LEXINGTON, KY – Will Stein shoots video at the same speed that his signature offense moves on the football field.
Very quickly.
Screen playback fails.
It’s Stein as a high school coordinator, calling the shots for the first time, at Texas powerhouse Lake Travis.
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Click. After four years. In college, Jeff Traylor’s irrepressible Texas-San Antonio team, where Stein was a freshman in college.
Quick screen to the right, back to midfield.
Nothing remarkable.
Click.
This third, the first of Stein’s ascension at Oregon under Dan Lanning, this will be a move.
Until it isn’t.
Three games. Three lies.
Outliers, anyway.
The 36-year-old Stein is the first head coach, in the SEC no less, in his hometown of the Bluegrass to lead the Kentucky Wildcats, just because he makes the case as seamless as he is in two interviews showing clips of evidence and answering probing questions.
Kentucky football coach Will Stein speaks during his press conference at Nutter Field House in Lexington.
The scoreboard shows 3,495 points scored – 582.5 points per season, at three levels – in Stein’s six seasons as an offensive lineman.
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Digital devices and surgical shields are all he knows. He hosts his video interviews. He thinks nothing of the real clinic and his peers.
What Steve Spurrier is to Generation Visor in college football coaching, Stein is to Generation Zoom.
“I didn’t have to go to Oregon. Really, you know, nostalgia and all that stuff, it’s like going so far,” Stein said, a seemingly requisite custom bottle of Kentucky bourbon, a gift from a prep coach, with his face on the office shelf behind him. “Like when you get here, it’s like, okay, like, I like that place.
“So, do your background. … I called the people around the program who have coached here, who have been a part of this place. You want to make sure you have the resources to win. I feel like we are.”
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Recruits are taking notice. Portal quarterbacks, too.
Kenny Minchey believes he believes he has secured Notre Dame’s starting quarterback job for the 2025 season. He has a long list of suitors from last winter’s transfer window.
Minchey is at Kentucky, for less money than Nebraska’s big offer, remember, in large part because of Stein and Wildcats offensive coordinator Joe Sloan, the chance to play in the SEC and those coaches who worked with Bo Nix, Jayden Daniels, Dante Moore and Dillon Gabriel.
“Even after the whole Nebraska thing went down, I wanted to go to Kentucky in the first place, but there were things we had to work on,” Minchey told USA TODAY Sports. “But, in terms of my decision to come here, I think it’s very clear in terms of coaching and what their building plan is here and the real chance to win here. I can only say the list of coaches.
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“That was my number one, I guess you could call it number one, going out. I wanted to make sure I was under a good coach or being taught by a good coach every day because that’s what you need.”
Traylor, in addition to leading Texas-San Antonio to six bowl appearances, is the owner of the separation of young Will Stein, during Stein’s time as a quality control coach at Texas and Traylor as a special teams coordinator with the Roadrunners.
Except Stein probably stayed behind at midnight trying to get into Darrel K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium to record the seniors’ 40-yard dash times — “It’s going to kill me to share that,” Traylor recalls and advised Stein to play telethon as the next step in his coaching journey — even if it’s not at the college level.
“He had enough of being an analyst, not getting a job and I told Hank (Carter, Lake Travis coach), ‘Will can call it,'” Traylor exclusively told USA TODAY Sports. “He ended up hiring Will, and it really changed Will’s career in my opinion. He even called it. I had to call it all those years when I was growing up. You get to waste a lot of things. There’s still pressure. They still want to fire you, but it’s not the same now.”
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Traylor knows those who flocked to Stein, as a developing player and coach.
You know very well “we both cried our asses off when he got that offer from Oregon (offensive coordinator) but I told him he had to go.”
He knows he doesn’t see how Stein doesn’t change fortunes at Kentucky, where Mark Stoops had 10-win seasons in both 2018 and 2021 before 28 losses in his last four years.
“I knew you had that thing,” Traylor said. “She is very bright, very positive; a very good teacher.
“He has all the qualities — he has them all.”
The face of golf’s PGA equivalent of a ferocious whiz kid, Stein also has swagger.
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In Stein’s opening weeks, Kentucky is putting together what 247Sports considers the No. 10 college football transfer class of 2026.
“You have to be able to make quick decisions, because that’s what the portal is,” said Stein. “It’s like the New York Stock Exchange when it comes to the portal. It’s better to be able to move and direct quickly, because the minute you’re waiting, that kid visits another place, or has someone else’s number, and they’ve signed.
“It’s happening in real time. It’s not a chef drinking.”
As the kids say, Stein and Kentucky are cooking now in high school enrollment.
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In the weeks leading up to this game-film-study interview, Jake Nawrot – a consensus four-star, top-65 national prospect – committed himself as Kentucky’s quarterback of the future in the class of 2027.
He is the fourth-highest in Kentucky this century and at the center of Stein’s first full prep class that hovers around No. 15 nationally after seeing Stoops’ class average below 24th nationally the past five years.
Bigger, as Kentucky basketball wants to be known under Mark Pope, Stein asserts Wildcats football as the potential kings of the bluegrass jungle.
“If you want to be a big-time plan, like run a big-time plan, hire like a big-time plan, invest like a big-time plan,” Stein insisted, leaning on his desk. “This is not a mom and pop outfit.
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“Like, we follow everybody. And the guys come on campus. They don’t just like the strength of the coaches, but the way we coach. I think it’s our football IQ, the way we run practice. They come here and say, ‘Man, I didn’t know what UK was like.’ I think these guys haven’t even tried, you know?”
Unacceptable, for Stein.
“You have to be aggressive and you can’t sit back and just hope and pray that a long-term player comes into your position,” Stein said. “You have to go get them here. And when they come here, they see you, they hear you. And it’s the SEC, it’s Kentucky. It’s a great school, a great university, a great community. And, so, we’re hunting big game here.”
Watch the video.
This article first appeared in USA TODAY: Will Stein, Kentucky hunts big football game against SEC power
