Will Stein: The Secret Genius Behind Oregon’s Scorching Offense

RJ Young

FOX Sports National College Football Analyst

The best offensive coordinator in college football is at Oregon, and his name is Will Stein.

No, Stein wasn’t a Broyles Award finalist. Head coaches have to nominate coordinators so Broyles Award voters can vote for them. If he’s not nominated, we can’t vote for him. The last two years, Oregon coach Dan Lanning has nominated defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi for the honor of being named the nation’s best assistant coach.

Coach Will Stein of the Oregon Ducks walks to the stadium before a game against Oklahoma State.

Winning an award like that can turn a coordinator into a head coach. But that won’t be the reason Stein isn’t the head coach at a Power 4 school sooner rather than later. He’s made a habit of earning every opportunity, and he’s always wanted the chance to help his team make a play. That has been what his coaching life is about.

Stein knows what it’s like to earn it. After leading Louisville Trinity to a high school state championship, he walked on at Louisville in 2008. He spent three years working at it, chopping wood, head down and hunting in an era when there was no such thing as plotting for the portal, sitting out after four games and taking a redshirt, and no money to chase from a millionaire booster who handles losing like a toddler teething.

As an upperclassman at Louisville in 2011, Stein stood at 5-foot-10 and 181 pounds. He was in a fierce quarterback competition heading into that season, and former head coach Charlie Strong didn’t mince words surrounding the QB battle.

“Somebody’s got to step up and go lead this football team,” Strong said at the time. “The quarterback is so critical … It’s a position that [is] the focal point of our team.”

Stein earned the starting job and was set to be the kind of quarterback that fans tell definitive come-up stories about: a player who bet on himself, walked the tightrope of Power 4 competition, and then took the keys to run the offense. And then, almost as soon as it started for Stein, it was over.

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The scoreboard read 7-3 in favor of the Cardinals. Stein fled a pocket that collapsed like a ton of bricks cascading down the Grand Canyon and took a hit. He landed on his right shoulder — his throwing shoulder. In a game with a dizzying deluge of emotions for a hometown kid, Stein was forced to leave the 2011 Kentucky-Louisville rivalry and give way to true freshman Teddy Bridgewater.

Bridgewater finished the game and led the Cardinals to a 24-17 win over their intrastate rival. He got the start the following week and promptly threw for 221 yards, two touchdowns and a pair of interceptions, and then started every game for the remainder of the season.

Will Stein #4 of the Louisville Cardinals reacts against the Florida Gators during the Allstate Sugar Bowl. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

That was it for Stein as a starting college quarterback. He began coaching two years later, while Bridgewater, now 32-years-old, is still playing quarterback in the NFL. The margins are always that close in this sport.

It’s no surprise that Stein was invited to stay at Louisville as a graduate assistant for Strong and a quality control assistant for Bobby Petrino. He earned an MBA at Louisville and then made his way to Austin, Texas, to follow Strong in 2015 as a quality control assistant and eventually as his quarterbacks coach.

When Strong was fired following the 2017 season, Stein stayed local and commenced winning on the most competitive and visible scene in American high school sports: Texas high school football.

Serving as the school’s offensive coordinator, Stein’s Lake Travis teams went 26-4 with back-to-back appearances in the Texas state semifinals. As a part of his plan to build UTSA into a Group of 6 powerhouse, high school football legend Jeff Traylor hired Stein along with a bunch of former Texas high school football coaches in 2020. By 2022, Stein was running Traylor’s Roadrunner offense.

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Watch any Will Stein-led offense, and you’ll see a system built on answers. His scheme leans on quick screens and play-action passes that simplify reads, provide safe outlets for quarterbacks, and allow playmakers to turn short throws into explosive gains.

Speaking at a clinic for Glazier, Stein led a lecture titled “Feed the Studs,” which centered around his offensive philosophy. His roadmap to success includes recruiting elite-level players, putting them in position to succeed, and calling plays that run a funnel from the quarterback to their hands like a duck fattened to make foie gras.

Stein uses motions, stacks and bunches to confuse opposing defenses and make them change coverages on the fly. All of a sudden, a corner or linebacker can’t just fall into inside or outside technique. All of a sudden, a safety ready to come downhill is on his heels. Leverage is created and baked into the offense for wideouts to get to a spot and be perfectly aligned with the quarterback.

“Solve problems with formations to get your best player the ball,” Stein said. “Don’t add more plays. Add more ways to attack the defense with formation adjustments.”

Oregon’s Dakorien Moore was the top-ranked wide receiver prospect in the 2025 class and has already made an instant impact for Will Stein’s offense. (Photo by Ali Gradischer/Getty Images)

Stein uses short yardage pass plays to promote not just confidence in his quarterback, but to reward his top playmakers.

“Y’all know what it is when a kid comes off the field and says ‘Gimme the ball, Coach,'” Stein said. “Well, most of the time they’re right. It’s your best player saying that.

“I don’t mind confrontation with kids wanting the football because usually the ones that are saying that are the ones who have earned it.”

Stein designed his scheme not only to solve problems before the snap, but to build an offense that players aspire to be part of and earn the privilege to make plays in. He’s been that kind of player and coach throughout his career.

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Fast-forward to present day, where Stein is in his third season with Oregon, working hand-in-hand with head coach Dan Lanning while leading one of the most explosive offenses in the sport.

Dante Moore #5 of the Oregon Ducks warms up throwing the football during the first half of a game against Oklahoma State. (Photo by Robin Alam/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)

After leading an offense that averaged more than 470 yards and 34.9 points per game last season, which was tops in the Big Ten, Stein has the Ducks off to a blazing start through the first two games of the 2025 campaign. With sophomore quarterback Dante Moore under center and a bevy of talented playmakers surrounding him, Oregon has put up 128 points through two games, the third-highest total among FBS programs.

Stein is no stranger to those types of explosive offensive numbers. In four years as an offensive playcaller, his teams have gone 36-6 with a quarterback that has thrown for at least 3,800 yards and 30 touchdowns every year. And, by the way, Stein doesn’t turn 36 until later this month.

Heading into the Ducks’ first road game of the season, a Week 3 matchup against Northwestern (noon ET Saturday on FOX and the FOX Sports app), the question isn’t how good this Oregon team is — it’s who is going to be able to stop them?

Ohio State might raise a hand. Though the Buckeyes aren’t on Oregon’s schedule this year. They were the only team to completely tar and feather the Oregon offense during the Will Stein era, handling the Ducks, 41-21, in the Rose Bowl. Dillon Gabriel was under constant duress, and Stein had no answers for his quarterback, who looked as if he was attempting to translate a chalkboard full of Egyptian hieroglyphics underwater on Uranus.

There’s still a final boss to beat beyond the Buckeyes. It’s the growing weight of being one of the most accomplished programs in the country with zero national titles to show for it.

Until then, there will still be one thing left to do.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him at @RJ_Young.

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