Will Stein’s first month at Kentucky has already drawn a nod from one of the SEC’s sharpest offensive minds.
Lane Kiffin said Wednesday that the Wildcats’ first-year coach has brought “that kind of youthful, confident energy” to Lexington, and Kiffin pointed to the way Kentucky has played and carried itself as proof. The praise came with a little edge, too, because Kentucky is set to host No. 10 LSU on Saturday as nearly a 10-point underdog.
“I think he’s brought that kind of youthful, confident energy in there, and you can see by the way that they play and by the way they kind of walk that they have a lot of confidence. They were down big in that game at South Carolina, and a lot of first-year teams would have folded in that, and they came all the way back and won,” Kiffin said about UK’s 35-24 comeback in overtime at South Carolina last week.
Stein’s start has backed up the belief. Kentucky is 4-1 and has already picked up two Southeastern Conference road wins, a strong opening for a coach who arrived with plenty of self-belief and has leaned into it from day one.
That kind of swagger clearly resonated with Kiffin. The LSU coach, who has never been shy about his own confidence, said Stein’s comments at SEC Media Day about being the reason Kentucky would win big showed a kind of young self-assurance Kiffin recognized right away.
“I saw the young confidence. Some might say cocky.
Probably I did see in that moment some of myself when I was young,” Kiffin said. “But he’s doing a great job, and he did a great job on offense at Oregon.
Really unique plays and a mixture of personnels and tempo and stuff.”
Kiffin added that he has never quite made a statement like Stein’s, but admitted “felt like that might have been something” he would have said early in his own coaching career.
The two coaches share more than a bold streak. Stein is 37, while Kiffin was 31 when he got his first NFL head coaching job with the Oakland Raiders and 33 when he became Tennessee’s head coach. Both have built reputations around offensive creativity, even if Kiffin made clear that’s not the part of Stein’s profile that stands out most to him.
Kiffin also had fresh memory of Kentucky from last season, when he was coaching Ole Miss. The Rebels came into that game in playoff contention before Kentucky pulled out a 20-17 win in what became the biggest game of Mark Stoops’ coaching tenure.
That finish came after Kentucky trailed 17-13 and faced fourth-and-seven at its own 20 with a little more than three minutes left. Stoops, known for a cautious approach, didn’t punt.
Brock Vandagriff then hit Barion Brown on a 63-yard pass to the Ole Miss 17, and Kentucky finished the job to stun No. 6 Ole Miss.
“That day sucked, especially at 11 a.m. When you lose and get upset at 11 a.m., ain’t a whole lot to do but sit in the misery,” Kiffin said on the coaches call. “That was a bad day.
“Stoops took some risks. He went for whatever that was, 4th-and-7, backed up, made two fourth downs on that.
That’s the sport we play in. These games go down to the wire, and sometimes they go your way; sometimes they don’t.
We knock the ball, they fumble into the end zone, and they recover it (for the winning score) after converting two fourth downs. That was a bad day.”
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