The young coach now in charge of Kentucky’s football program knew his offensive coordinator before he hired him. They had called plays against each other. They had recruited against each other. They even hung out in the offseason to “talk ball.”

The point is that Will Stein had his own well-informed opinion of Joe Sloan last year, and because of that, he could judge Sloan’s coaching acumen on more than just the ugly numbers the LSU offense produced across the two seasons he ran it. Stein thought he and Sloan were “like-minded people” who would work well together if they ever encountered a chance to join the same staff.

“I really liked his mindset,” Stein said. “I liked his confidence. I liked his football IQ and his track record of developing quarterbacks.”

So Stein took a chance on Sloan and tossed him the keys to his offense, giving the former LSU offensive coordinator an opportunity to take it for a spin against the school that fired him last October. That shot arrives at 6 p.m. Saturday (ESPN), when coach Lane Kiffin’s Tigers are set to face Kentucky in their second Southeastern Conference road battle of the season.

The LSU offense struggled when coach Brian Kelly and Sloan were in charge of it. The unit couldn’t run the ball and usually sputtered once it faced a short-yardage situation or reached the red zone.

Sloan and Stein have been much more successful, at least through the first five games they’ve coached together.

Kentucky scored 31 points in a road win over Texas A&M on Sept. 19 before dropping 35 in an overtime win over South Carolina last Saturday. Only five SEC teams are rushing for more yards per game than the Wildcats, who have also scored touchdowns on more than three-fourths of their red-zone trips.

Stein and Sloan still have issues to sort out. Notre Dame transfer quarterback Kenny Minchey has already been sacked 11 times, and his offense is converting third downs at the lowest rate in the nation: an abysmal 25%.

But Stein is pleased with the early returns on his decision to give up his play-calling duties and hand them to Sloan.

The 37-year-old first-time head coach said in July at SEC media days that he made that move in large part because no head coach who doubled as an every-down play caller has won a national championship since 2013, when Jimbo Fisher pulled off that feat at Florida State.

Stein wants to be involved in “all facets” of his program.

“There’s just too much going on,” he said, “to only worry about the offense.”

He shares that belief with Kiffin. Because offensive coordinator Charlie Weis calls the plays for LSU, Kiffin can take a big-picture approach to managing the program. The example he gave on Aug. 5, not long after the Tigers opened preseason practice, was a compliance call he wanted to hop on instead of attending an offensive meeting scheduled for the same time.

“And now I can go do that,” Kiffin said, “because it’s an immediate thing that might be happening that I’m dealing with, knowing that everything’s done the exact right way. So the Charlie benefit is huge for our program.”

It is for the on-field product, too. LSU is entering its game against Kentucky ranked top-10 nationally in both total offense and scoring offense. Kiffin and Weis’ Tigers need to score only one more rushing touchdown to double the number of such scores Kelly and Sloan’s Tigers produced all last season (10). They’re also just 164 rushing yards away from matching the total LSU scrounged together across the 13 games it played in 2025.

Stein and Sloan aren’t engineering as drastic a turnaround at Kentucky, but their offense is operating much more efficiently than the one their program fielded last year.

The Wildcats finished 2025 ranked 101st nationally in scoring offense and 105th in total offense.

Now they’re 48th in scoring offense and 53rd in total offense. Kentucky has already scored at least 30 points as many times as it did all last year.

Stein’s decision to take a chance on Sloan looks like it’s paying off. The two friends-turned-colleagues have a dangerous offense, one that can challenge the attack LSU built after it fired Kelly and Sloan.

“He’s an elite person,” Stein said. “He’s an elite coach. He’s an elite recruiter. And I’m really, really happy he’s with us.”