Stein, Cats Creating Huge Turnaround
Flashback to November of 2025. The Kentucky football team was 5-5 after beating Tennessee Tech at Kroger Field. The Cats needed one win over the final two games to become bowl eligible.
Those two games did not go anywhere near what the Big Blue Nation had envisioned. Kentucky never led at Vanderbilt and the Commodores, behind quarterback Diego Pavia, blew out the Cats 45-17.
The following week, Kentucky was not competitive in any way against archrival Louisville. UK fell behind early and was blanked 41-0 by the Cardinals.
Kentucky’s program was in a very difficult position. The leadership would have been owed a large sum of money if they were fired. But then-UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart made the decision to let that staff go and to move forward in a new direction.
Barnhart went out and hired the hottest offensive mind in the game, Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein, who had a ton of Kentucky connections. Stein grew up in Louisville, his father played at UK and his mother also graduated from Kentucky.
It turns out that the hiring of Stein was a turning point in the program. While still serving as the offensive coordinator at Oregon, Stein went to work building his UK program. He started with his staff, then went hard into the transfer portal to build his team.
Stein assembled as much talent as possible for his first Kentucky team. Getting a late start did not help, but Stein and his staff built a roster that he thought could be competitive.
The 2026 Cats have been more than competitive. After suffering through a difficult end to the 2025 season, the Big Blue Nation has been rewarded with a generational performance so far this season.
Kentucky has already won three road games in the Southeastern Conference. The Cats won at Texas A&M, at South Carolina and, on Saturday, at Oklahoma. The last time Kentucky won three road games against SEC teams was 1977, when the Cats beat LSU, Georgia and Vanderbilt on their way to a 10-1 season. Those Cats actually won their first four SEC games on their way to a 6-0 conference record and an SEC championship.
The 2026 Cats were ranked 15th this week and will undoubtedly be ranked higher on Sunday. Following Saturday’s win at Oklahoma, the talent on SEC Now discussed Kentucky as a potential playoff team. After seven games, the Cats find themselves tied with Georgia for first place in the SEC.
All of this has happened in the matter of 10 months, which is an amazing turnaround for the program. Stein and his staff deserve all of the credit for changing the narrative and for building a winning team in a short amount of time. And there are exciting times ahead for this program with five games remaining in the regular season.
