Will Stein Delivers on Two Early Campaign Promises

Will Stein has been in office for ten days. In that short amount of time, he’s practiced what he preached shortly after taking the job to be Kentucky’s next head coach.

The 36-year-old is the youngest coach in the SEC. There are obvious advantages to a youth movement. Kentucky is taking a chance on a rising star in the coaching ranks. One downside to that inexperience are the friends he’s made along the way. There just aren’t that many.

In the early days of Stein’s tenure, it was difficult to handicap who could be on his inaugural coaching staff because of his lack of connections in the coaching world. Typically, coaches hire people they’ve worked with in the past.

During his first days in Lexington, Stein went through multiple rounds of interviews. While speaking to Big Blue Nation on Kentucky Sports Radio, Matt Jones tried to see if the new head coach would hint at who could join him on his staff. Stein made it clear that he wasn’t just going to hire his friends.

“I’m going to lose friends in this because there’s a lot of really good coaches out there. A lot of them, but it’s about getting the right fit — the right fit for Kentucky,” Stein told KSR. “The right fit for these players, and not necessarily the guys that I might know or I’ve worked with before. So that’s the No. 1 priority for me.”

Stein’s first two major hires were people he had not worked with in the past. Joe Sloan rose through the ranks at Louisiana Tech for almost a decade before ascending into the role as LSU’s offensive coordinator. Jay Bateman does not have any direct connections to Stein either. The defensive coordinator from Texas A&M arrived in the Lone Star State after Stein left San Antonio for Oregon. Unlike a few others connected to the Stein administration, Bateman isn’t a young pup either. He’s a 25-year coaching vet with experience at the FCS, West Point, and in the SEC, adding a counterbalance to Kentucky’s youth movement.

Stein Adds an Aggressive Defensive Coordinator

In that same conversation with KSR, Drew Franklin asked Stein what kind of defense he preferred. After watching the Wildcats deploy a “bend, don’t break” approach for more than a decade under Mark Stoops, fans were ready for something new.

“I’m looking for a unit that plays 4-6 seconds, point A to point B, with relentless effort, ball excellence, guys that can take the ball away, that can defend the run and stop the pass,” Stein said.

“I’m not a bend, don’t break guy. When teams pressure me, that’s like, ‘Okay, all right. This guy’s aggressive.’ I like it.”

The Texas A&M defense under Bateman has applied pressure early and often. This fall, the Aggies led the SEC in sacks (41) and were second in tackles for loss (104, or 8.7 per game). When you play aggressively on defense, you’re susceptible to giving up big plays. Only Arkansas gave up more plays of 30+ yards this fall.

It’s unclear how well each of these hires will work, but we did discover that Stein wasn’t just applying lip-service during his first days at Kentucky.