LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB+WAVE) — Will Stein has discovered a peculiar phenomenon in college football. Apparently, the University of Kentucky can turn good football teams into bad ones simply by beating them.

It’s an extraordinary gift. Some coaches develop quarterbacks. Some build defenses. Stein ruins reputations.

Texas A&M was a pretty good football team until Kentucky beat it. LSU was ranked No. 10 in the country until Saturday night. By the time the Wildcats finished with the Tigers, you might have thought they’d beaten a team of insurance salesmen who wandered onto the field looking for the company picnic.

One Associated Press poll voter pointed out that Kentucky was two failed two-point conversions from being 3-3, which is true enough. Of course, the Wildcats made both conversions, a detail that seems worth mentioning.

Another national writer wondered how LSU could lose to a “lower-tier SEC team.” Kentucky, it seems, can win the games. Getting credit for them is another matter.

“It’s just funny,” Stein said Tuesday. “Everybody that we beat seems to be a really bad football team. So that’s what kind of drives me a little bit right now.”

There it is. A little needle beneath the pleasant exterior.

Stein was asked whether Kentucky’s start felt like vindication. Did he want to tell the doubters he told them so?

No, he said. He shows up every day, does his job, builds a culture of competition and accountability and doesn’t worry about what anybody thinks of him. Then he mentioned what everybody thinks of his football team. Funny how that works.

Truth is, the disrespect started long before LSU. In August, Kentucky had a new coach, a rebuilt roster and a preseason over-under of 4.5 wins. The expectation was that the Wildcats would spend the fall trying to get back on their feet.

Instead, they’re knocking other people off theirs.

Kentucky is 5-1, 3-1 in the Southeastern Conference and No. 15 in the Associated Press poll. It won at Texas A&M, rallied from 17 points down at South Carolina and beat LSU in overtime. Its only loss came against Alabama, 45-17, in a game Kentucky led at halftime before the Crimson Tide reminded everyone that football games have two halves.

The Wildcats have already cleared their win total, and it isn’t Halloween.

At some point, you have to consider that the team doing all this winning might be good.

Not a finished product, though. Kentucky has missed tackles, missed field goals and missed chances, and it has occasionally seemed determined to find out how close it can come to losing without actually doing it.

Nobody pointed that out more eagerly Tuesday than the man who had just beaten LSU.

Stein thought his offense should have scored 42 points. He brought up a missed read on fourth down, a wasted takeaway and tackles his defense should have made. He wasn’t polishing the trophy. He was reviewing the film.

So despite his quip, Stein doesn’t want anybody inside the program acting as if Kentucky has arrived. He just wouldn’t mind if a few people outside it noticed how far it has come.

Maybe that’s the real challenge of taking over a struggling program. You don’t just have to change the results. You have to change what people believe the results mean.

When a traditional power wins, it’s evidence of strength. When a rebuilding team wins, the first instinct is to look for what went wrong with the opponent. It was overrated. It made too many mistakes. It gave the game away.

Sometimes that’s true. But sometimes a team loses because somebody beats it.

Next comes Oklahoma, a program with enough national championships to fill a museum. The Sooners just beat No. 1 Texas, they’re at home in Norman, and Stein spent much of Tuesday explaining how good their defense is.

He even called Oklahoma the kind of consistent winner he wants Kentucky to become.

Stein isn’t pretending he built a national power in six games. He’s trying to build a program that doesn’t have to explain itself every time it wins.

Six regular-season games remain. Plenty of time to prove the critics wrong. Plenty of time to prove them right.

But Stein has already done something that seemed unlikely in August. He’s given Kentucky football fans something they haven’t had much reason to argue about lately: how good their team might actually be.

If the Wildcats win in Norman, perhaps we’ll learn the Sooners weren’t much of a football team, either.

At this rate, Will Stein could ruin the reputation of the entire Southeastern Conference.

Watch the full press conference below:

Kentucky football coach Will Stein previews upcoming game against Oklahoma

Home

CRAWFORD | Everybody Kentucky beats suddenly becomes a bad football team. Will Stein has noticed.