To emphasize development at Kentucky, Will Stein opens spring practices by ditching depth charts

I couldn't help but roll my eyes earlier this week.

As a number of first year head coaches were opening spring practices, loaded with new faces taking the field from the transfer portal and guys they had never coached before, media members in attendance were enamored with who was trotting out with "the first team" and tweeting "starting lineups."

Since when has there been any carryover in tracking the guys trotting out with the initial group of a team session during the first spring practice?

I digress, but that leads into an interesting approach first-year Kentucky head coach Will Stein has adopted in Lexington.

After developing a reputation as one of the best offensive play callers in college football working and learning under Dan Lanning at Oregon the last several years, Stein earned his first head coaching opportunity with the SEC program and the Wildcats recently hit the field for their first spring practices of the Stein era, and almost immediately after practice Stein was fielding questions about the team's depth chart.

Asked how he is approaching developing a depth chart heading into spring practices, Stein revealed an interesting approach.

"We don't have a depth chart. We have a blue and a white squad that’s intertwined. There’s not a one's, two's, three's at all. So that’s really, to me, the big part of development. Everybody says you want to be developed. Well, how do you do it? Don't have a depth chart.

"See what Lance Heard looks like to maybe a rotational guard, or a guy that was a walk-on...like, see who can play. So, Kenny Minchey doesn't have a starting offensive line out in front of him. We have truly a blue team and a white team that will be different each week."

After sharing that they just roll out a mixed group in teams split into simply blue and white squads, Stein was pressed on the benefits of that approach.

"Development. You get to see who can actually go compete and who can make plays without maybe a starting lineup in front of them. I’ve seen a lot of that, especially from the quarterback position. Who moves the football down the field regardless of what’s going on up front?

"And in football, you’re going to play multiple guys throughout a season. So the last thing I want is week six of the season and we’ve got a new person at a position that’s never done it before. So, we intermix the groups, we intermix people in different positions. An X-receiver might play Z-receiver for a day; a left guard might play right guard for a day. You want to have position flex within your team, so that’s why we do it."