{"id":742284,"date":"2026-07-04T06:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T06:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/742284\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T06:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T06:24:07","slug":"a-defining-game-for-jay-bateman-as-kentucky-seeks-balance-in-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/742284\/","title":{"rendered":"A Defining Game for Jay Bateman as Kentucky Seeks Balance in Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kentucky fans fondly remember the day the Wildcats put the future Heisman Trophy winner in hell. How could one forget the time Lamar did the Heisman, then fumbled? Jay Bateman<\/a> has a similar memory against an exceptional foe. <\/p>\n

Army was a 31-point underdog when the Black Knights traveled to Norman to take on No. 5 Oklahoma in 2018. Lincoln Riley<\/a> was at the peak of his offensive powers, preparing to launch another Heisman Trophy campaign with Kyler Murray<\/a> at quarterback. Before No. 1 became a no-doubt No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, he experienced four quarters of hell against Jay Bateman\u2019s defense. <\/p>\n

Things started out according to plan for Oklahoma. Their first three drives all went 60+ yards in fewer than six plays and resulted in touchdowns. That\u2019s when Bateman and the Black Knights\u2019 defense settled in. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat Army defense put on an absolute clinic: The discipline, the play-style, the physicality, and really snuffing them out in the red zone,\u201d recalled Coach Dan Casey<\/a> in a recent conversation with KSR<\/a>. \u201cOklahoma could drive the field, but then when it got condensed in the red zone, Army really tightened the clamps on them. I thought he did such a good job disguising coverages moving fronts, doing different things like that that just give offenses a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Punt, punt, pick, turnover on downs. Oklahoma had 19 first downs, but actually got out-gained by Army. Murray only mustered 165 passing yards. The future Heisman winner actually drove the field and put Oklahoma in position to kick a game-winning field goal, but the chip shot was missed. <\/p>\n

The Sooners needed overtime to dispatch Army, ultimately escaping with a 28-21 win. Oklahoma fans gave Army a standing ovation as the Black Knights left the field. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Can Kentucky Find the Right Balance for Bateman? <\/p>\n

The Army offense deserves as much credit as the Army defense for keeping that game close. They controlled the ball, running 87 plays from scrimmage. It\u2019s easier to call a defense when you don\u2019t have to play that much of it. Big Blue Nation learned that lesson throughout the Mark Stoops<\/a> era. Bateman received that benefit at Army, but he\u2019s also been on the wrong end of it. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at a coach\u2019s Wikipedia pages. What was their record here? What was their record there? There\u2019s a lot of different factors in play,\u201d said Casey. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re at Army, and you\u2019re working with Jeff Monken<\/a>, he\u2019s going to control the football on the offensive side of the ball, so you\u2019re going to play defense a little differently. Then, when you go to North Carolina with Mack Brown<\/a>, they\u2019re running a Phil Longo<\/a> offense that\u2019s Air Raid with tempo, a complete opposite, so you\u2019re having to play a different style of football. Then, when you get to Texas A&M with Collin Klein<\/a> and how Mike Elko<\/a> runs that program, it sets you up for success on that side of the football. And so I think one of the things Will Stein<\/a> has gleaned from being with Dan Lanning<\/a> and Tosh Lupoi<\/a> at Oregon is that you got to play a style of football that doesn\u2019t hang your defense out to dry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Stein wants to play aggressively, but he\u2019s wise enough to know that you can\u2019t play tempo 100% of the time or you will cut off your nose to spite your face. The first-year head coach has experience with some of the best defensive minds in the sport. He has an idea of how things will work, but it will take time for him to find his footing as a head coach. That means putting his defense in a position to succeed and also appropriately delegating offensive responsibilities to Joe Sloan<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe staff is a very collaborative staff. That\u2019s part of the interesting dynamic here. It\u2019s not like Will Stein is completely hands-off on the offense by any means. There\u2019s a lot of conversation happening in that building and a lot of collaboration,\u201d said Casey, who spent time with the program this spring<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new-school staff, it\u2019s a young staff, and there\u2019s lot of ideas being thrown around there. It seems like they have a pretty good dynamic. You never really know until the bullets fly, but they seem like they have a pretty good plan in place.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kentucky fans fondly remember the day the Wildcats put the future Heisman Trophy winner in hell. How could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-742284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}