Youth Movement: Will Stein Ushers in a New Era of Kentucky Football Young Coaching Staff

A new era of Kentucky football is being ushered in not just by fresh blood, but by young blood. The youngest coach in the SEC has assembled a large coaching staff, filled with guys who were on the field not that long ago.

It’s a stark contrast from the previous regime. Mark Stoops was the dean of the SEC as the league’s longest-tenured coach. His staff was comprised of college football journeymen, with only six members under the age of 40.

At 36, Will Stein is the youngest coach in the SEC. Of his 20 assistant coaches, 12 are under the age of 40. Three assistants played college football in 2019, the same year Big Blue Nation watched Lynn Bowden terrorize the SEC.

Calculated Risk

Shortly after Will Stein was hired by Mitch Barnhart, the Kentucky athletics director described his new head coach as a risk-taker. “What I mean by that is he tends to bet on himself,” Barnhart said.

With a couple of these hires, Stein is taking a calculated risk by betting on risers in the industry. Cutter Leftwich and Tony Washington Jr. are two of the three highest-paid non-coordinators on this coaching staff. They each spent most of their careers as assistant position coaches at name-brand programs like Oregon and Ohio State. Stein is betting on these individuals to make the most of a bigger opportunity at an SEC program, a wise wager in this humble writer’s opinion.

Changing of the Guard

Stability in leadership at the top of a football program was seen as a marker of success. That changed in the last year. Ahead of the 2025 season, Mark Stoops, Kyle Whittingham, and Mike Gundy were three of the seven longest-tenured coaches in college football. Two were fired, while Whittingham stepped down at Utah before making the move to Michigan.

This change is also happening in the NFL. Mike Tomlin (19 seasons), John Harbaugh (18 seasons), and Sean McDermott (9 seasons) saw their long runs end over the last two weeks. There are now only five NFL head coaches who have been with their respective teams since before the pandemic.

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Bringing a Different Kind of Experience to Kentucky

Is having a young coaching staff a good thing or a bad thing? It’s not black and white. As Will Stein put it, what matters most is a coach’s ability to adapt.

“Experience is all relative,” Stein said on Monday. “What we’re doing now in college football is not the same as what we were doing 20 years ago. It’s just not. Everything’s changing. Recruiting has changed, portal has changed. It’s about adaptability, and these guys show me that they’re the best people for these jobs. They relate to players, they connect with players.”

Stein has prior work experience with many of the coaches who will wear UK polos this fall. He’s seen them in action and knows they have the chops to cut it at Kentucky. Washington Jr., a former Oregon defensive lineman who scored a touchdown in the Rose Bowl, is one of the 14 assistants who have logged multiple seasons in the Big Ten or SEC. These coaches have been a part of big-time programs that have competed in the College Football Playoff. They know what it takes to reach the pinnacle of the sport, and plan on bringing that blueprint to Kentucky.

“I feel great about our staff,” said Stein. “Are they young? Yes, I’m young, but it’s a new age of college football, and to me, it’s about putting the best people in these jobs, high-IQ, high-character guys that love coaching, are really smart, and connect with players.”