Dane Key was all smiles with his parents and girlfriend after Saturday’s win at Ole Miss.
Kentucky had a lot of players make significant contributions in its 20-17 win at then No. 6 Ole Saturday but do not overlook the significance of what junior Dane Key did.
The former Frederick Douglass star has emerged as the go-to receiver that quarterback Brock Vandagriff and the UK offense need. He is showing even in obvious passing situations when opponents and fans all know he’s the likely target, he can still get open and make a play.
Key finished with a career-best eight catches for 105 yards and a five-yard, first-half touchdown catch against Ole Miss. A week earlier he had seven catches for 145 yards against Ohio. He now has three 100-yard games at UK.
It was sweet payback for Key who seemed to have caught the winning touchdown pass at Ole Miss in 2022 when a penalty nullified the play. He did not have a touchdown catch in UK’s first four games this season but he rectified that with a terrific catch in the end zone.
Don’t forget that Key also drew a pass interference penalty on Ole Miss as well as a holding call. That basically was two more receptions for another 20 yards that he does not get credit for but should.
“It just felt really good to be able to come here and finish what we didn’t get to finish two years ago,” Key said.
He was happy teammate Barion Brown had a 63-yard catch-and-run when UK gambled on fourth down and eight at its own 20-yard line with about four minutes to play that set up the winning touchdowns.
“The only thing going through my mind was somebody needs to make a play right here. I didn’t really care who it was as long as that play got made,” Key said.
“I was super excited for him. I was just learning on him telling him, ‘This team feeds off you, keep that energy up and I know when the ball is in the air, I got you.’ I knew he had me when that ball was in the air. It was a pretty good feeling when that play got made.”
It was also a good feeling after the game when UK celebrated its first SEC win and first road win this season.
“(Coach Mark) Stoops was in the air (being passed around my players). I’m going to let y’all know how the locker room was, when Stoops is in the air it’s a pretty good thing,” the junior said.
It has also been a “good things” to see Vandagriff make improvements each week aided in part by better play around him.
“Brock’s just a playmaker, he’s a competitor. He wants to continue to grow each and every week,” Key said. “That’s what I know from him. He’s going to come out to practice each and every week ready to practice and you know it all starts with practice.
“So, whenever Brock comes to practice ready to work, everybody else follows behind him.”
4 Responses
I said going into this year that Dane Key is a much better receiver than Barion Brown. I thought they would make a great 1-2 punch and they did against ole miss. Barion had that penalty towards the end of the game. I thought we were done at that point. I would have never guessed that Kentucky on 4th and 7 would throw a bomb to Brown. I think it faked the world out. I thought we would go for a short pass and turn it into 7 yards. That was a very non conservative call and I loved it. I tip my hat to stoops because we won the game playing much different than we usually do. We attempted much more passes than we usually do. I think this scheme caught ole miss off guard. They played the run very well. So Stops said ok lets start passing the ball more and it works when you have a line that gives Brock time he’s a good quarterback. Very accurate. Tom Brady would have a bad game if the line played like it did at south Carolina. So its more on the line then it is Brocks fault. When the pass was batted down at the line and he had a wide open Jordan dingle. I was close to turning the game off because if we didn’t convert it was over. Great game great win. If we beat Vanderbilt like we should we will be 4-2 2-2. So we will have climbed out of the hole we were in. Then we have to beat a Florida team who doesn’t look very good. The only problem is its in the swamp so it will be a close game. At Florida at Tennessee and at Texas. The 3 home games 2 should be gimmes. Vanderbilt and Murray State. Louisville I say is a 60% chance that we win. I ultimately think we beat Louisville Florida and Texas and Tennessee are 50/50. I also think we beat Auburn at home. If we can finish 8-4 I will be happy considering we were 1-2 and 6-6 at the time didn’t look like it was going to happen. We could finish 9-3 or even 10-2 6-2 is what I predicted before the season. If we would have beaten South Carolina we would be on the right track for that.
Key played great. I think we will get better every practice that we have. His team needed more time to gel and learn each other. Key is by far the best receiver on the team. Maclin seems lost out there. Brown played better against ole miss. He’s been struggling this year. Why does he slip and fall down so much. People are calling him fall down brown. He never can seem to get his footing. Our tight ends need to step it up especially Kattus. He has played terrible all year. Yes he recovered the fumble but he grades out terribly bad every game. Hes at the bottom of the list every week. He needs to be benched for Rodriguez.
Hope fans and especially the team recognize – Vandy is now the most important game of the year .
First year players have to adjust to the SEC – some do , some don’t.
Our QB is improving as he dives deeper into the schedule – UGA experience can’t help but help. My ceiling has gone back to 6 or 7 W’s. Vandy is the deal.