{"id":690599,"date":"2026-01-20T06:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690599\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T06:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:58:14","slug":"will-stein-isnt-concerned-about-losing-kentucky-qb-matt-ponatoski-to-the-mlb-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/690599\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Stein Isn’t Concerned About Losing Kentucky QB Matt Ponatoski to the MLB Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not often that college football coaches have to worry about their star quarterback heading to the MLB Draft. However, Will Stein<\/a> is in a unique position at Kentucky. <\/p>\n

UK is bringing in four-star quarterback Matt Ponatoski<\/a> in the 2026 class, who is considered one of the top quarterbacks in the nation. However, the threat of the MLB Draft also looms. Ponatoski is ranked by Baseball America<\/a> as one of the top 50 MLB Draft prospects in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that he\u2019s said to me is that he wants to be a big-time college football player,\u201d Stein said during Monday\u2019s press conference. \u201cIs it concerning? No. I\u2019m just really grateful to be able to have the chance to coach Matt, and I think his best years are yet to come in football.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stein isn\u2019t turning away the idea of Ponatoski playing baseball. He just wants him to do it at Kentucky. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s obviously an outstanding baseball player,\u201d Stein said. \u201cI would love to get him on the diamond here at Kentucky, too, and let\u2019s do this thing together.\u201d <\/p>\n

Matt Pontaoski Signed Early Because of Will Stein<\/p>\n

Matt Ponatoski originally committed to Kentucky under the previous staff, but it was Will Stein\u2019s hire that expedited the process. Ponatoski was originally planning to sign in the spring, but, after Stein\u2019s hire, moved up his signing to December. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to wait until February to sign anymore. There\u2019s no reason for me to wait. I\u2019m just going to do it and get it over with on Wednesday,\u201d Ponatoski told KSR+ in December<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s 100 percent about what he\u2019s done in the past for me and the connection I\u2019ve built with him when I was visiting Oregon and being recruited by Oregon. It\u2019s really important that I keep that connection. He made sure it was a big thing that we did keep that connection because something like this could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ponatoski is ranked by the Rivals Industry Ranking as the No. 14 quarterback and the No. 226 overall player in the 2026 class<\/a>. He\u2019s ranked by Rivlas as the No. 185 overall player in the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Will Stein] was really prepared every time I saw him, and it just showed how dedicated he is to the game and how much love he has for the game,\u201d Ponatoski said. \u201cHe and his family were great to me. Coach [Dan] Lanning\u2019s family was also great to me when I was at Oregon. I felt like I immediately clicked with Coach Stein, and I feel like that will carry over to Kentucky.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not often that college football coaches have to worry about their star quarterback heading to the MLB…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,25700],"class_list":{"0":"post-690599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-matt-ponatoski-26-archbishop-moeller"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115926132656931394","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}