Will Stein is a brilliant play-caller. Everyone thinks so. Dan Lanning called him one of the best offensive coordinators in America. Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said they study Oregon in how creative they are in the run game. But if you are expecting a Hal Mumme Air Raid resurrection, be prepared for a rude […]
Will Stein is a brilliant play-caller. Everyone thinks so.
Dan Lanning called him one of the best offensive coordinators in America. Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said they study Oregon in how creative they are in the run game. But if you are expecting a Hal Mumme Air Raid resurrection, be prepared for a rude awakening.
Will Stein will ‘feed the studs’
The thing about Will Stein’s offense is that it really isn’t one thing all the time, but if you look at his Oregon numbers, one thing stands out. He wants to run the football, and he wants to do it a lot. But he also realizes when it is time to change his pattern, change his style, and flip a game.
That is a huge difference as he looks to “feed the studs,” which is just a fancy way of saying getting the best players the ball as much as possible.
Oregon offensive stats under Will Stein, Kentucky offensive stats under Mark Stoops
Oregon 2023– 36.7 passes per game, 31.2 rushes per game 67.9
Kentucky 2023– 28.8 passes per game, 26.1 rushes per game, total plays 54.9
Oregon 2024– 32.9 passes per game, 35.6 rushes per game, total plays 68.5
Kentucky 2024– 26 passes per game, 36.9 rushes per game, total plays 62.9
Oregon 2025– 27.9 passes per game, 36.8 rushes per game, total plays 64.7
Kentucky 2025– 30.7 passes per game, 36 rushes per game, total plays 66.7
So, the big difference in the first two years is the sheer amount of plays Oregon ran. The Kentucky 2023 offense was one of the slowest I can remember seeing, and the numbers back that up: 54.9 total plays per game is wildly low. Oregon was running 13 more plays per game, and that balanced out through the pass and run. Which brings us to the next point:
Will Stein wants real balance
We heard Mark Stoops say he wanted balance, and he was largely unable to find it during his tenure outside of Liam Coen and towards the end of last season. Nothing wrong with pounding the rock, but that was what Stoops knew and his teams often struggled when asked to be a drop back team.
Stein wants to pound the rock too, he actually ran the ball more and threw the ball less this year than Mark Stoops and Cutter Boley did under Bush Hamdan. The difference is the style of runs we see. Stein will run a speed option, a power option, and then marry his pass game to it:
Again, a run look that has the option to throw the ball, defense will have to cover both.
Stein will want to put pressure on the defense in every way possible. He said he wants to be hard to play against everywhere on the field, and with play calls like these you can see how he does it.
Stoops for his part preferred a straight up power run game with pulling lineman, counters, zone traps and loved running between the tackles as the primary way to move the ball.
So, if you were hoping to see a Hal Mumme style of 52 passes per game, it won’t happen. But what will happen is a modern offense that just secured a 23-0 win over Texas Tech to move on to the semi-finals of the CFP. In that game, the offense ran 34 passes and 36 non-qb runs. The numbers weren’t great but they didn’t have to be, Oregon just had 309 yards, but that is all they needed.
It will be a little longer before Will Stein is in his new Kentucky home, as the Ducks now will take on Indiana on Friday January the 9th, meaning the earliest Stein will be in Lexington is the 10th, with only 6 days left in the portal.
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Drew Holbrook is an avid Kentucky fan who has been covering the Cats for over 10 years. In his free time he enjoys downtime with his family and Premier League soccer. You can find him on X here. Micah 7:7. #UptheAlbion
Category: General Sports
