Will Stein shares how they're "stealing reps" with how they intentionally structure practice at Kentucky

Just 36 years old, Will Stein has worked for some of the most respected coaches in college football which has undoubtedly shaped his approach to practice in his first spring as the new head coach at Kentucky.

After playing his college ball at Louisville under Steve Kragthorpe and Charlie Strong, Stein joined Strong's staff as a graduate assistant and then quality control coach before following him to Texas in a quality control role.

Stein then spent a few seasons as the offensive coordinator at the high school level at Texas powerhouse Lake Travis before joining Jeff Traylor's first staff at UTSA as pass game coordinator and receivers coach for two seasons before moving to quarterbacks in 2022. He would leave for Eugene, Oregon to become Dan Lanning's offensive play caller with the Ducks and after = three seasons establishing himself as one of the most efficient offensive play callers in college football, Stein is entrenched in his first spring as the head coach in Lexington where he shares their practices don't follow the traditional practice template. 

The way the first-time head coach has structured practice, they're stealing reps at every available opportunity.

"In a traditional practice, you've got your pre-practice walk through, you stretch, you've got your individual periods, and you blend it into some special teams and then some team and then you're kind of done."

"We will put some special teams in random spots of practice. We really have three walk [through's] before practice. We have a special teams walk through, an O/D separate, and then a blitz walk [through]. That's before we even flex, before we stretch we've got 30 minutes of prep before practice."

"Our periods have a true emphasis. We don't just go out and run plays. Every period is specific, our transitions should look a certain way on and off the field, that's how we create conditioning."

"Everything is face paced. Everything is tempo because the game is chaotic. When there is a sudden change - blocked punt, or fumble recovery, or change of possession - that can be chaotic. So we're trying to create that in practice. We're always coaching."

Then Stein touches on how they "two-spot" drills and gives a glimpse into how they're bucking conventional practice formats.

"Instead of 22 players getting better at the same time, we have 44. If we don't have enough players for a particular drill, after a team rep, we'll go three plays of 7-on-7 right there. We're not waiting to do 7v7 late in practice. How can we steal reps? That's our mindset. How can we get better every single period. So it is quite different than some maybe traditional practice schedules, but I like to think that it has worked."

It's an approach that's being recognized by recruits, as Stein and the Wildcats recently got a commitment from the number 2 overall quarterback in the 2027 recruiting class in Jake Nawrot, a product of Arlington Heights, IL.

Stein and the Wildcats host their spring game this weekend on Saturday at 11am. The Stein era in Lexington gets started with a home opener against Youngstown State (FCS - OH) on September 5th, followed by their SEC opener against Kalen DeBoer and Alabama. The rest of their schedule features home game against South Alabama, LSU, Vanderbilt and Florida, with road games at Texas A&M, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee.