LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) — The first thing Will Stein served at his first Kentucky football media day wasn't a play.
It was breakfast.
There were barbecue sandwiches. Ribs. Fruit. Coffee. And SissyCakes.
Not cupcakes. SissyCakes. Bundt cakes from the Louisville bakery owned by Stein's mother and aunt, a taste of home brought to Kroger Field. The orange juice cake, a little Big Blueberry.
It was a small, family touch. A reminder that long before Stein became Kentucky's football coach, he was a Louisville kid whose father played at Kentucky, whose family built a bakery and whose Saturdays often revolved around this football program.
The breakfast felt homemade. Kentucky football history, unfortunately for Stein, is not.
Since Bear Bryant's first season in 1946, Kentucky has hired 12 permanent football coaches. Only two, Bryant and Blanton Collier, produced a winning first season. Since the SEC expanded into the modern era in 1992, not one first-year Kentucky coach has finished above .500.
Mark Stoops won two games. Rich Brooks won four. Guy Morriss won two. Hal Mumme won five.
Different coaches. Different eras. Similar results. The point isn't that those men weren't good coaches.
The point is that first years at Kentucky have almost always looked harder than they did on the day the coach was hired.
That's the history Will Stein inherited.
Two weeks ago at SEC Media Days, Stein answered a question about why Kentucky fans should believe things should be any different under him with three words that ricocheted around the conference.
"Because of me."
Monday, he didn't walk those words back. He explained them. He redirected them.
"I'm not necessarily surprised that it got the type of attention it did," Stein said, "But you know, I know more than anything, it's about the people in our organization, and that's really important to me -- more than me."
One of the more revealing answers Stein gave came after I asked about the process he brought with him to Kentucky.
Yes, he arrived with a blueprint. No, he wasn't chained to it. Sports science has already changed parts of the way Kentucky practices. Instead of four straight practices, he'll now schedule only three in a row. Evidence shows more soft tissue injuries show up on Day 4. It's a change from what was done at Oregon.
Stein isn't protecting a philosophy. He's constantly testing one.
Quarterbacks learn early that the play called in the huddle isn't sacred. Safeties rotate. Corners creep. Blitzes come from somewhere they weren't expected. The audible isn't an admission the original play was wrong. It's recognition that the picture has changed.
That's why one of Stein's most revealing early decisions had nothing to do with practice schedules or sports science. It had to do with play-calling.
Stein became one of the hottest names in college football because he could design and call offense.
That reputation landed him Kentucky's head coaching job.
Then he handed the play sheet to Joe Sloan.
Stein hasn't forgotten how to call plays. But he studied championship head coaches. He looked at the recent history of college football and found that the last national championship won by a head coach calling his own offense came when Jimbo Fisher won at Florida State more than a decade ago.
The game has changed. The job has changed. So he changed with it. That's an unusual level of self-awareness for any coach.
It's almost unheard of for a young coach whose greatest professional strength is the very thing he decided not to do.
Most people who finally reach the corner office spend their first day proving they belong there. Stein's first instinct was to ask how he could make himself more valuable.
That may be what he meant all along. Not "because of me." Because of my judgment. Because of the people I hired. Because of the willingness to follow evidence instead of ego.
Listen to Kentucky's players and coaches now and you begin to hear the same language over and over. Stein isn't asking Kentucky to believe because he has discovered football's secret formula. History suggests there probably isn't one.
He's asking Kentucky to believe that a program improves by constantly questioning itself before somebody else does.
That may not be enough.
History certainly advises caution. First years in Lexington have humbled coaches with impressive résumés before.
If Will Stein proves to be different, I doubt it will be because of the breakfast he served Monday morning.
It will be because he came to Kentucky believing in his own ideas, but confident enough not to fall in love with them.
That's a much harder recipe to perfect.
Copyright 2026 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
