During football season, SEC teams never get a break. Every week, Southeastern Conference squads face off against some of the nation’s top programs. Kentucky knows this reality well sometimes for the better, often for the worse. Before finally defeating Auburn 10-3 last November, the Wildcats had dropped ten straight conference games.
That victory gave Mark Stoops a much-needed confidence boost, though he was ultimately let go. Over his final three seasons as head coach, Kentucky faced the 13th-, 8th-, and 11th-toughest schedules nationally including the early-season “cupcake” buy games and the usual late-season matchups against comparable opponents.
But under Will Stein, Kentucky’s schedule difficulty is about to skyrocket to No. 2 in the country. It’s full throttle from the opening kickoff.
Stein Faces a Tough Road Ahead
Kentucky officially begins the Stein era on September 5th against Youngstown State. After that, Stein won’t have any chance to ease into his first year as head coach in Lexington not that he’d want to. Here’s how the full slate looks:
• Youngstown State
• Alabama
• @ Texas A&M
• South Alabama
• @ South Carolina
• LSU
• @ Oklahoma
• Vanderbilt
• @ Tennessee
• Florida
• @ Missouri
• Louisville
The competition gets fierce immediately. Still, Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama isn’t Nick Saban’s Alabama, and Jay Bateman just came to Kentucky from Texas A&M. I’m not predicting Kentucky will win those games—they’ll definitely be underdogs in both. But what if they did? What if small edges turned into nail-biting victories?
If Stein and his team pull off wins like that in his debut season, Kentucky will vastly outperform any preseason expectations.
The Wildcats boast, in my view, a potentially elite quarterback in Kenny Minchey, who should be highly motivated after narrowly losing the starting job at Notre Dame. His former teammates speak glowingly about him, and Kentucky’s coaching staff shares that optimism.
Minchey’s ceiling may ultimately determine this Kentucky team’s fate, but the pieces are in place on both sides of the ball to at least generate exciting preseason buzz. Will Stein faces an uphill battle in year one but I’d bet he wouldn’t have it any other way.
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