The dress rehearsal is over.
Kentucky football's coming-out party under Will Steinchecked every box a fan base could ask for:a debut win
, a transfer quarterback who played like a three-year starter, six touchdowns, and a scoreboard that read 45-13 by the time Kroger Field emptied out. No first-year coach in program history has put more points on the board in his debut than Stein did against Youngstown State.Now comes the test that actually matters.
No. 12 Alabama rolls into Lexington Saturday for Kentucky's SEC opener, and it's exactly the kind of measuring-stick game a rebuilding program circles the moment the schedule drops. Beat Bama Week has arrived in the Bluegrass, complete with all the hope, hype, and healthy skepticism that comes with hosting
a blue blood.
And yet, for all the buzz Stein has generated in eight months on the job, the AP voters aren't buying it. Not yet. Kentucky is shut out of theWeek 1 Top 25—unranked, and not so much as a single vote was received. Zero. That's the going rate for a program still living down a couple of rough stretches in SEC play, no matter how many points it just hung on an FCS opponent.
Consider that fuel. Big Blue Nation certainly will.
The opener: hype meets receipts
Notre Dame transfer Kenny Minchey completed better than two-thirds of his throws in his first start, finished with 301 yards through the air, and found the end zone four times without leaning on any single target—four different Wildcats hauled in touchdown catches.
The scoring started early, too: Texas transfer running back CJ Baxter punched in two touchdowns before the game was ten minutes old, and Stein—a 36-year-old Louisville alum, former Oregon offensive coordinator, and the son of a former Kentucky defensive end—eased off his workload once the outcome stopped being in doubt. By the fourth quarter, true freshmen Prince Jean and Kenny Darby were both in the end zone as well, an early look at the receiver depth Stein's staff has been promising since he took the job.
It was a statement debut. It was also Youngstown State, an FCS opponent the Wildcats blanked by the same lopsided margin — 31 points — the last time the two programs met, back in 2022.
Alabama is not Youngstown State.
The other sideline
Kalen DeBoer is in Year 3 in Tuscaloosa, still working to prove last season's 9-4 finish and a three-point flameout in the Rose Bowl were the outlier and not the new normal. So far, so good: the final line out of the opener read 48-10, built on 487 yards of Alabama offense against an East Carolina defense that managed only 162 total yards of its own.
The headline is sophomore Keelon Russell, who beat out the competition in fall camp and made his first career start count—249 yards through the air, another 86 on the ground, and a rushing score to go with it. It wasn't a one-man show, either: four different Crimson Tide ball carriers found the end zone, led by Daniel Hill's pair of touchdowns, and the defense got in on the act when Yhonzae Pierre picked off a pass and raced it back for a score.
Translation: Alabama looked every bit like a team that opens as a healthy road favorite against a program it hasn't lost to in 29 years. Kentucky's last win in this series came in 1997, when Tim Couch found Craig Yeast for the game-winner in overtime, a 40-34 shocker that's still retold in Lexington living rooms every fall. Saturday also happens to be Alabama's SEC opener, which means both programs will be treating this one as the first real evidence of who they actually are in 2026.
Where the rest of the SEC stands
Alabama's trip to Lexington is just one piece of a loaded conference slate atop this week's poll all who one their season openers. Nine SEC teams cracked the Top 25 this week—more than any other league—with Georgia sitting at No. 2, trailing only unanimous No. 1 Ohio State.
Behind the Bulldogs, the SEC runs deep in the Week 2 rankings:
- No. 2 Georgia
- No. 4 Texas
- No. 8 LSU (jumped three spots after Lane Kiffin's offense put up 51 on Clemson)
- No. 9 Ole Miss
- No. 10 Texas A&M
- No. 11 Oklahoma
- No. 12 Alabama
- No. 18 Tennessee
- No. 23 Missouri
South Carolina, Auburn, and Vanderbilt all drew votes without cracking the Top 25—a reminder of how deep the league runs beyond its nine ranked members. There is no soft landing anywhere on an SEC schedule, and Kentucky just drew one of the conference's most dangerous teams for its opener, against a program that, on paper, has no business needing to sweat this one.
But that's the entire point of Beat Bama Week. Nobody circles an easy game.
Kentucky is 1-0 with plenty to prove and nothing to lose. Alabama is No. 12 with a target on its back and a 29-year unbeaten streak in the series to protect. Something has to give Saturday at Kroger Field—and for the first time in a long time, Lexington believes it might not be business as usual.
This article originally appeared on UK Wildcats Wire: Kentucky still shut out of AP Top 25 after Youngstown St win
