New UK offensive coordinator Joe Sloan knows people are "drawn" to Kentucky coach Will Stein, above, and that's part of why he joined the Kentucky staff. (Keith Taylor/Kentucky Today Photo)
Joe Sloan helped develop Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels at LSU and spent the last two seasons as LSU’s offensive coordinator.
He’s known Kentucky coach Will Stein for a long time because their coaching paths crossed as he worked his way into a position on a Southeastern Conference staff while Stein became the offensive coordinator at Oregon. Given a chance to join Stein’s staff at Kentucky, Sloan quickly accepted the job as offensive coordinator.
“Obviously the nuts and bolts of who we’re going to be will be based on coach Stein’s offense at Oregon. I think there’s a lot of similarities, specifically in the passing game as to what we’ve done,” Sloan, 39, said. “Just some different pieces and I think we’ll blend that.
“But ultimately this is not going to be Oregon’s offense or LSU’s offense, or whatever that might be. It’s going to be Kentucky’s offense. I think we’re gonna have other really smart people in the room, and we’re gonna build a foundation of what we want to do, but then we’re also gonna build it around who we have to highlight our strengths on offense.
“I think we got a lot of really good players here that we can start to build around, and then we will add some which I think will be really exciting.”
Sloan praised former Kentucky coach Mark Stops for laying a “great foundation” at Kentucky but Stein will make changes he thinks are necessary
“We’re coming here to compete for championships, right? I’ve seen this program, I’ve been in this league, and I know what coach Stein can do. I couldn’t be more fired up,” Sloan said.
The former LSU assistant said he has friends in the coaching business who have worked at Kentucky, lived in Lexington and “raved” about UK. He said he got numerous texts telling him how much he would love being at Kentucky. That’s why he’s excited not only for himself but for his family.
“This is an opportunity, right? That’s what you always look at in this business when you evaluate taking jobs and coming places. You want to make sure you’re at a place who’s serious about competing and has the opportunity to go compete for championships, and then is it a great place for your family.”
He said Kentucky checked every box for him and his family but obviously the biggest draw was working for Stein,
“People are drawn to him. He has a really positive attitude that permeates when he’s around,” Sloan said. “There’s a natural standard to what he does every single day, in everything that he does. I think that’s easy to see from him, and he kind of creates that aura. That’s something you see in people that they’re going to be able to lead an organization. You got a lot of, a lot of players, a lot of coaches, lot of staff members. There’s so many people that are looking to him, and he has that natural presence that it takes. Then he has a great plan and I think we can see that already. I’m excited to get to work on it.”
One thing Stein and Sloan will have to work out is the play calling. Stein has called plays for Oregon while Sloan called plays at LSU.
“We will do whatever Will says. I’m here to support Will however he sees this working the best. We’ll work through some of that. I know he asked me to come over here and to run the offense through the vision of what the head coach wants it to be,” Sloan said. “That’s your job as an assistant coach. You want to make your head coach the best head coach he can be. Help him the way he sees fit, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to run his offense and it’s going to be our offense together.
“As we work through this offseason, we’ll get into a lot more of those details and be able to answer some of those questions. But right now the important thing is the relationship that we have, the plan and understanding that we’re going to do everything right that we need to do on a daily basis to put ourselves in a position to have the type of explosive offense we want to have.”
3 Responses
The biggest challenge that Stein and Sloane will have is that of bringing top tier talent to Kentucky with NIL becoming the mess that it has become. Their success will arise from bringing in "local" (from Kentucky and states that border Kentucky) kids who want to play here and then get coached up significantly. These coaches are known for playing exciting football and that will help. NOBODY wants to watch a boring, play not to lose team. Stoops was a defensive guy and it showed in our teams, but he never could put together an SEC caliber offense. Stein made a good hire in Bateman to run the defense. This braintrust will give BBN reason for hope in just a couple of years. With that being said, there will have to be some significant reform of the NIL and transfer portal. We are no longer putting teams together with student athletes; we have become farm teams for the pros.
It is going to be hard for many of us to be patient with FB the next couple yrs, but we have no choice. Vandy now owns us in FB and may in BB as well. You can't tell me that Vandy has better personnel in either but the difference would have to be in Coaching. It may still be early for full judgement on Pope and there has to be some risk with Stein never having HC experience prior but most measureables would have to favor him.
Being an offensive genius is pretty simple – run in passing situations, pass in running situations and most importantly have the personnel and gonads to pull it off.
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