2026 Alabama Football vs Kentucky: Previewing the Wildcats’ Offense

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After many long years with Mark Stoops generally whelming at head coach, the Kentucky Wildcats finally made a change this offseason and brought in the Will Stein, the young offensive coordinator at Oregon, to be their head man in his first shot at head coaching.

Stein runs a pretty normal spread offense with roots in the old Urban Meyer style that uses a lot of rushing out of the spread and a lot of screens and short passes – essentially a focus on getting the skill players the ball in space and let them all do damage with yards after the catch. It’s a fairly simple offense, and it’s one that has a long history of being effective.

Now, there’s very little to go off of for what to actually expect from their players. The Wildcat offense is almost fully made up of transfers – 4/5 of their OL, QB, RB, and two WRs are all new to Kentucky. QB Kenny Minchey was a backup at Notre Dame the last few years and got very little playing time – he was a strong 4-star recruit a few years back, and in their opener last week he threw for 301 yards and 4 touchdowns. For his pass catchers, Nic Anderson had a decent year for Oklahoma a couple of seasons ago but didn’t get on the field for LSU last year, so he’s continuing his trip around the SEC. Freshman Kenny Darby had a nice debut last week too, leading the team with 74 yards. 6’3” DJ Miller also returns after getting a few snaps last year, but didn’t record a catch in the opener.

At running back, CJ Baxter was the big haul from the transfer portal for the Wildcats. Baxter was a former 5-star recruit and was a big contributor for Texas a couple of seasons ago, rushing for 700 yards on about 150 carries. Baxter missed all of 2024 with an offseason injury, and then didn’t manage to get back onto the depth chart for the Longhorns in 2025. So it’s been a few years, but he brings a lot of talent and excitement. He rushed for 48 yards and a couple of touchdowns in the opener.

For Alabama, there’s obviously some concern that all of the newness is tough to gameplan for, and Minchey and Baxter have some high level talent and potential at QB and RB. On the other hand, they’re breaking in an entirely new OL, and Kane Wommack’s defense is very good at punishing the short passing game, so I think the Tide scheme has a bit of an advantage there over Stein’s spread offense.

There’s a lot of excitement for the Wildcats right now after they dismantled their season opener… Against Youngstown State. To this point, though, we really have no idea if the Wildcats are going to be a legitimate threat, or if they just beat up on an FCS squad in week 1.

It think they’ll get a score, or maybe even two, early in the game that gets Alabama fans a bit nervous, but ultimately the Tide defense tightens up and pretty well shuts them out in the second half. Let’s go with 17 points for the Wildcats.

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