LEXINGTON, Ky. — Will Stein opened the week by admitting what everyone aroundKentucky football is feeling. Then he told his team to ignore it.
Oh yeah, I got the rat poison up right now. A lot of rat poison. It's a classic coaching term. You know what I'm saying? Classic.
Then, after a pause: "Don't eat the cheese."
He has reason to worry about the cheese. Kentucky used a huge third quarter to stunt then No.9 Texas A&M 31-21 on Saturday, and the Wildcats return home Sept. 26 for their first matchup with South Alabama. It's the classic trap: the week after the program's biggest win in two years, against an opponent most fans don't know much about.
Stein knows. You could hear it in how he talked.
It's 0-0 again. Like you can't go back. The scoreboard
is 0-0. There'll be 15 minutes on the clock starting the first quarter. We're gonna kick it off, and we gotta go play well.
He said he'd already taken the temperature of his locker room. "I meet with guys on our squad and get the pulse of the team, and everybody's bought in," he said. "They understand the messaging. They understand that we have a really good team coming in here this Saturday."
And he made sure nobody mistook South Alabama for a warmup. "Major Applewhite can coach, like he can coach, and he's got good players," Stein said. "And so we have to have that mindset."
Then came the line that tells you the most about how he's wired. "There's plenty of people that chose against us," he said. "But like, I don't even really care if people choose us or not. I care about my team and how they perform on Saturdays."
That's not bravado. It's a boundary. The outside world didn't believe in Kentucky last week, and Stein isn't about to let it start dictating things now that it does.
'Just clean football'
When a veteran observer suggested Kentucky's third quarter at College Station might have been the best in program history, Stein didn't take the bait, and he didn't dismiss it either.
Yeah, it was a really good quarter. There's no doubt about that. I don't know. I'd have to think about that, but it was just clean football. Operation was clean on all three phases.
He walked through it piece by piece. "Obviously getting takeaways and getting turnover on downs is huge," he said. "The offense, creating explosives, being able to score quickly was big. And our special teams, changing the game and creating good field position for us. So it was everybody. It was great coaching. It was great playing."
That word, everybody, came up again and again Monday. Stein doesn't talk like a coach who wants the spotlight on himself. He talks like one who wants every position room to believe it won the game.
Chess matches and chalk talk
Asked whether he enjoys the strategic duel against defensive minds like Mike Elko, Stein widened the lens to the entire league.
"Everybody in this league has great coaches," he said. "Mike Elko has obviously done a great job there. I think Jay does an outstanding job." That was a nod to his own defensive coordinator, Jay Bateman. "So there's good people every single Saturday."
He's already turned the page to the South Alabama staff. "We got Todd Orlando this week and Major Applewhite. Both those guys are really good play callers," he said. "These guys wouldn't be in these positions if they weren't good. So there's always a chess match element to it."
But Stein keeps coming back to the same bottom line. "Ultimately, can your players go execute those calls?" he said. "That's the big thing."
Built in the weight room
Some of Stein's most revealing answers were about players who earned their way up the depth chart the hard way.
On Jaden Williams, who has seen his snaps increase: "Since we've gotten here, I think Jaden has really shown up specifically in the weight room, like the testing numbers. He's extremely explosive, very strong." Stein recalled his strength staff's first impression: "This guy is like kind of freaky strong in the weight room, freaky explosive."
The big thing was just getting his health right and getting his mindset right. And I love that guy. I think he's done a really good job, and I think he'll continue to improve.
He lit up talking about his young players, too, saying the freshman production has been "incredible" and adding, "We have some really good young players." When a veteran defender returned to the field Saturday, Stein said, "It definitely felt good for our entire team."
Shrinking the menu
Stein's candor about special teams was striking. He called his special teams coordinator "the best special teams coordinator I've ever been around," someone whose coaching "really is like elite."
He also acknowledged the unit wasn't right early. "To me, the biggest thing of the first two games was really like effort and strain," he said. "Some of them are playing at a level that we want. And some of them, it looks like they're still trying to figure it out. And when you're trying to figure it out on the fly, you don't play fast."
So the staff simplified. "This game, we cut it loose," Stein said. "We shrunk down our menu and let those guys go play free. And they did a really good job."
It's a small detail with a big lesson: a first-year staff willing to admit that less was more.
'That's not what I'm about'
The heart of Tuesday session came when Stein was asked about running back Jason Patterson, who stayed at Kentucky through the coaching change instead of transferring.
He got so many reps over spring ball and fall camp, and it was truly like time on task has helped him a lot. He's really tough and explosive and has great contact balance. And I've been very proud of him for his just stick-to-it-edness.
A beat later: "I don't know if that's a word, but he just sticks to it and just shows up every day and grinds." He also credited running backs coach Colby for "how he's coached him and gotten the best out of him."
Then Stein got personal, and for the first time all day he wasn't talking about football.
"Sometimes a fresh start's good for people. Sometimes it's not," he said. "Sometimes you just gotta literally like stick to it. It's easy for everybody just to quit and go somewhere else. That's not what I'm about."
He tied it to his own story. "Being a walk-on, that kind of mentality that I've had, hopefully that can kind of translate to some of these guys," he said. "We have a connected team. Guys love playing here. They love UK. They love their coaches. They love their teammates."
In an era where rosters get rebuilt every winter, that may be the most radical thing a college coach can say: stay, and it will pay off.
The ask
Stein closed by turning to the people who'll fill Kroger Field on Saturday.
"We got a lot of work to do," he said. "A great team coming in here. And we need Big Blue Nation. We need our fans to show up like they did the last time we were here. And we gotta go out there and play really well for them."
It was a fitting last word from a coach who spent 15 minutes giving credit away. Kentucky has its signature win. What Stein wants now is proof that it wasn't a one-time thing, and he seems to understand that the proof starts with ignoring everyone telling his team how good it is.
This article originally appeared on UK Wildcats Wire: Kentucky's Will Stein addresses media after win over Aggies
