Will Stein is running his first fall camp as a head coach, and when he was asked recently whether there's a specific coaching mistake he's trying to avoid in year one at Kentucky, he didn't reach for anything dramatic.
He pointed at his staff and his process and simply laid out how he's putting ego to the side - something that not all head coaches are able (or willing) to do at 36 years old.
"Not really. I mean, I don't really think about it like that," Stein said. "I just literally try to trust our process, trust our coaches, trust the opinions of Pete Nochta, Josh Pruitt, Jay Bateman, Joe Sloan, Parker Fleming, the guys that are in these higher roles where I can go to Jay and say, 'Hey, how did Elko handle this at A&M? What would the practice schedule be?' Or, 'Hey Joe, what would Skip Holtz do here?' Or I'll call Dan and just use those guys because they're very knowledgeable. They're very smart. They're high character. They have really great opinions on things. So I just use my people."
That is a roster of experience worth leaning on.
Bateman came over from Texas A&M, where he ran Mike Elko's defense and the Aggies ranked second in the SEC with 43 sacks during their first College Football Playoff appearance. Joe Sloan, the new offensive coordinator, helped develop Jayden Daniels into a Heisman winner at LSU and cut his teeth under Skip Holtz. Parker Fleming handles special teams and inside receivers after a run as an offensive analyst on Stein's Oregon staff and a stretch as special teams coordinator at Ohio State. Pete Nochta, the assistant GM, spent a decade at Louisville, and Josh Pruitt, the director of operations, is entering his 14th season at Kentucky. The "Dan" Stein refers to, of course is Dan Lanning, his old boss in Eugene.
The one adjustment Stein has already made is a scheduling one, and it's about the heat more than any fear of a misstep.
"We've already adjusted, not because of anything besides I want Mondays and Fridays to be really good and have a longer break in between practices," Stein said. "Monday was supposed to be an afternoon practice. I changed it to Monday morning, walk in the afternoon, so we can have a longer break between Monday morning and then Tuesday in the heat. Then we'll go Wednesday in the heat, and then we'll have Thursday off, and then Friday will be morning, and then Saturday will be afternoon. I'm trying to give longer breaks in between practices."
His filter for those calls is the same one a lot of coaches preach and fewer actually hold to.
"What I'm focused on is doing what's best for the team and not one individual. I think that's where you get kind of caught. One guy's a little banged up, one guy's a little... what's best for the team? We've got to go work. We've got to go get reps. We've got to run our plays. We've got to trust our systems."
Stein closed with the line that's become a theme of his first camp.
"That's the biggest focus, daily improvement, daily growth. I tell it to the guys all the time. We've got to 'go to the doctor' after the games. Same with coaches. I'm going to the doctor every single day. What did I do poorly? What can I do better? What critical mistakes did I make today that I can fix? And then move forward and not think about the past, but literally be totally present."
Stein, a 36-year-old Kentucky native and former Louisville quarterback, takes over for Mark Stoops after building one of the country's most productive and efficient offenses at Oregon, including a 13-1 Big Ten title team in 2024. He landed the job after the Wildcats went 5-7 in 2025.
Hear his full response in the clip.
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