Will Stein Is Not Holding Anything Back

Posted Wednesday, September 9, 2026 7:51 am (LEXINGTON, Ky.) — Will Stein apparently isn't much for holding things back. Not plays. Not personnel. Not opinions. And, judging by the final few minutes of his postgame press conference Saturday, almost not four-letter words. Kentucky opened the Stein era with a convincing 45–13 victory over Youngstown State, rolling up 506 yards of offense and providing Big Blue Nation its first real look at what Stein and offensive coordinator Joe Sloan have been building for the past eight months. Turns out we didn't get the appetizer. We got the whole menu. I asked Stein whether such a comfortable opener made it harder to evaluate his offense because Kentucky never really had to reach deeply into the playbook. 'I don't know if you saw,' he replied. 'We were in 11, 12, 02, 03. Like, we—I don't hold stuff back.' Well, excuse me. Apparently there isn't an Alabama section of the playbook locked in a filing cabinet somewhere inside the Joe Craft Football Training Facility. 'We call the games to win,' Stein continued. 'We'll layer plays on the next game, but…we're not holding anything back today. It was, how do we have the best plan possible to go score points?' Pretty good plan. Kentucky scored six touchdowns, passed for 301 yards, rushed for 205 more and didn't turn the ball over. The Wildcats changed personnel groupings. They changed formations. They changed tempo. Sometimes they huddled. Sometimes they hurried. Sometimes they didn't huddle at all. Stein believes varying the pace keeps defenses from settling into a rhythm. 'If you just go one pace the whole game, that's where the defense can kind of catch on,' he said. There was apparently plenty available to quarterback Kenny Minchey, too. Asked afterward what it was like having access to the entire playbook, Minchey smiled. 'It was great.' It looked pretty good from where I was sitting. Making his first collegiate start, Minchey completed 18 of 27 passes for 301 yards and four touchdowns. His biggest complaint afterward was that he occasionally became 'a little greedy' and tried to force something rather than taking what Stein calls the 'easy money.' Three hundred yards and four touchdowns. I'll take that kind of greed on any given Saturday. Stein wasn't completely satisfied, of course. He disliked Kentucky's third-down defense. He thought his players occasionally allowed the circumstances to dictate their effort. And when the offense became too leisurely returning to the huddle, he didn't exactly hide his displeasure. 'That's where it pisses me off as a coach,' Stein said. 'You have to play a certain standard, every single snap, regardless of circumstances.' There's that holding-nothing-back thing again. Perhaps Stein's most revealing comment came when he was asked whether there was any sense of relief that his first game as a head coach looked largely the way he had hoped. Not really. 'When you practice a certain way, when you have great players, it's supposed to look like that,' he said. That's not relief. That's expectation. Kentucky was supposed to beat Youngstown State. It was supposed to be the more physical team. Stein wasn't interested in treating a 32-point win as some sort of validation. He expected Kentucky to look like Kentucky. The real examination comes next week when Alabama arrives at Kroger Field. Which made the final exchange of Stein's press conference even more appropriate. Someone asked whether he planned to immediately begin studying the Crimson Tide or actually allow himself a little time to enjoy his first victory. 'I'll peek at Bama here later,' Stein said, 'but I'm gonna go have a cold beer and f—' Uh-oh. Stein stopped. Barely. 'I apologize,' he said. No need, Coach. After eight months of preparation, 45 points and your first victory as a college head coach, you've earned the cold beer. Besides, by then we'd already gotten the message. Will Stein doesn't hold anything back. Saturday, that included the playbook. Almost everything else, too. Dr. John Huang is a retired orthodontist, military veteran, and award-winning author. Currently serving as a columnist for Nolan Group Media, he invites readers to follow him on social media @KYHuangs. Explore his latest, Whining For Posterity, Name Image and Murder, and all his books at Amazon.