Kentucky's Kenny Darby among top week three freshman per PFF

The sun hung high and merciless over the Brazos Valley on Saturday, the way it does in Texas in September, a white-hot midday glare with no shade to be found, and under it stood a stadium built for giants. A hundred thousand voices in maroon. A band that marches like an army. A defense ranked among the nation's best, waiting in the heat for a team from the bluegrass that nobody had asked to come.

And into that, carrying nothing but a number on his jersey and a mistake on his conscience, walked an 18-year-old Kentucky Wildcats receiver named Kenny Darby .

Legends do not always begin with a triumph. Sometimes they begin with the ball on the ground.

When the week's numbers came in, Pro Football Focus graded Darby at 78.6, sixth-best among all true freshmen in the country. And that grade includes a play he'd like to have back. The graders saw the whole body of work, the good and the bad, and still had him in the top 10. That tells you the good was really good.

Let's talk about what really happened, because what happened in the first quarter matters more than people think.

Darby gets behind the coverage. Kenny Minchey puts it right on him. That's a touchdown. That's a play you're supposed to make, and he didn't make it. Now, the drive keeps going, you get down there close, and then you get a penalty, you take two sacks, you miss the kick. So you've got a seven-point swing that turns into a zero. In this league, against a top-10 team on the road, those are the kinds of things that get you beat.

But here's what I look for when I evaluate a young player. It's not whether you make a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. Freshmen make a lot of them. It's what you do on the next play. Can you let it go? Can you stay focused on what's in front of you instead of what's behind you? Because the guys who can't do that, they drop one and then they drop two, and they're thinking about the last play while the next one's going on.

Darby let it go. His quarterback told him the ball was coming back to him. His head coach, Will Stein , told him he was fine. And then they proved they meant it.

First drive of the second half. Same kind of look. Minchey goes back to him, and this time he catches it, makes a guy miss, and it's 42 yards and a touchdown. Kentucky's first lead of the game. Then the next drive, they're backed up at their own 17, it's looking like three-and-out, and who do they throw it to? Darby again, for 22 yards and a first down. That drive ends in a touchdown. Now you're up 21-7, and you won 31-21.

Two catches, 64 yards. Some people are going to look at that and say it's not much. I'd say look at when those catches came. One gave you the lead. One kept a scoring drive alive when you were about to hand the ball back. That's winning football. That's affecting the game.

Now I'll say this, because it's important. One game doesn't make a player. He's got 10 catches, 183 yards, two touchdowns through three games, and he's Kentucky's leading receiver, and that's a nice start. But the SEC is going to see this film.

Defensive coordinators are going to know who he is now. He's going to get more attention, tighter coverage, maybe a safety over the top. The challenge for him is to keep improving, keep doing the little things right, and not get caught up in what everybody's saying about him.

Because what people say about you after a big game, that can be just as dangerous as a dropped ball. Maybe more.

Kentucky found this kid on the last day of the early signing period, flipped him away from LSU , and right now that looks like one of the better decisions anybody in that building has made. But the story isn't the catch. The story is the drop, and the fact that it didn't beat him.

The sun will rise again over Lexington this week as the Cats prep for South Alabama at Kroger Field, and somewhere in it a young receiver will be back at practice, catching balls from the JUGS machine until his hands ache. That's how the next one gets caught.