{"id":440367,"date":"2025-12-11T15:28:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/440367\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T15:28:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:28:15","slug":"kentucky-set-to-hire-texas-am-defensive-coordinator-jay-bateman-for-same-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/440367\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky set to hire Texas A&M defensive coordinator Jay Bateman for same role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Stein<\/a> is quickly putting together his first staff as the new head coach at Kentucky<\/a><\/strong>. That includes who the Wildcats are expected to hire to be the new defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

According<\/a> to On3\u2019s Pete Nakos<\/a>, Kentucky is set<\/a> to hire Texas A&M<\/a><\/strong> DC Jay Bateman<\/a>. Bateman has worked his way up on defensive staffs the past two decades, including three power-level stops since 2019 and two in the SEC since 2022, with him having spent the past two seasons with A&M.<\/p>\n

Bateman has been on staff the last two years with the Aggies, being their defensive coordinator and linebackers coach under Mike Elko<\/a>. Bateman becomes the second of two coordinators to leave the staff in the past week after<\/a> Kansas State<\/a><\/strong> hired OC Collin Klein<\/a>. In his time at A&M, Bateman has had one of the better defenses in the country, as A&M has allowed 22.1 points and 338.6 yards per game.<\/p>\n

This season, Texas A&M has further continued that in Year 2, with the Aggies allowing 21.9 points and 309.8 yards per game. They\u2019ve also posted among the best stats in the nation, as they\u2019re best in the country in third down conversion rate, tied for the best in sacks, top three in tackles for loss, Top 10 in first down conversion rate, and among the best in passing yards allowed. That\u2019s been part of what\u2019s allowed the Aggies to go 11-1, one of the best seasons in school history, and now make their first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the rest of his resum\u00e9, Bateman has also recently worked for two seasons as the inside linebackers coach at Florida<\/a><\/strong>. Before that, he was the safeties coach and co-defensive coordinator at North Carolina<\/a><\/strong>. Bateman has also made stops as defensive coordinator at Army<\/a><\/strong> and Ball State<\/a><\/strong> in the FBS, as well as smaller defensive stops at Elon<\/a><\/strong>, Lehigh<\/a><\/strong>, and Richmond<\/a><\/strong>, along with four years, one as defensive coordinator and three more as head coach, at Siena<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Since his hiring<\/a> on December 1, Stein, the offensive coordinator at Oregon, has moved fast on putting things together to begin his tenure at UK. Among those hired so far are OC Joe Sloan<\/a>, as well as reports of assistant hires progressing in the front office<\/a> and in recruiting<\/a> for UK, while previous staff members from under Mark Stoops<\/a> have also apparently been retained<\/a>, like Anwar Stewart and\u00a0Mike Hartline.<\/p>\n

Things are coming together nicely, with several hires of note already, for Stein so far at Kentucky. That then leaves Elko with work to do amidst a playoff run to start and finish as well, as there\u2019ll need to be two new coordinators in Aggieland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Stein is quickly putting together his first staff as the new head coach at Kentucky. That includes…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":440368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,203294,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68,195844],"class_list":["post-440367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-jay-bateman","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-will-stein"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115701645672156325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}