For the first time in a longtime, Kentucky football was bold this offseason.
The Wildcats decided, at great expense, to fire their winningest coach in program history in Mark Stoops following a 5-7 campaign. Stoops was shown the door despite leading UK to 8 consecutive bowl appearances from 2016-23 — by far the longest such streak in program history.
That decision, in and of itself, is bold. It was a rejection of the status quo and a rebuke of the middling results that Stoops so consistently delivered for more than a decade. Although bowl games were a regular occurrence, Kentucky never won more than 5 SEC games in a season under Stoops and only reached that benchmark twice.
Still, you could have forgiven Kentucky for sticking with Stoops for another season given that his buyout reportedly exceeded $37 million. Deciding to move on an embrace change — for better or worse — was a risk.
The second bold move of the offseason was hiring Will Stein to replace Stoops. Stein, in many ways, is in direct opposition to Stoops. He’s young — at 36 years old, he’s the youngest head coach in the SEC in a time when the SEC’s head coaches are trending younger. Stoops was one of the SEC’s oldest head coaches in 2025.
Stein is also an offensive play-caller while Stoops cut his teeth on the defensive side of the ball. Stein’s offenses have been prolific at Oregon. Over the last 3 years, the Ducks have led the nation in yards per play (7.15) and passer efficiency rating (173.4).
Stein’s age gives this away, but he’s also had a blazing-fast rise up the coaching ranks. He was a high school coach at Lake Travis (Texas) as recently as 2019. He has just 6 years as a full-time assistant under his belt. Stoops’ path to the top of the hill in Lexington was much longer. He proved himself as an assistant coach over nearly 2 decades before Kentucky hired him away from Florida State.
Everything about this experiment is bold.
Kentucky regular-season win total analysis
This piece is part of a series we’re running this offseason at Saturday Down South where we’ll look at regular-season win totals for all 16 SEC teams. We’ve previously covered Alabama, Georgia and LSU and Auburn. Kentucky is up next.
Kentucky regular-season win total
Per the latest odds from BetMGM, here’s Kentucky’s regular-season win total for 2026:
- Over 4.5 wins (-155)
- Under 4.5 wins (+120)
Betting markets are projecting Kentucky as significantly more likely to go “over” 5 wins than “under,” hence the steep -155 price. The implied odds of -155 are at 60.78%. That means for the “over” to be a plus-EV bet, you’d have to estimate Kentucky’s chances of 5+ wins at ~61% or greater.
Kentucky’s 2026 schedule
Here’s a look at UK’s 2026 slate:
- Sept. 5: vs. Youngstown State
- Sept. 12: vs. Alabama
- Sept. 19: at Texas A&M
- Sept. 26: vs. South Alabama
- Oct. 3: at South Carolina
- Oct. 10: vs. LSU
- Oct. 17: at Oklahoma
- Oct. 24: vs. Vanderbilt
- Oct. 31: OFF
- Nov. 7: at Tennessee
- Nov. 14: vs. Florida
- Nov. 21: at Missouri
- Nov. 28: vs. Louisville
After an FCS opener, Kentucky will battle Alabama and Texas A&M to open up SEC play. The Wildcats then, though, host South Alabama to close out September.
October is headlined by road trips to Columbia and Norman as well as home games against LSU and Vanderbilt. That Oct. 24 game against Vandy will likely be the first SEC game Kentucky is favored in this season.
Things don’t slow down much in November with Tennessee, Florida, Mizzou and Louisville on the schedule.
Overall, this home slate looks particularly challenging with LSU, Florida and Louisville all set to play in Lexington this year. The Wildcats are likely to be big underdogs in all 3 of those games.
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My prediction — Kentucky goes under its win total this fall. That’s not an indictment of what Stein is building in Lexington, which genuinely seems to have some momentum. But for the reasons I’ll outline below, I think 5+ wins is too tall of a task for the Wildcats in Year 1:
Too much inexperience in key roles
I’m relatively high on Kentucky longterm, but for 2026, I’m weary of the combo of Will Stein and Kenny Minchey at head coach and quarterback, respectively.
As a first-year head coach, Stein is likely to face some growing pains in Year 1 in a league where his team is among the worst-resourced. His mentor, Dan Lanning, hit the ground running at Oregon but he was taking over a 10-win program and had arguably the best institutional support in the Pac-12.
A more apt comparison would be another offensive play-caller in Lincoln Riley, whose first head coaching job was at Oklahoma. Riley had some built-in advantages as well, though. He was offensive coordinator for 2 years in Norman before replacing Bob Stoops, so he knew the Big 12 landscape quite well when he took the reins.
Stein is walking into a very different situation. Kentucky’s program does not appear to be funded at the level required to compete at the top or even in the middle of the SEC. Those shortcomings, along with a high number of transfers, point toward a volatile range of outcomes for UK in 2026.
There’s also Minchey, who has thrown 29 career passes in 3 seasons of college football. He’s sat behind good players at Notre Dame and reportedly had a close offseason QB battle with CJ Carr last fall.
There are other SEC quarterbacks who will be seeing their first real playing time this season, including at some programs with massive expectations. Alabama, Florida and Tennessee, to name a few. But those programs all have head coaches with significant experience. The combination of a first-time head coach and an inexperienced quarterback make it difficult to bet on Kentucky to exceed expectations in 2026.
Highly-rated transfer classes don’t always translate to wins
Kentucky has received some praise (and hype) this offseason for its loaded transfer class. Per 247Sports, the Wildcats have signed 29 transfers and own the No. 11-ranked transfer cycle in the country.
The class is led by Minchey, who backed up Riley Leonard and CJ Carr the past 2 seasons in South Bend. Other high-profile transfers include former LSU receiver Nic Anderson, former Texas running back CJ Baxter, former Tennessee offensive lineman Lance Heard and former Ohio State offensive lineman Tegra Tshabola, among others.
It’s certainly worth celebrating that Kentucky is investing its program at a level that makes this type of transfer haul possible. But a highly-ranked transfer class does not correlate to better regular season performance. Recent history has proven that year after year. Just look at UK — the Wildcats had a top-10 transfer class in 2025 and went 5-7.
Also in the top 10 of 247’s transfer rankings for 2025: LSU (7-6), Florida State (5-7), Auburn (5-7) and North Carolina (4-8).
Of course, there were some success stories, too. But especially now in an era where top talent is being retained more frequently at mid levels of the sport thanks to the House settlement, we should be careful about overvaluing transfer recruiting rankings.
Kentucky’s home schedule is unfavorable
Kentucky’s schedule, in general, is difficult. Besides potentially Vanderbilt as it replaces Diego Pavia, there aren’t any SEC teams on this schedule who would be considered a bottom-tier opponent entering the season.
Last season, there were 4 SEC teams that went 0-8 or 1-7 in league play. Kentucky will only see one of those teams — South Carolina — in 2026, missing out on the opportunity to play Auburn, Arkansas and Mississippi State.
That contest against the Gamecocks also comes in Columbia, where South Carolina is typically formidable even in down seasons.
Aside from Youngstown State, South Alabama and Vanderbilt, there aren’t any home games on this schedule where the Wildcats will be favored (or even close to a coin flip).
That poses a significant problem as you go through the schedule in search of 5+ wins. It would take multiple major upsets for Kentucky to get to that benchmark.
For the purpose of the exercise, let’s say Kentucky wins its early nonconference games and squeaks out a victory against Vanderbilt. We can also (probably) safely expect losses against Alabama, Texas A&M, LSU and Tennessee. That would be a record of 3-4 against those 7 opponents.
For UK to get over the line, it would have to win 2 of these games: at South Carolina, at Oklahoma, vs. Florida, at Mizzou, vs. Louisville.
It’s possible, but with the juice at +120 to the under, I’d prefer to be on that side of the action.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
