LEXINGTON, Ky. -- It's the Wednesday morning of Kentucky's bye week, and Will Stein is raring to go.

He pauses the Tennessee game tape he's watching for an unintended consequence of success: another media interview. 

As Kentucky (7-1) keeps winning on the field, requests for Stein multiply. As a first-time head coach, he's navigating the world of more for the first time. 

More requests of his time. More interest in his program. Maybe even more pressure as a team picked to finish 14th in the SEC has already surpassed expectations and has a real chance to make the College Football Playoff after debuting at No. 6 in the rankings. What may have felt like a dream to Kentucky fans in August is now a possibility, and Stein doesn't want to let it slip through his hands. 

To start our interview, I asked Stein what he's learned about himself and the experience as a first-year head coach. His answer perfectly summarized what it's like to be a head coach in 2026. 

"I've learned that I've got to do a lot of interviews like this when I want to watch football and game plan," Stein says. "No, I think it's you try learning something every day about yourself. There's a lot at the top that is not football-related, but you know it's important to the program and important to keep growing this organization."

It's the give-and-take every coach feels now, but especially at non-traditional powers like Kentucky. Success can be fleeting, particularly in the SEC, and you don't want to miss your opportunity. Building and maintaining a successful football program takes a lot of money, and every chance to add to the financial coffers and program awareness has to be taken seriously. But focus too much on that, and you lose sight of what made you successful in the first place: on-field success. In the aftermath of last season's national championship, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti had an avalanche of requests come in. 

That's where athletic director J Batt and his team come into play. Batt, who arrived in July from Michigan State, didn't hire Stein but loves the "authentic leadership" he's seen thus far from the 37-year-old coach. It's Batt's job to maximize revenue, particularly through the Champions Blue LLC, to give Stein everything he needs to make Kentucky more than a one-year wonder. 

"Our goal is not simply to win a game, win a couple of games or go to a bowl game," Batt told CBS Sports. "Our goal is to build championship-level excellence across the board. As football success happens, it's certainly your greatest economic driver; it's your greatest exposure driver. For us, how do we put that into a place where we create long-term sustained success? 

"That's everything from strategies around tickets to donations to how do we create great experiences for corporate partners. How do we use those things to create measurable impact for future corporate partners? And then how do we just parlay that excitement across the board to great engagement?"

Built through the portal, powered by conviction

"The vision is really simple: to win," Stein said in his introductory press conference. "I didn't come here to be average, I didn't come here to be mediocre, I came here to win and win championships."

Stein, a Louisville native, was a Kentucky fan as a kid and dreamed of playing for the Wildcats. When Kentucky wasn't interested, he instead walked on at Louisville and even started five games for the Cardinals. He knew what he was walking into at Kentucky -- the fanbase, the strengths and weaknesses of the program, the recruiting areas he had to hit. 

Stein had supreme belief in himself and in Kentucky football's potential. Winning wasn't some far-off goal, Stein explained in his introduction to Big Blue Nation. He didn't want to wait five years to start winning. He expected to do so immediately. 

He arrived in Lexington inheriting a team that went 5-7 in the final year of Mark Stoops' 13 seasons guiding the Wildcats. From 2016 to 2023, Kentucky had been remarkably consistent under Stoops, winning at least seven games each season. The highlights came in 2018 and 2023 when the Wildcats won 10 games and won the Citrus Bowl. But the program slipped as roster costs skyrocketed, and Stoops was fired after back-to-back losing seasons.

Stein knew what he wanted to do at Kentucky, but he didn't have the necessary parts yet. During three years at Oregon, Stein earned a reputation as one of the nation's top offensive minds. He had success with three different quarterbacks -- Bo Nix, Dillon Gabriel and Dante Moore. A key to that success was offensive lines that were Joe Moore Award finalists three consecutive seasons as one of the nation's best. 

The only problem when Stein got to Kentucky? He had one returning starter, Malachi Woods, on the offensive line. He needed to find four new starting offensive linemen and a new starting quarterback while also still managing his responsibilities as Oregon's offensive coordinator during the College Football Playoff. 

"There was a lot of stress going on," says Stein. "Not a lot of sleep. We didn't even have a full staff here so it was definitely stressful." 

He, offensive coordinator Joe Sloan and offensive line coach Cutter Leftwich teamed up to rebuild the offensive line on the fly. Kentucky devoted significant resources to the operation, knowing that getting multiple viable starting offensive linemen out of the transfer portal wouldn't be cheap, to put it mildly. Sloan, who had previously been at LSU, used his connections to help land the centerpiece of the class: left tackle Lance Heard. 

It didn't stop there. Kentucky added Baylor center Coleton Price, Ohio State guard Tegra Tshabola and Alabama guard Olaus Alinen. The Kentucky coaches sold the idea of putting together one of the nation's best offensive lines, using each commitment to help sell others to get on board. 

"I saw it as a great opportunity," Alinen told CBS Sports. "You kind of look at the other guys who are coming in and look at what kind of players they are. On the o-line, you're really just as good as the players next to you. You've got to be playing together, and you've got to be on the same page with the guys. I saw it as a great opportunity to play with someone like Lance Heard or Coleton Price or Teg."

That offensive line group made up the backbone of a transfer class ranked No. 10 in the country, according to 247Sports. The other big piece was Notre Dame transfer quarterback Kenny Minchey. 

Minchey originally committed to Nebraska before Stein and Co. flipped him to the Wildcats. 247Sports transfer portal analyst Cooper Petagna loved the move and said after the portal ended that Kentucky's class stood out. "They have an understanding of where they need to overpay," Petagna said, "and they have an understanding of where they can find value."

Minchey is a perfect example. He was ranked as the 17th best transfer quarterback -- behind outgoing Kentucky QB Cutter Boley, even -- and the No. 137 overall transfer. He wasn't nearly as expensive as transfer quarterbacks Darian Mensah and Sam Leavit (another QB Kentucky pursued), which allowed UK to spend up elsewhere, but there was still significant risk involved. 

Minchey had thrown a total of 28 passes in college. The most notable aspect of his career to that point was that he had almost beaten out CJ Carr for the Notre Dame starting quarterback job. Kentucky had a connection to Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Dembrock through Sloan, which helped, but it was still largely a projection. The Kentucky coaches closely evaluated all 26 throws he made in 2025 and opted to trust their eyes that he fit what they needed. 

"It was mop-up duty, but we saw throws on tape that we thought translated to our offense," Stein said. "He threw on time, he played in rhythm, he's mobile enough. Our background on him was a high-IQ, high-character guy. Our offense is really predicated around the quarterback being able to get us in the right plays a lot, being able to handle the huddle, being able to handle the line of scrimmage and protection checks. So you've got to have some high IQ."

It has paid off this season.

Minchey seems to get better every week as the Wildcats' starter. Through eight games, he has 1,755 yards passing, 14 touchdowns and one interception. He is an efficient passer who doesn't make many mistakes, a boon for a Kentucky program that won three one-score games, including two in overtime with successful two-point conversions. 

From promising rebuild to CFP contender

Stein saw flashes of a good football team in fall camp.

He was coming from a program that had just made a College Football Playoff semifinal, so he knew what a good team looked like. Still, it could be tough to know what was real and what wasn't when your team is just scrimmaging against itself. He was eager to see what it'd look like against a real opponent. 

He saw flashes again in a Week 2 home game against Alabama. The Wildcats led the entire first half, taking a 17-13 lead into halftime. All the makings of Stein's first marquee win were there until Alabama took its first lead of the game, 23-17, with three minutes left in the third quarter. From there, it was all Alabama in a final score that ballooned to 45-17. If you only saw the final box score, it could have been easy to think it was the same old Kentucky. Inside the program, however, the team knew it was capable of more and gained confidence from the experience.

"That was a moment for us when we had to look in the mirror, look at the things that didn't go right in the game and be like, there's a lot of work to be put in to fix issues that we had in that game," the right guard Alinen said. "But I think a big takeaway was just the aspect of playing consistently throughout four quarters … because we knew we had a good team." 

That showed the following week when Kentucky stunned then-No. 9 Texas A&M, 31-21, in College Station. It all came together in a dominant third quarter where Kentucky scored 21 points and gave up 16 total yards. The Aggies have since faded this season, but in the moment it was a huge deal for a program looking to believe under its confident first-year coach. It gave Stein proof of concept, a moment he could refer back to on what the standard needed to be if his team was going to be as successful as he believed possible. Leaving Texas, Stein believed his team could win every game left on the schedule if it could replicate that third-quarter performance in most games.

It mostly has. 

The Wildcats are one of the hottest teams in the country, riding a six-game winning streak into a road game at No. 13 Tennessee this weekend. Jubilant fans rushed Kroger Field after Kentucky had a walk-off successful two-point conversion to beat Lane Kiffin's LSU Tigers. It was the second consecutive game that Stein's decision to go for two and the win paid off. It's all calculated risk, he says, but the bold decisions have fired up the fanbase and surrounding community. Stein even had a steak named after him at the famous steakhouse Jeff Ruby's Lexington location. 

Already ranked No. 6 in the CFP Rankings, Kentucky has the chance to move up with a win over the Vols this weekend. From there, Kentucky has No. 24 Florida, No. 18 Missouri and in-state rival Louisville. It's a challenging slate, one that could make or break a season that has the potential to be the greatest since 1950. 

Stein is already doing something Kentucky football hasn't seen in more than 100 years. 

Before Stein, you have to go all the way back to E.R. Sweetland in 1909 to find the last Kentucky coach to start out 7-1 in his first season. The legendary Bear Bryant and Jerry Claiborne are both College Football Hall of Famers, and neither was able to do what Stein has in Lexington this season.

And with that, of course, comes outside attention. Even with what is expected to be a quieter coaching carousel cycle than last season, Stein's name is already getting mentioned. Two-thirds of the way through his first regular season as a head coach, popular college football personalities are already attaching him to jobs that aren't open. An anxious Kentucky fan recently asked him on his weekly radio show whether he could see himself in Lexington long-term. Stein reaffirmed how much he loved the area and how Kentucky was a dream job for him.

AD J Batt, who worked at places like Alabama and Georgia Tech before Kentucky, knows it comes with the territory when you're successful. 

"It's always flattering to have your people be somebody that folks are writing about and excited about," Batt said. "That's where we want to be. Will came to Kentucky to win championships and be at an elite level, so part of that is that as we're building that, we're going to be continuing to invest in the program. He's got the resources clearly to be at a championship level. We're going to continue to provide those championship resources for him for the team."

In a college football world where anything now feels possible, Kentucky is the latest to rise up from the cellar onto the national stage. The Indiana comparison is obvious, from the reputation as a basketball-first school to the bravado of the head coach. Cignetti had "I win. Google me," and Stein had his own moment when his response of "Because of me, honestly" as to why Kentucky could win was clipped and went viral. 

The opportunity awaiting Kentucky this month could change the program's trajectory just like Indiana's 2024 playoff run paved the way for last season's title.

"I think we evaluated the correct people," Stein said. "We spent our money on the correct people. But to maintain success, you still have to invest, and I believe we are doing that, which is exciting for me. But, yeah, I mean Indiana did it. They also had the first pick in the draft. They also had, I think, eight or nine other guys drafted. So let's not get it twisted like they were just a bunch of Rudys out there. Those guys are really freaking good football players with an elite coach, two elite coordinators and a coaching staff that obviously knows how to evaluate and coach.

"They are much more than just a cute story. I think they're a really good program."

Under Stein, Kentucky is well on its way to being able to say the same.