Can Will Stein win in Year 1 at UK? These three things could determine that
The challenge awaiting Will Stein in his first season as Kentucky football coach is steeper than Jellico Mountain.
Five Southeastern Conference football teams made the 2025 College Football Playoffs.
UK will face three of them — Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas A&M — in 2026.
Seven SEC teams won at least 10 games in 2025.
Kentucky will play four of them — the three teams mentioned above plus Vanderbilt — in 2026.
Ten teams from the SEC had winning records in 2025.
The Wildcats will go up against seven of them — the four teams listed above plus LSU, Missouri and Tennessee — in 2026.
Stein, 36, will seek to extend the momentum of what has been a bountiful offseason by producing a surprise first year on the field.
For the new coach to lead the 2026 Cats to what would be Kentucky’s first winning season since 2023, Stein will have to find positive answers to these three critical questions:
Can Kenny Minchey play up to the ‘Will Stein standard’ at quarterback?
The quarterback-coaching pedigree of the new UK offensive staff is off-the-charts.
In Stein’s three seasons (2023 through 2025) as Oregon offensive coordinator, Duck QBs put up video game numbers.
Bo Nix (2023) completed 77.4% of his passes while throwing for 4,508 yards and 45 touchdowns vs. only three interceptions.
Dillon Gabriel (2024) completed 72.9% of his pass attempts for 3,857 yards with 30 TDs to six picks.
Dante Moore (2025) was accurate on 71.8% of his passes while throwing for 3,565 yards with 30 touchdowns vs. 10 interceptions.
New Kentucky offensive coordinator and QB coach Joe Sloan was tutoring quarterbacks at LSU in 2023 when Jayden Daniels threw for 3,812 yards and ran for 1,134 yards en route to winning the Heisman Trophy.
In Notre Dame transfer Minchey, Stein and Sloan will essentially be painting on a blank canvass. The 6-foot-2, 204-pound redshirt junior comes to Lexington having only thrown 29 passes and having never thrown a touchdown as a college QB.
That coaches with the track records of Stein and Sloan chose Minchey from the transfer portal to build their first Kentucky offense around is a noteworthy vote of confidence in the Hendersonville, Tennessee, product.
But unlike Nix (a transfer from Auburn), Gabriel (Oklahoma) and Moore (UCLA), Minchey comes to Stein’s coaching without having ever played a meaningful college snap. Whether the Notre Dame transfer can get close to the level of the previous Stein QBs is the biggest key to Kentucky’s 2026 season.
Can Kentucky keep the high-profile but often-injured offensive playmakers it wooed from the transfer portal on the field?
The three biggest-name offensive skill players UK added from the transfer portal for 2026 all arrived with significant injury histories.
At running back, Texas transfer CJ Baxter missed the entire 2024 season with a knee injury and four more games in 2025 due to a hamstring problem.
Oklahoma transfer Jovantae Barnes has missed multiple games to various injuries in each of the past three seasons.
Meanwhile, big-play wide receiver Nic Anderson missed all but one game at Oklahoma in 2024 due to a quadriceps/hip injury and was not the same player in 2025 at LSU that he had been previously.
Whether Kentucky can get the best versions of Baxter, Barnes and Anderson — and keep them on the field throughout the season — is vital for the Cats in 2026.
Does UK have the talent at cornerback to play Jay Bateman’s high-pressure defense?
Though the bend-but-don’t-break defensive philosophy of Mark Stoops and Brad White largely served Kentucky well across the years, many UK backers have yearned for a more aggressive approach.
New Kentucky defensive coordinator Bateman promises to bring that aggression. In Bateman’s 4-2-5 defensive base, the cornerbacks are often left on an island in one-on-one coverage.
Whether UK has the personnel to play that style is very much to be determined.
Junior cornerback Terhyon Nichols is one of the most talented holdover players from the previous coaching regime. Having played in only 13 games combined over the past two seasons, however, Nichols has so far had his on-field time limited by injuries.
Western Carolina transfer Hasaan Sykes was highly productive last season as a sophomore for the Catamounts, making 49 tackles and two quarterback sacks while intercepting three passes.
However, the 6-foot, 192-pound junior will be making the jump from the FCS to the SEC in 2026.
Behind the presumed starters, Kentucky returns veteran Nasir Anderson (28 college tackles), sophomore Grant Grayton (two interceptions last season as a true freshman) and redshirt freshman Demarcus Gardner (a spring practice surprise).
For Bateman’s defensive aggression to be a net-plus for UK, the Wildcats’ corners will have to prove they can cover SEC-caliber wideouts in space without help.
Whether the Cats have cornerbacks who can consistently do that is the most pressing defensive question that must be answered for Kentucky to win in Will Stein’s debut as top Cat.
