Jay Bateman wants Kentucky to be a physical defensive team. (UK Athletics Photo)
New Kentucky defensive coordinator Jay Bateman has coached at Texas A&M, Florida, North Carolina and Army in the last 10 years but he got his introduction to Kentucky football in 2023. That’s when he was at Florida and the Gators lost at Kentucky 33-24 in 2023 when Ray Davis ran for 280 yards and four touchdowns.
“The place was awesome and Kentucky just killed us,” Bateman said. “We had just beat Tennessee and I thought we had a really good team, and we came up here the next week and got beat. I thought that the fans were awesome, the environment was awesome, and I remember thinking, ‘Man, you can win a lot of games at this place, and I think now more than ever. This is a place where you can have a lot of success.”
There are some off the field perks for Bateman also.
“Lexington is a lot better, a lot bigger, a lot more options to go eat dinner than the last few places I have been at,” Bateman said. “The people have been awesome, so it has all been great so far.”
Bateman was at Texas A&M last year and will bring his 4-2-5 defense to UK. Senior safety Ty Bryant was immediately impressed by Bateman and bypassed the transfer portal after Bateman’s hiring to stay at UK.
“How hard we play, the physicality we play with, that’s going to be where we’re going to try to hang our hat, and that’s what a defensive coordinator wants to be known for,” Bateman said. “If you don’t have that, what do you have? Playing with effort, playing with physicality is what you have to have.”
Bateman has normally had an aggressive defense and wants that to continue but he wants effort and physicality to be the team’s strengths.That physicality obviously resonated with new UK coach Will Stein when he was looking for a defensive coordinator.
“He wants us to play really, really physical. I think it’s the job of the coordinator and the coaches to build a system that allows them to do that,” Bateman said. “It’s been a long time since I played, but I think when I was a player I would want to have some aggression. I wouldn’t want to not be an attacking unit. I wouldn’t want to sit back.
“Certainly there are times where you want to play coverage and you want to be in a bend but don’t break mode. But I think that you have to create an attacking mindset with how you call the game and how you play the game. I think that’s kind of been the way I’ve been built most of the time.”
