Will Stein watches the stadium clock before calling timeout in the closing seconds of the first half in the Wildcats win over LSU in Kroger Field.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB+WAVE) — Everybody wants to talk about Will Stein going for two.

I want to talk about him passing up three.

Because the gutsiest decision Kentucky’s football coach made Saturday night came long before Kenny Minchey ran untouched into the end zone to beat No. 10 LSU, 35-34, in overtime.

It came at the end of the first half, when Kentucky had a chance to tie the game and Stein decided he’d rather take the lead.

And there was Stein, standing on the sideline, one hand extended, palm down. The signal: Be patient folks, I know what I’m doing.

The clock was running. Some Kentucky fans were getting nervous. Stein appeared to be the least hurried man in Kroger Field. He wasn’t trying to save time. He was trying to use all of it.

Kentucky trailed LSU 17-14. The Wildcats had taken possession at their own 25 with 6:11 remaining in the half and worked their way downfield on a 15-play drive.

It wasn’t particularly glamorous. Short passes. Runs by C.J. Baxter, seven of them for 36 yards. First downs earned a few yards at a time. But as Kentucky approached the LSU goal line, Stein was working the clock as carefully as his offense was working the defense.

When Baxter picked up a first down at the LSU 8 with 1:10 left, Kentucky let 27 seconds run off before snapping the ball again. Baxter gained a yard. LSU coach Lane Kiffin called timeout with 39 seconds left. He wanted the ball back.

Baxter ran for three more on second down, to the 4. The clock kept moving. Kiffin looked like he might stop it again. He didn’t.

That’s when Stein’s hand came out. Palm down. He wasn’t simply letting the clock run. He looked to be measuring how much time Kentucky needed for two plays, not one.

Stein called timeout with 20 seconds remaining.

Kentucky would receive the kickoff to begin the second half. A field goal would tie the game. Against the nation’s No. 10 team, that would have been perfectly respectable.

Nobody would have complained. Stein wasn’t looking for respectable.

Third-and-4 from the LSU 4. Kentucky spread out with an empty backfield, and Minchey kept the ball on a quarterback draw. He fought ahead for three yards before LSU stopped him about three-quarters of a yard from the goal line.

The clock kept running. Eight seconds. Seven. Six. Stein let it run down to three before calling his final timeout. Fourth-and-1. This was the decision nobody would spend Sunday talking about.

Consider what Stein was risking. He could take three points, go to halftime tied at 17 and receive the second-half kickoff. He would have a fresh possession, a tied game and a perfectly reasonable explanation for his decision.

Or he could put six minutes of work, and the halftime lead, on one yard. If Kentucky failed, it would have nothing to show for the drive.

And Stein had just watched his quarterback get stopped short.

Twice during the drive, the TV broadcast had said Kentucky at least needed to come away with a field goal. That’s the conventional thinking. Analytics often favor going for it on fourth-and-1. Stein didn’t need much persuading.

He never sent out the field-goal unit. Kentucky broke the huddle and sprinted to the line in a tush-push formation. Same quarterback. Same yard. No safety net.

As soon as Kiffin saw it, he called his final timeout.

LSU had seen what was coming. Now it had time to get ready for it.

Then Kiffin kept talking. Long after the timeout, he stayed in the officials’ ear, until he was escorted back to his sideline while the crowd jeered. The video board flashed a message: “QUIET PLEASE. OFFENSE AT WORK.”

Across the field, Stein waited with his hands on his knees and a slight smile on his face.

When Kiffin was finally back where he belonged, Kentucky sprinted to the line again. Same formation. Minchey lunged forward into the pile, with Baxter, Henry Boyer and Willie Rodriguez behind him, pushing.

The officials signaled touchdown. Minchey came out of the pile hopping and shaking his head.

It wasn’t over. Kiffin was back on the field, arguing. And Stein, the least hurried man in the stadium a few minutes earlier, was screaming at an official on his own sideline as the play went to replay, while an assistant tried to wedge himself between his coach and the official.

The call stood. The clock read zero. Kentucky 21, LSU 17.

Stein had declined the tie, trusted his quarterback and gotten the lead.

Afterward, Minchey described what it was like to line up, get stopped by a timeout and wait.

“We’re gonna do it again,” was how he described the offense’s response. “And to be able to do that and convert was great. And once again, it points to Coach Stein’s trust in us and his confidence in us.”

Kentucky quarterback Kenny Minchey is stopped just short of the LSU goal line on third down, left, then pushes across for a touchdown on fourth-and-one as time expires in the first half Saturday night.

Stein could manage the clock. He could make the decision. He could send the play into the huddle. He couldn’t get the yard himself.

Minchey had to do that. And the quarterback didn’t seem particularly troubled by being asked to go back into the same defense that had just stopped him.

That’s one of the more important things Stein has accomplished in six games at Kentucky. He’s not merely willing to make aggressive decisions. His players have started expecting them.

Kentucky missed two fourth-quarter field goals, including a 26-yarder after recovering an LSU fumble deep in Tigers territory. But the Wildcats were still within three points late in regulation.

And there was one more fourth-and-one to come.

This one belonged to Lane Kiffin.

LSU led 27-24 with 1:46 remaining. The Tigers faced fourth-and-one at their own 43. One yard would give them a first down and leave Kentucky with precious little time to answer.

Kiffin called timeout. Then he punted.

There were perfectly reasonable arguments for that decision. LSU was in its own territory. Failure would give Kentucky the ball already in field-goal range. A punt would force the Wildcats to travel downfield, with the clock working against them.

But it was an interesting contrast.

Stein had put a halftime lead on one yard rather than take three points. Kiffin, with a chance to make Kentucky’s comeback considerably more difficult, chose field position.

Kentucky took over at its own 19 with 1:37 left.

Minchey completed five of his final six passes in regulation. Adam Zouagui, who had missed two fourth-quarter field goals, made a 33-yarder with 12 seconds remaining to force overtime.

Stein had trusted his offense to get a yard. Kiffin had trusted his defense to protect a lead.

Before LSU even finished running out the clock, Kentucky’s players had settled on what would happen next.

“I mean, what we were saying on the sideline is, you know, we’re gonna go win it in overtime,” Minchey said. “Before they even kneeled it out, after we got the last few points to force overtime, we all knew we were gonna go win it in overtime.”

Not try to win it. Go win it.

LSU scored first in overtime to take a 34-27 lead. Kentucky answered. Baxter, whose 77-yard run on the Wildcats’ first offensive play had set the tone, scored from a yard out.

The score was 34-33. But Baxter didn’t celebrate. He knew what was coming.

“We knew,” Baxter said. “If you go look at when I scored that second touchdown, I didn’t celebrate. I’m like, we finna go for two. Let’s go win this game.”

And he explained that the attitude had been there from the beginning of overtime.

“As soon as overtime started, you can hear everybody on the sideline saying, ‘We finna go win this game. We’ve been here already. Let’s go do it again.’”

They had been there already.

A week earlier, at South Carolina, Stein had gone for two in overtime, and Minchey had delivered the winning pass to Rodriguez.

Now they were back in the same situation, against a better opponent, with another chance to end the game on one play.

Minchey admitted he didn’t know for certain that Stein would go for two until the coach held up two fingers. But the decision itself didn’t surprise him.

“I think it speaks volumes about his trust in us, his confidence, his swagger that he carries himself with, and he carries our team with,” Minchey said. “And I feel like there was no surprise last weekend, this week too, of going for two. You know, we’re here to win ball games.”

That’s the difference between a coach who likes to gamble and a coach who has persuaded his players to believe in the gamble.

Kentucky lined up with five receivers and an empty backfield. Minchey had the option to throw or run, depending on what LSU presented. He looked across the line. Four defenders in the box.

“There was nobody in the middle, so I figured I’d run there,” Minchey said.

There may never have been a simpler explanation for a play that sent an entire football stadium into delirium. Minchey ran three yards. Nobody touched him.

Stein said he hadn’t even seen the run. He was watching the receivers execute their routes. When he looked up, people were rushing onto the field.

The coach made the call. The quarterback made the read. The crowd took care of the rest.

There is a temptation after a victory like this to turn every successful decision into proof of genius. That isn’t necessary.

Stein could have lost the game on the two-point conversion. He could have gone to halftime trailing 17-14 after passing up a tying field goal.

Those were real risks.

What makes the decisions interesting isn’t that they worked. It’s that Stein was willing to make them, and that his players have become just as willing to live with the consequences.

And I keep coming back to the scene before halftime. The clock winding down. Stein on the sideline, palm down, signaling patience. Minchey stopped a yard short. Three seconds remaining. Three points available.

And a coach who wanted something more.

Everybody will remember the two points that won the game.

I suspect those three points Stein refused to take told us more about the coach — and the team — that won it.

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CRAWFORD | Will Stein’s gutsiest call against LSU wasn’t the one everybody’s talking about