News broke on Thursday morning that the Kentucky Wildcats are hiring Texas A&M Defensive Coordinator Jay Bateman as the new DC in Lexington. He’ll work under newly hired Kentucky Head Coach Will Stein (previously the OC at Oregon). And as first reported by the Houston Chronicle’s Tony Catalina, the Aggies are swiftly promoting Associate Head Coach Lyle Hemphill as their new DC.
On paper, a coordinator moving from a Playoff-bound Texas A&M to a struggling Kentucky program seems like an odd move. But context is important here. Bateman was a true DC for the Aggies in 2024, a unit that struggled mightily at times, especially against the pass. So this season, Head Coach Mike Elko took over defensive playcalling duties, and the Aggies also brought in James Madison DC Lyle Hemphill as a defensive associate head coach.
Reading between the lines, it seems Bateman had a lot of the DC duties given to other staff members in 2025. In many ways, he may have been serving as a linebackers coach more than anything this past season, which is why it makes sense that he would want to go to a place where he had more responsibility (and given his $1.1 million salary, why A&M may have been fine with him doing so).
With Hemphill now plugged in as the defensive coordinator, you assume Mike Elko will go out and hire a LB Coach to fill in the gaps, but I wouldn’t expect any news on that front until A&M’s 2025 season is complete.
