Will Stein didn’t turn a viral sideline blunder into a bigger scene. He shut it down with perspective.
The Kentucky coach was asked this week about the role of sideline reporters after the SEC Network’s Tori Petry went viral for mistakenly asking him how it felt to beat a ranked team on the road after Kentucky’s win over Oklahoma. The problem, of course, was that the Cats were the ranked team in that matchup, not the Sooners. Stein caught the mistake in the moment, reminded Petry that UK was No. 15 in the AP Poll, and then brushed past the rankings talk.
He took the same tone again today when John Huang asked about sideline reporters and the way those conversations can go.
“Obviously, I respect what they do,” Stein said when John Huang asked his stance on sideline reporters. “Number one, they have a job to do.
You know, they’re live on the air too. People - you know, I’ve made mistakes.
I’ve said the wrong thing at times.”
That’s where Stein landed: no drama, no pile-on, just a reminder that live television comes with mistakes on both sides.
“It’s nothing personal. My job is to answer the question clearly to them and give our fans the message that they need.
But everybody’s got a job, just like you guys, and it’s part of the process. But, obviously, it’s respect number one because of their job and how important it is to our game.”
The topic has been hanging around college football all season, largely because of the exchange between Holly Rowe and Steve Sarkisian last month. Sarkisian cut his postgame interview short after the win over Ohio State so he could go celebrate with his team, then later apologized for his reaction. Arch Manning also chimed in publicly after joking about an AI-generated video that showed Sarkisian slapping Rowe.
Stein’s moment with Petry never got anywhere close to that kind of heat. If anything, it became another example of him handling an awkward TV miscue without making it bigger than it was.
Kentucky’s next broadcast crew will look different, too. Matt Schumacker, Aaron Murray, and Taylor Davis are set for the call this week for Kentucky vs. Vanderbilt.
Murray, who recently praised Will Stein, Kenny Darby, and Kentucky on his podcast, also posted about the Wildcats online, writing: “Kentucky have themselves a DUDE at WR!”
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For Kentucky, the update is less about celebrating the record and more about where the numbers think that record fits in the bigger SEC hierarchy. ESPNs projections come with expected records attached to each team, and the Wildcats are now being measured against a conference slate that has already produced enough volatility to reshape the conversation around every contender, pretender and surprise team in the league. [Read more 🡒]