Dane Key's big-play ability adds new layer to Kentucky offense

Kentucky football hasn’t had a player of Dane Key‘s caliber in a long time. Speedy, 6-foot-3 wide receivers with baseball gloves for hands don’t just grow on trees — and they certainly don’t choose the Wildcats.

But the Kentucky staff has worked for years to land a prospect like Key. It surely helped that he grew up in Lexington, attended Frederick Douglass, and his dad played for the ‘Cats, but Key could have gone almost anywhere in the country to play football. He was a consensus four-star recruit out of high school.

Instead, he decided to stay home, and he’s wasted no time showcasing just how important it is to have a wide receiver who can change an entire game with one single route.

Early the second quarter of Kentucky’s 26-16 win over Florida on Saturday night, the offense was stalling. The ‘Cats trailed 3-0 with little coming from the pass or rush game. When nothing was going right, offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello turned to his budding superstar with one message: go make a play.

“I just felt like it was the time to go make a play,” Key said postgame. “We needed a play to get the momentum going and I just took it in my hands to go out there and win our one-on-ones like coach talked about all week.”

Key won the most important one-on-one of the entire night. The true freshman caught a 55-yard bomb from QB Will Levis, who placed the ball where only Key could reach high enough to snag. After a quick review, it was ruled Kentucky’s first score of the game and the first major momentum shifter in the contest.

“That’s a ball we haven’t completed in a long time, even in practice, so pretty cool for that to happen,” Levis said postgame.

WILL LEVIS TO DANE KEY pic.twitter.com/uT6P4tNfeu

— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 11, 2022

“It’s plays like that that we need to make. Because we were struggling,” Head coach Mark Stoops said of Key’s catch. “That’s a good (Florida) defense in this environment, I mean this place was rocking. (Florida is) just coming off a huge win. Heck, we must jump into the top 10 I guess now right?”

Stoops was joking at the time, but Kentucky did wind up cracking the top 10 in both the AP and Coaches Polls, in large part due to Key’s game-altering catch. In his decade as head coach at UK, Stoops hasn’t had many — if any — players who could have made the catch Key made Saturday night in The Swamp.

Through two games this season, Key has registered seven catches for 136 yards and two touchdowns. He finished with three receptions, 83 yards, and the highlight touchdown catch against Florida.

“Dane Key is going to be a great player here,” Kentucky associate head coach Vince Marrow said on Sunday Morning Sports Talk. “He has great parents. He has great people surrounding him. And the moment was not too big for him. I joked with him yesterday right before kickoff and said all right, don’t you be scared and you ain’t shaking in your pants. He looked and me like ‘coach, you’re about to see me make some plays.’

“And I’m telling you, that catch he made, is one of the big all-time catches I’ve seen here. And then he made some other good catches but he’s blocking well. I mean the kid is a great kid, he’s a 3.8 GPA, he’s really just a good, all-around young man, and we really got a gem in him.”

Key is a superstar in the making just two games into his college career. He knew his team needed a big play in the first half against Florida. Who knows how the game plays out if he doesn’t make that catch. But he did, and his legend grows because of it.

“Just make a play, that’s all that goes through my mind,” Key said. “Make a play.”