Stein ushers in new era for Cats

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After 13 seasons, the Mark Stoops era is over.

For more than a decade, the Youngstown, Ohio, native roamed the sidelines at Kroger Field, amassing an 82-80 record and leading the Wildcats to a school-record eight consecutive bowl games along the way.

However, with back-to-back losing seasons in the past two years — both capped off by blowout losses to arch-rival Louisville in the Governor’s Cup — it was time for the SEC’s longest-tenured coach to go.

And it didn’t take very long for UK leadership to turn the page.

Less than 24 hours after news broke of Stoops’s dismissal on Sunday, Oregon offensive coordinator and Louisville native Will Stein was tabbed as the Cats’ next leader.

For the last few years, especially as other SEC programs have enjoyed the spotlight in College Football Playoff discussions, UK fans had grown increasingly irritated at the Cats’ shortcomings. Watching programs like Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt and Missouri surpass Kentucky over the past 13 seasons has been a bitter reminder of just how far Kentucky has been from competing among the conference’s elite programs.

For all the positives that UK achieved during Stoops’s tenure, there was always doubt hanging over the program.

Twice, Stoops led the Cats to 10-win seasons, but the 10-3 finish in 2021 was later vacated due to NCAA violations. Kentucky made eight straight bowl games under Stoops, but much of that bowl eligibility came as a result of racking up wins against lesser, out-of-conference opponents. Against SEC foes, Stoops’s teams went just 38-68.

Add in conflicts over the years — like telling unhappy fans to “pony up” the money to be competitive in the new NIL landscape, his public response to John Calipari’s “basketball school” comments in 2022 or his rumored departure to Texas A&M in 2023 — and it was clear that the relationship between Stoops and UK was on rocky ground.

Simply put, UK reached its ceiling under Stoops.

Enter Will Stein.

The former Louisville Trinity High School and University of Louisville quarterback takes over the UK program after leading Oregon’s offense for the past three seasons. During that span, the Ducks scored 39.1 points per game as one of the nation’s top offenses and earned a 36-4 record, including a Big Ten championship and CFP berth last year.

For fans of the Cats, who haven’t sniffed SEC contention — much less competed on a national scale — Stein’s success should help reinvigorate a program looking for a spark. If nothing else, he should provide a fun, explosive offense that couldn’t be more different than the physical, plodding offense UK has trotted out for the past few seasons.

It’ll be a breath of fresh air in Lexington, and sometimes that’s all you need to get a program on the right track.

It remains to be seen if redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley will return to UK after starting the last 10 games, but Stein has a track record of developing quarterbacks. At Oregon, he helped turn Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel into Heisman Trophy candidates, and now both are suiting up in the NFL.

Stein’s previous accomplishments speak for themselves, and by all accounts, he should be a successful hire for UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart.

For Stoops, it was simply time to move on.

After 13 seasons, let the Will Stein era begin.

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