One of the first orders of business for Kentucky head coach Will Stein upon taking this job was to rebuild the offensive line in Lexington. The Cats needed five new starters and needed to invest program resources to reestablish the Big Blue Wall. Stein did that by hiring three offensive line coaches and finding multiple starters in the portal in an effort to reestablish a program standard.
After securing a commitment from Ohio State guard transfer Tegra Tshabola, Stein sent out a tweet about Kentucky’s “Big Blue Wall”. The nickname for Kentucky’s offensive line was established when alum John Schlarman ran the offensive line room from 2013-20 until a multi-year battle with cancel took his life at age 45.