Basketball season has officially come to a painful close in the Bluegrass. With the women's team suffering a brutal exit against Texas yesterday, the collective attention of Big Blue Nation is officially turning toward the diamond and the gridiron.
Fortunately, Will Stein is providing plenty of fireworks.
The first-year head coach has been an absolute machine this offseason. Between securing massive commitments, hosting some of the top recruits in the country, and, oh yeah, he is now officially running his first spring practice in Lexington.
Following a highly anticipated weekend session, Stein stepped up to the microphone to give fans a transparent update on the state of the Kentucky football program. The ultimate takeaway? He is injecting a cutthroat level of competition into the locker room that will make everyone better, or make some of the weaker players leave.
The mama drill and high stakes gassers
If fans were expecting a vanilla, traditional weekend scrimmage, Stein quickly set the record straight.
"Not a traditional scrimmage, no," Stein explained, noting that they will run a traditional 11-on-11 format next week. Instead, this weekend was dedicated entirely to one thing: raw, head-to-head competition.
Stein drastically reduced the overall time on the field to focus specifically on high-pressure situations. These are situations that often decide wins and losses.
The coaching staff ran third-down competitions and finished the day with a high-stakes red zone drill where the losers had to run gassers on the line. For the record, the defense took home the victory in the red zone.
But the highlight of the update was a new rapid-fire one-on-one segment that Stein calls the "mama drill."
"We were just going one-on-ones, rapid-fire down the line," Stein said. "Everybody in the whole building's watching, which was good to see."
By putting players on an island with the entire facility watching, Stein is actively testing which guys will rise to the occasion and which guys will fold when all eyes are on them. It is exactly the kind of intensity the program needs.
Puts a whole new spin on the word mama.
Putting his fingerprint on the entire program
Building a winning football program goes far beyond calling the right plays. It requires a vision, and Stein was asked exactly how he balances his time between the X's and O's and everything else.
He didn't sound like a first year head coach in his answer:
"I like to think that I'm involved in about every aspect that I can be," Stein noted. He explained that he is in constant communication with the football staff, the Sports Information Directors, and the multimedia team to ensure everything the public sees runs directly through his specific lens.
"Am I trying to micromanage everybody? (Expletive) no," Stein bluntly stated. "They're hired for a reason to do a job. We have a lot of really smart people that work their tails off in this organization and in this athletic department."
He finds the people he wants to be in each position, puts them in there and let's them go to work. That is how a well oiled machine rolls on.
One chance to make a first impression
Despite trusting his staff, Stein is well aware of the massive pressure resting on his shoulders.
You truly only get one chance to make a first impression with the fanbase, the boosters, and the national media. Stein refuses to leave that first impression to chance.
"I think it's important as a head coach to have your fingerprint on as much as you can because ultimately, you know, we're going to be judged by the product we put on the field," Stein said. "And I want to make sure that it's exactly what I want."
The basketball heartbreak still stings, but the Will Stein era of Kentucky football is trying to soothe the wound a little.