Will Stein's Kentucky football going big-game hunting against SEC powers
· Yahoo Sports
LEXINGTON, KY – Will Stein is cueing the video at about the same pace his signature offenses can travel a football field.
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With great haste.
The play on the screen fails.
It is Stein as a high school offensive coordinator, first-time play-caller, at Texas powerhouse Lake Travis.
Click. Four years later. College, Jeff Traylor’s irrepressible Texas-San Antonio team, where Stein is a first-time college play-caller.
Quick screen right, working back to the middle of the field.
Nothing of note.
Click.
This third one, first of Stein's Oregon ascension under Dan Lanning, this will be the move.
Until it isn't.
Three plays. Three lies.
Outliers, anyway.
The 36-year-old Stein is a first-time head coach, in the SEC no less, in his native Bluegrass State leading the Kentucky Wildcats, precisely because he is as seamless conducting offenses as he is a two-front interview showcasing evidentiary clips and answering probing questions.
The scoreboard shows 3,495 points scored — 582.5 points per season, across three levels — in Stein’s six seasons as an offensive play-caller.
Digital devices and dissecting defenses are all he knows. Handles his own video interviews. Thinks nothing of a virtual clinic with his peers.
What Steve Spurrier represents to Generation Visor in college football coaching, Stein embodies in Generation Zoom.
“I didn't have to leave Oregon. Sure, you know, the nostalgia and all that stuff, it really like goes only so far,” says Stein, a seemingly requisite custom bottle of Kentucky bourbon, gift from a prep coach, with his visage on the office shelf behind him. “Like once you get here, it's like, all right, like, I love that. I love this place. I love that my dad (Matt Stein) played here, but it doesn't mean you're just going to win and stay here forever.
“So, you do your background. ... I called people around the program that have coached here, that have been a part of this place. You want to make sure you have the resources to win. I feel like we do."
Recruits are noticing. Portal quarterbacks, too.
Kenny Minchey believes he believes he earned Notre Dame’s starting quarterback job going into the 2025 season. He carries a lengthy list of suitors from this past winter’s transfer portal.
Minchey is at Kentucky, for less money than Nebraska’s giant offer, mind you, in large part because of Stein and Wildcats offensive coordinator Joe Sloan, the chance to play in the SEC and those coaches working with Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels, Dante Moore and Dillon Gabriel.
“Even after like the whole Nebraska thing went down, I really wanted to go to Kentucky from the beginning, but there were some things we kind of had to work out," Minchey told USA TODAY Sports. "But, in terms of my decision to come here, I think it's pretty evident in terms of coaching and what their plan is to build here and the actual opportunity it is to win here. I would say just the pedigree of coaches.
“That was probably my No. 1, I guess you'd call it priority, coming out. I wanted to make sure I was under a good coach or being taught by a good coach every single day because that's what you need.”
Traylor, in addition to leading Texas-San Antonio to six bowl appearances, owns the distinction of previously housing young Will Stein, during Stein’s time as a quality control coach at Texas and Traylor’s as special teams coordinator with the Roadrunners.
Aside from Stein perhaps being left behind during a midnight venture into Darrel K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium to log the adults’ 40-yard dash times – “Will’s gonna kill me for sharing that,” Traylor also remembers advising Stein to go call plays as the next step in his coaching journey – even if not at the collegiate level.
“He had had enough of being analyst, couldn’t get a job and I told Hank (Carter, Lake Travis head coach), ‘Will can call it,’" Traylor exclusively tells USA TODAY Sports. "He ended up hiring Will, and it really turned Will’s career around in my opinion. He got to call it. I got to call it for all those years growing up. You get to mess up a lot of things. It’s still pressure. They still want to fire your ass, but ain’t the same as it is now.”
Traylor knows those who have poured into Stein, as both player and developing coach.
Knows too well “both of us crying our asses off when he got that Oregon (offensive coordinator job) offer but me telling him he had to go.”
Knows he sees no way Stein doesn’t turn around the fortunes at Kentucky, where Mark Stoops peaked with 10-win seasons in both 2018 and 2021 before 28 losses in his final four years.
“I knew he had that ‘It’ factor,” Traylor says. “He’s so bright, so positive; such a great teacher.
“He’s got all the qualities -- got ’em all.”
A countenance as much PGA golfer as ruthless offensive whiz kid, Stein also has swagger.
In Stein’s opening weeks on the job, Kentucky assembles what 247Sports considers college football’s No. 10 transfer portal class of 2026.
“You have to be able to make quick decisions, because that's what the portal is,” Stein says. “It's like the New York Stock Exchange when it comes to the portal. You better be able to move and maneuver quickly, because the minute you wait, that kid's on another visit somewhere else, or he's got a number from somebody else, and they’ve signed.
“It happens in real time. It's not a slow cook.”
As the kids say, Stein and Kentucky are cooking right now in high school recruiting.
In the weeks preceding this interview-turned-game-film-tutorial, Jake Nawrot – consensus four-star, national top-65 prospect – commits as Kentucky’s quarterback of the future in the 2027 class.
He is Kentucky’s fourth-highest profile recruit this century and at the center of Stein’s first full prep class hovering around No. 15 nationally after seeing Stoops’ classes average below 24th nationally in the previous five years.
Bigger, as Kentucky basketball scuffles for identity under Mark Pope, Stein is asserting Wildcats football as potential kings of a bluegrass jungle.
“If you want to be a big-time program, then like operate like a big-time program, recruit like a big-time program, invest like a big-time program,” Stein, leaning across his desk, emphasizes. “This isn't a mom-and-pop outfit.
“Like, we're going after everybody. And the guys get on campus. They love not just the energy of the coaches, but how we coach. I think our football IQ, how we run practice. They get here saying, ‘Man, I didn't know UK was like this.’ I guess before they weren't even attempting on these guys, you know?”
Unacceptable, for Stein.
“You have to be aggressive and you can't sit back and just hope and pray a big-time player comes through your facility,” Stein says. “You gotta go get them here. And when they come here, they see it, they feel it. And it's the SEC, it's Kentucky. It's an awesome school, awesome university, great community. And, so, we're big-game hunting here.”
Cue the video.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Stein, Kentucky football big-game hunting against SEC powers