Will Stein said right from the outset what he planned to do.
"I didn't come here to be average, to be mediocre," he told a room full of Kentucky supporters and media at an introductory news conference in December. "I came here to win and win championships."
The college football world should have known then that the now 37-year-old rookie head coach was different. That he couldn't care less about the low football expectations at a basketball school, where it has lost more games on the field than it has won. That he would have the gall to tell a room of reporters at SEC media days in the summer that he believed he could win at Kentucky simply "because of me." That, a few months after that, he'd forgo a couple of easy extra points to extend overtime in games against South Carolina and LSU and instead hold up two fingers to signal that he wasn't all talk, that he was willing to roll the dice and go for the win on two-point conversions. In Stein's mind there's no room for doubt, only the distance between Point A and Point B and what you're willing to put on the line to get there.
That's who Will Stein is. It's all he has ever been.
Go back to when he was a state champion quarterback at Trinity High in Louisville when he turned down Division III invitations to pursue a spot at an FBS school because he wanted to play among the best. Kentucky -- the team his dad played for, the program he grew up living and dying with as a fan every fall -- didn't even want him as a walk-on. So he stayed home and walked on at rival Louisville. After seniors Justin Burke and Adam Froman were injured during a Week 7 loss to Cincinnati, a redshirt freshman Stein got the start against Arkansas State. The Red Wolves were 2-4 and holding on for dear life in the Sun Belt, and yet when their defensive players saw the 5-foot-10 (in shoes) and 185-pound (soaking wet) Stein trotting onto the field, they laughed. "Is that your quarterback?" they asked incredulously. Rocco Gasparro, Louisville's sports information director at the time, was told how Stein responded to those jeers: "It doesn't matter because we're going to kick the crap out of you."
Stein threw for 232 yards and won the game. In the aftermath, Gasparro tried to prepare Stein for the inevitable questions about his lack of size and star power. But, Gasparro said, "He didn't care about either. He was so confident in his ability." A matter-of-fact Stein told reporters, "I don't back down."
And if he could do all that, if he had the willpower as an undersized walk-on to become a starter at a place like Louisville, if he could respond to the Cardinals later bringing in five-star Teddy Bridgewater by telling coaches, "That's fine. I'll go toe-to-toe," and then only lose his job to Bridgewater after separating his shoulder, then who is anyone to tell Stein what is and isn't possible? Of course he's audacious enough to believe he can turn Kentucky into a championship program -- life has never given him a good reason to entertain other people's expectations.
Because of Will Stein, the Wildcats are in the College Football Playoff hunt. After being picked to finish 14th in the SEC in the preseason, they're not only 6-1 and tied for second in the conference, they're drawing comparisons to another basketball school that quickly morphed into a football superpower thanks to a similarly bold head coach -- Indiana and Curt Cignetti.
Stein's former offensive coordinator at Louisville, Shawn Watson, tried to describe his former pupil last week. "He's a tough, gutty, get-it-done guy," he said. Then, after thinking it over, he used a word you don't hear a lot in football: "Brave."
"He's become the coach that he was as a player," Watson said. "I mean, his ability to lead, people gravitate to him."
Rallying the Wildcats fanbase
When Rich Brooks joined Stein for the pregame walk into Kroger Field before the LSU game earlier this month, the stadium erupted in applause. In the early 2000s, Brooks lifted Kentucky out of obscurity and into something more resembling respectability. After three sub-.500 seasons, Brooks and the Wildcats played in four straight bowl games, winning three of them.
Then Brooks retired and the handoff to Joker Phillips, Brooks' former assistant, didn't go well. Phillips went 13-24 before he was fired. Mark Stoops worked miracles as his replacement, though. Over 13 seasons, the Wildcats went to eight bowl games and won 10 games twice. But the air came out of the balloon toward the end -- and it happened quickly. Maybe things had simply run their course by the time Stoops was let go after going 5-7 last season. Maybe he wasn't as adept at navigating a shifting college football landscape as he needed to be.
Sources at Kentucky still have a lot of respect for Stoops and what he built. During Stein's introductory news conference, he thanked Stoops personally and said, "I think we all owe him an incredible amount of debt for his efforts and success here." But those same sources believed that Stoops had become too fixated on what Kentucky didn't have in terms of funding for player acquisition compared with other programs. Stein, those sources said, was refreshing in that he didn't spend all his time complaining about a lack of resources and instead set about improving the situation by rallying the fanbase to his side.
Bringing back Brooks and other Kentucky legends like former No. 1 draft pick Tim Couch was part of that effort. Stein also brought back the beloved "Power K" logo that had gone unused for decades. A Kentucky kid embracing all things Kentucky has resonated with a fanbase that had perhaps grown tired of Stoops' preoccupation with winning the state of Ohio in recruiting.
Brooks said to witness Kentucky's takedown of LSU was "surreal."
It took steel you-know-whats, Brooks added, to go for two in overtime like that.
But more than anything, Brooks appreciated seeing progress up close. The fans. The atmosphere. The facilities that were supposed to be built before he retired and wound up taking much longer than that.
Right now, Brooks said, Stein is a "hero."
He isn't shying away from the Indiana comparison, either.
"Well, yeah, I believe Will can do something very special at Kentucky," Brooks said.
But he does have a bone to pick with one narrative in the media. It came up when he was asked whether he saw Stein's viral moment at SEC media days. Stein was asked why he thought he could win at Kentucky and said, "This is going to sound like really ... I think because of me, to be honest." Immediately, people connected the dots back to when Indiana coach Cignetti said, "I win. Google me."
"I did," Brooks said of the sound-bite of the summer. "And then I saw the rest of the interview that the media cut off on television. Because of me, because I've had experience being in these programs and learned from great coaches at two or three different stops and had the ability to see firsthand how to build it. See, he went on and explained why me. He is a cocky guy, but I think the media did him a disservice in that, isolating that quote.
"But guess what? He's backed it up."
'Sunshine Will Stein'
Stein's final season as a player at Louisville ended with a Sugar Bowl win over Florida. Head coach Charlie Strong then hired him as a graduate assistant the next season and the Cardinals went 12-1. He stayed on under Bobby Petrino the next season before reuniting with Strong and Watson at Texas in 2015.
It was there, in Austin, that he moved in with Jeff Traylor, then a special teams/tight ends coach and soon to be the head coach at UTSA. Traylor said that Stein was the ideal roommate: always a clean room, always eager to talk ball.
"I call him Sunshine Will Stein," Traylor said. "He ain't ever had a bad day. Always had a smile on his face and thought he was going to conquer the world his entire life. He has the perfect little man syndrome. He has just enough chip, just enough self-confidence, just enough of a beautiful smile. Hell, he's right most of the time. So when you get mad at him, you can't stay mad."
Traylor found a kindred spirit in Stein -- namely the way they saw offense. Attacking. Not risk averse in the slightest. So when Stein wanted to direct an offense, Traylor kept his ear to the ground for opportunities. And when his buddy at Lake Travis High School, Hank Carter, needed to replace his offensive coordinator, Traylor made the call to recommend Stein.
Carter remembers interviewing at least 10 candidates -- none of which he clicked with -- before sitting down with Stein. Traylor was actually the second person to recommend him; longtime Texas assistant Hardee McCrary put in a word as well.
Carter was immediately impressed.
"Just how charismatic he is, how funny, how witty," he said. "I knew that he'd be able to reach young people and talk to them. I could also tell that he was -- how can I put this? He was a killer as far as you can't be a little bitty wormy looking dude like that and go play Division I football at Louisville without being a freaking competitive dude."
Five minutes in, he said, "I knew that I wanted him to be our guy."
Carter coached Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield at Lake Travis -- another former walk-on quarterback who was never the tallest guy in the room.
"They're different as a player, but I think when you've got to find a way to win at the highest level athletically and play at the highest level athletically, when you don't have all the physical attributes, you have to squeeze every single bit of competitiveness and grit and confidence and intelligence, all those things, or else you can't make it," Carter said. "And so that's what I think made him a great player. And now those things translate over into being a great coach too when you're an incredible communicator and have a mind for offense."
The best part about Stein, Carter said, was that he didn't care -- specifically he wasn't married to an offensive system.
"Other than feed the studs," Carter explained. "What's the easiest way that you can get the ball to your best players? And he just always said, 'Feed the studs, feed the studs,' even when he was here. And I would just say he's fearless, right? And so he's smart, he's intelligent, he's competitive, and he's fearless. And so when a guy is like that, it's hard to beat him."
Fearless in more than just football, too.
"We'd go to a coaching conference or we'd be out, and he'd get up and sing karaoke, and he would take over the bar," Carter said. "And he's singing John Cougar Mellencamp 'Pink Houses' just like it was his and just absolutely crushing it. You know what I mean? There was no lack of confidence. He freaking let it rip."
After two seasons at Lake Travis, Traylor was getting ready to take a head coaching job and wanted Stein to join him. Initially, the conversation was about being his offensive coordinator. But UTSA wanted him to hire someone with experience. So Traylor had to break the bad news that he could only offer him a job coaching receivers to start out.
Stein didn't bat an eye.
"He didn't even know what he was making," Traylor recalled. "He like, 'Let's freaking go!'"
The only problem? Stein was so good that other people took notice. After two seasons, Traylor made him offensive coordinator.
Less than a year later, Oregon called.
Lessons from Lanning and Traylor
Technically, it was a videoconference.
Marshall Malchow, Oregon's general manager, set it up. When Stein was a GA at Louisville, Malchow worked in the recruiting office and the two became friends. Stein was one of those guys, Malchow said, that you could tell would make a good coach one day.
Even though he only had one year of calling a college offense -- at a Group of 6 program, no less -- Malchow told Oregon coach Dan Lanning, "Hey, just interview this guy."
It was supposed to be Oregon's off day. UTSA had just won its conference game. Malchow set up the videoconference, put his line on mute and let Stein and Lanning talk.
And, boy did they talk. Stein ran Lanning through his entire game plan from the day before.
"It feels like we've only been talking for 20-30 minutes," Lanning said.
Malchow unmuted his line.
"No," he said, "it's been five hours, Coach."
Given Stein's relative lack of experience, Lanning took a big chance by hiring him.
"Dan's always impressed by smart people and Dan's always impressed by people that know a lot about football," Malchow said. "And it's really hard to impress Dan, in my opinion, because I think he's been around a lot of good football coaches."
Good football coaches, as in, two of the best college football coaches of all time: Kirby Smart and Nick Saban.
"To me, I really feel like head coaches have to be able to wear a lot of different hats, and they have to be able to recruit and talk to donors and be able to fix problems and know football at a high level," Malchow said. "Like, you have to be an 'and' player, not a 'but' player. You can be a really great playcaller, but you're not a great recruiter. I thought Will was an 'and' guy. So I thought that he had a chance to be a head coach."
Oregon quarterback Bo Nix said he felt "alone" after offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham left to become a head coach at Arizona State. But Stein came in and projected confidence in him "right from the jump."
"Something I'll always admire about him, he just let me be me," Nix said. "He didn't try to over-coach or over-step and that was my best year in college, one of the best years of my football career, and it was a lot do with coach with how he coached me."
Nix finished third in the Heisman Trophy race and was selected with the 12th pick in the 2024 NFL draft.
Stein got the blueprint from Oregon on how to operate at the highest level. At UTSA, he got to see how to work around not having all the advantages.
For Kentucky, it couldn't have been a better blend.
"I really got head coaching 101 training from Dan Lanning and Jeff Traylor over the last six years of my life," Stein said. "Working for Jeff, who is like another father to me at UTSA, how he poured into my life much more than just the game, how he poured into it spiritually. Just the relationship that I had with him and still do to this day is so important to me. That was huge.
"And then Dan Lanning, with his training from Kirby Smart and Nick Saban, that he took to Oregon and didn't just rinse repeat Kirby Smart or Nick Saban, he did it in his own image and he was authentic to himself, showed me that you can be you in this job, in this role. You don't have to be somebody else. I don't have to be Dan Lanning or Jeff Traylor. I can just be me."
One thing had to change, though. Stein will still tell you that "juiceful is useful" and that passion is his greatest strength, but he has also become more mindful of his sideline demeanor as head coach.
"We scored a touchdown against LSU, [the coaches] all revved up, I'm like, 'OK, that was great. Reset. Reset. We just scored. All right, what's the next play call?'" he said.
Ten years ago, he would have been "too jacked up" to think ahead.
Lanning and Traylor taught him that.
"You're the engine, people are going to look to you," he said. "And now do I get revved up in games? Hell yeah. You see me fist-pumping and stuff and getting excited, but I'm also inside trying to stay focused."
Culture of Stein
It's Tuesday of last week and Stein has 15 minutes to spare.
How you doing, Coach? What you got going on today?
A monotone Stein rattles off the to-do list.
"Third down. Red zone. Game-planning. Practice. Bunch of s---."
He's so in the moment that some of the big-picture questions don't exactly work.
Can you take a step back and soak it all in?
"I mean, not really," he said.
He's not being rude. It's just the job and the moment he's in right now.
"I think after the season we'll reflect on this year and really see how cool it was," he said. "There's just not enough time in the day to relax, number one, to be all excited about what you just did because the test that's about to come is another AP European history exam. ... It's not like we're going to go play any random school. I mean, we're playing the Sooners of Oklahoma. So if you rest, if you relax, if you think about what you just did, you just get embarrassed and you don't play well."
Stein and Kentucky didn't get embarrassed. Despite being 6.5-point underdogs on the road, the Wildcats won, 21-13.
And, watching the game, it felt normal. There was no sense that Kentucky players were just happy to be there. They were the aggressors -- just how their coach trained them to be.
The wheels could have come off after blowing a halftime lead at home to Alabama earlier in the season, and they didn't.
"It showed us that we can play with the best teams in America for the majority of the game," Stein said. "We were up for 42 minutes of the game. We just were not good in the second half on offense."
To be clear: He doesn't regret the failed fake punt late in the third quarter. Sometimes the breaks just don't go your way.
"There's rosters across the country that are way more expensive than we have," Stein said, "but we have some grit, we have toughness, we have resolve, we have players that believe in what we're doing, and we have enough good players to go out there and win big-time games in this league."
It's the exact outlook Stein sold the roster on. Returning players such as defensive back Ty Bryant and a host of transfers such as quarterback Kenny Minchey from Notre Dame and tight end Willie Rodriguez from Georgia as well.
Minchey was originally committed to Nebraska but said he was sold by Stein's confidence and energy.
"And it's evident whenever you walk in the facility, guys are high energy, staff and players included, strength staff, everybody," Minchey said this summer. "You can feel that we all have high aspirations this year and we know the time is now. We're not waiting for next year."
Bryant said the feeling around the program is different. That starts with Stein walking into meetings and barking, "Let's go! Let's go!" But it extends into practice, too, where Bryant pointed to different drills that get the "competitive juices" going.
Take the mamba drill when the offense and defense line up across the field, 53 yards wide, and do one-on-ones, one after the other -- wide receiver vs. cornerback, tight end vs. safety, running back vs. linebacker and so on.
"I mean, everybody's right there," Bryant said. "Dudes are flowing. It's competitive and obviously if you lose, it's on full display, so nobody wants to lose. And if you win, your teammates are just right there."
It's quick, over in maybe 3 minutes, and it sets the tone. Martinez said it's one of the coolest drills he has ever been a part of.
And it's very much in line with the ethos of Will Stein -- me vs. you, and what are you willing to do to win?
Stein says he has never really changed. Many of his best friends are the same guys he has been hanging out with since high school -- the ones who still call him William not Will. He still talks to Charlie Strong and Jeff Traylor and Hank Carter and Shawn Watson.
Two years ago, Watson asked Stein about advanced analytics -- new-age thinking like when to go for it on fourth down or try for a 2-point conversion -- and Stein walked him through the numbers on a couple of different video and phone calls.
"The thing that people ought to know about him is he is a fierce competitor, but he is a great human being," Watson said. "It's kind of like the total package."
The 67-year-old coach got choked up thinking about his former walk-on quarterback. It all came flooding back, like the time Watson had to face facts with Stein and tell him that Bridgewater was going to replace him as the starter.
"Coach, I get it," Stein told him. "I see it, too. I'm going to be ready and I'm going to push him every day and I'll make him better and I'll be better because I've made him better."
Through tears, Watson said how proud he was of Stein.
After watching Kentucky beat LSU in overtime on television, Watson's wife turned to him.
"Are you surprised?" she asked.
"Nah," Watson huffed. "That's who he is."
ESPN college football writer Andrea Adelson and NFL senior writer Jeff Legwold contributed to this story