UK’s Dane Key makes statement vs. Ohio while doing best Sydney McLaughlin impression

On the weekend Olympic gold medalist and world record-holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone was welcomed back to her alma mater to be enshrined in the UK Athletics Hall of Fame, one Kentucky football player had a tribute ready.

Wide receiver Dane Key hoped to find the end zone so he could unveil a touchdown celebration where he did his best impersonation of McLaughlin-Levrone leaping over a hurdle. He had to settle for doing it on the field of play instead.

“I hope she saw that,” Key said Saturday after UK’s 41-6 win against Ohio at Kroger Field. “I hope my form was pretty good.”

Key’s hurdle came on a fourth-and-7 play in the second quarter when Brock Vandagriff rolled out to his right, buying enough time to find Key hope down the right sideline. Key caught the ball near the Ohio 20-yard line then sprinted toward the end zone. At the 6-yard line, he hurdled over a defender trying to cut his legs from under him to reach the 1-yard line before he was pushed out of bounds.

On the next play, running back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye scored on a 1-yard carry to give Kentucky a 17-0 lead that essentially wrapped up the victory.

Key finished the victory with seven catches for a career-high 145 yards.

“He is an absolute heck of a receiver,” Vandagriff said. “I’m really glad he’s wearing blue and white.”

After being held without a touchdown in back-to-back games against SEC opponents, Kentucky coaches felt they could finally establish some momentum in the passing game against Ohio. Top on the game plan was the feeling they could find Key on crossing routes over the middle of the field against Ohio’s zone.

“He’s extremely reliable,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “Just with his catch radius, he’s been making those plays all year. So we just got to keep building on it.

“A lot of the targets are going to him, and rightfully so.”

Key’s big game could have gone for even more if a 33-yard completion in the third quarter had not been negated by a holding penalty against the Wildcats.

Still, Key showed an impressive ability to make plays in the biggest moments.

Five of Key’s catches went for first downs. Two of those were third-down conversions. The play where he hurdled the defender came on fourth down. With Kentucky facing first-and-30 after back-to-back holding penalties in the fourth quarter, Vandagriff quickly found Key for gains of 14 and 16 yards to escape what looked like a disaster.

“He’s going to line up, he’s going to do exactly what he’s told to do, what he’s coached to do,” Vandagriff said. “… Just put anywhere near him, he’s gonna make the play.”

Vandagriff was quick to note that not only did Key have a big day on his own, but he also secured a key block that allowed fellow wide receiver Barion Brown to score on a 25-yard run in the fourth quarter.

That attitude did not go unnoticed by UK’s coaches in a scenario where it would have been easy to understand the wide receivers growing frustrated after pass protection issues and inconsistency from a first-time starting quarterback led the passing game to flounder the last two weeks.

“Sometimes the ball doesn’t find you, and sometimes it does,” UK coach Mark Stoops said. “If you do things right and you continue to work really hard, eventually that ball will find you.

“Obviously we need to do things to protect and put them in a position, but I think it’s just a testament to how consistent he’s been, the way he’s worked, in ways just put his head down.”

Key, a former Frederick Douglass High School star, has been under the spotlight at UK since bursting onto the scene as a freshman in 2022, but like Brown has battled inconsistency while showing signs of immense promise.

Key spent the offseason focused on adding muscle to his 6-foot-3 frame. UK now lists him at 210 pounds, up 15 from last season.

“That was the biggest stride that I made,” Key said. “Being able to go out there and play physical and be able to get the ball out the air, and just make the make the big-time plays.”

The career performance versus Ohio brought Key to 15 catches for 264 yards on the season despite the passing attack’s struggles.

More work is needed from the offense, especially with another top-five matchup looming at Ole Miss next week, but the presence of a go-to target for Vandagriff could be essential in turning a corner.

“When some of your best players are your hardest workers, these things start happening,” Hamdan said. “I think Dane is a guy where it doesn’t matter if it’s the hardest practice of the year, every day after practice he’s getting extra work in. Extra catches, extra jugs, extra blocking stuff.

“I think when you take that mindset where your process is your process and every week you’re looking to take the next step if you want to be playing football for a long time, you have days like that.”

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