intermission. But Brown would soon flip the momentum of the game upside down, doing something that no other Kentucky player had been able to in over a decade.

Feeding off the energy of the Kroger Field music, Brown sprinted his way 101 yards past the entire Miami special teams unit for the program’s first kickoff return touchdown since 2009. The score put Kentucky up by 10, which compounded into another touchdown for the home team less than 60 seconds later. Fueled by Brown’s God-given abilities, UK never looked back and cruised to a 24-point win. From there, his legend was born.

“He kick it, I caught it. I ain’t gonna lie, as soon as I caught it, as soon as it hit my hands, it was cookies. I knew it was [a] touchdown,” Brown said of his return in the video below. “So you know, [I] ran, made a cut or two, and then it was like, I’m running this way and it’s a defender tryna come this way and I’m like ‘he’s not catching me at all’.“

He wasn’t wrong.

Brown’s rookie season didn’t peak at that moment — it was only the beginning, in fact. The 6-foot-1 wide receiver went on to make Freshman All-American and All-SEC Teams. He totaled 50 receptions for 628 yards (both team highs and program records for freshmen) and four touchdowns across 13 games played, which included seven starts. But not many plays were more fun than that night in early September.

“Looking up, I see all the crowd, they’re cheering, going crazy,” Brown said. “I was really running over there to my mom, I wanted to do my celebration in front of my mom. All my attention was gonna be on my mom and my pops and them that was in the crowd…

“Man, I love that moment.”

Us too, Barion. Us too.