Will Stein would take the Oregon Trail via horse and buggy to Lexington to coach at Kentucky

The Oregon Trail stretched 2,170 miles from the Beaver State all the way to Missouri in the 1800s, and Will Stein would take the extra 575 miles from Independence to Lexington via horse and buggy if it meant he got to coach the Kentucky Wildcats.

Oregon’s offensive coordinator — at least for the next couple of weeks — made it clear he had his eye on this job from day one with real love for the program, knowing his dad suited up for the Wildcats under Jerry Claiborne and he grew up inside Commonwealth Stadium with family season tickets in section 128, row 13.

Louisville gave him an opportunity to play in college, going from walk-on to scholarship athlete and letterman, “so there was four or five years of bad blood” with Kentucky, Stein said.

“That’s the competitor in me.”

Take away that half-decade of favoring the red over the blue, his heart has always been in Lexington. So when the job opened up — and maybe even long before then, putting out feelers to keep the superstar playcaller for the Ducks in mind if there was ever a decision to be made — he made it clear he wanted it with everything in his soul.

“To say I am honored is an understatement. I really don’t know what to say. I thought today was a dream. I thought yesterday was a dream. It’s just been an unbelievable, unbelievable last 24, 48 hours,” Stein said at his introductory press conference. “It’s something that a coach can only dream of, to get his first head coaching job, and to do it at a place like the University of Kentucky, it really is truly a dream.”

How far back did that dream go, exactly? Well, he was busy making the Oregon offense one of the best in college football over the last three years, so it wasn’t necessarily a distraction.

When the reality crept in that a jump to head coaching was on the table with the Ducks humming, though, he circled the Kentucky job as his primary target if the timelines aligned for an opening. Then they did and the rest was history.

“I’ve always just tried to be where my feet are, and this is always a job that I circled as a place that I would love to coach and would crawl back to,” Stein told KSR after the hire. “I would take the Oregon Trail from Oregon all the way here, and get on a horse and buggy — whatever they needed me to do. You just never know. You don’t know.

“I just tried to do a great job at Oregon, and before that, I tried to do a great job at UTSA. And these opportunities can come your way, and when they do, you just jump right on it.”

Now that he’s earned the opportunity and has his dream job, he’s not going to let it go. The way we’re seeing Indiana own the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff and Vanderbilt compete atop the SEC all season, Kentucky is going to be in those conversations under Stein.

They proved it was possible to do it anywhere, and he wants to make that a reality in Lexington, too.

“Big Blue Nation, the UK emblem, it’s a worldwide brand, the blue and the white,” Stein continued. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to put these colors on? Who wouldn’t want to play for me in this offense? Who wouldn’t want to play for our future defensive coordinator in the works right now? Like, it’s going to be incredible, and I can’t wait to get guys in this program and to do it the right way.”

What makes him so confident?

“Shoot, man, I’ve won at the highest level as a coordinator, won a lot of championships in my life,” he said. “You believe in yourself. I’ve been bet against for a long time, but I’ve proved those people wrong, and I want to continue to do that.”