There is a clear trend in the coach hiring record of new Kentucky AD J Batt
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Batt has fired football and men’s basketball coaches during his four-year AD tenure.
- Nonrevenue departures were retirements or resignations presented as coaches' decisions.
- Batt promoted assistants for five of six nonrevenue coaching replacements.
An examination of J Batt’s four years as athletics director — three at Georgia Tech and one at Michigan State — reveals a clear theme in his evaluation of coaches.
In the revenue-producing football and men’s basketball programs, Batt has not been hesitant about making a change when results slip. In the nonrevenue sports, he has been far more forgiving.
With Batt yet to even officially begin his Kentucky tenure, it would be dangerous to make any assumptions about how he will view coaching decisions moving forward, but the trend is difficult to ignore.
“I think we’ve got great coaches here,” Batt told the Herald-Leader shortly after being announced as UK’s new athletics director and the CEO of Champions Blue LLC. “...The championship standard built at UK is awesome. Those coaches, they embody it each and every day. And so, yeah, spending time (with them) this morning. I think we’ve got a pretty aligned group that’s excited and ready to run.”
Five months into his tenure at Georgia Tech, Batt fired men’s basketball coach Josh Pastner. At Michigan State, Batt fired football coach Jonathan Smith five months after taking the AD job.
But Batt has yet to fire a nonrevenue sports coach in four years leading an athletics department. Three have retired and three have resigned while he worked at Georgia Tech and Michigan State, but each of those departures was characterized as the coach’s decision. Batt replaced five of those six coaches by promoting an assistant to the head coaching job.
Here’s a look at the nine coaching hires Batt has made so far in his career.
J Batt’s football and basketball coaching hires
Brent Key (Georgia Tech football)
Georgia Tech fired football coach Geoff Collins and athletics director Todd Stansbury on the same day in September 2023, then promoted offensive line coach Brent Key to interim head coach for the rest of the 2023 season. Batt was hired as athletics director a month later. He ultimately chose to award Key the full-time position after the Yellow Jackets went 4-4 under his leadership as interim coach. Key’s hire has been a clear success with three straight bowl games and a nine-win season in 2025.
Damon Stoudamire (Georgia Tech men’s basketball)
Batt fired his first coach at the end of the first basketball season of his Georgia Tech tenure. That decision was relatively straightforward after former John Calipari assistant Josh Pastner led the Yellow Jackets to a second straight losing season. Pastner was 109-114 overall in seven seasons at Georgia Tech. Batt replaced him with Boston Celtics assistant Damon Stoudamire, who had previously served as a college head coach at Pacific. Stoudamire went 42-55 in three seasons at Georgia Tech before being fired by Batt’s replacement in March.
Karen Blair (Georgia Tech women’s basketball)
Batt’s lone outside hire in a nonrevenue sport came in April 2025 after the retirement of Georgia Tech women’s basketball coach Nell Fortner. Batt replaced Fortner, who was 110-75 in six years at Georgia Tech, with Maryland assistant Karen Blair, but Batt left Georgia Tech for Michigan State before Blair’s first game. Georgia Tech was 14-19 in her first season, which ended with a first-round WBIT loss.
Pat Fitzgerald (Michigan State football)
The importance of football success in the revenue-sharing era was evident when Batt fired Michigan State football coach Jonathan Smith at the end of the 2025 season. Smith was 9-15 in two seasons and 4-8 in his one year working with Batt. Less than two hours after news of Smith’s firing broke, the Detroit Free Press reported Batt was hiring former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald as Smith’s replacement. The speed of the search shows Batt was willing to work behind the scenes to line up a replacement before actually going public with his decision on Smith. He also was not afraid to make a controversial hire since Fitzgerald had not coached in three years, struggled in his last two seasons at Northwestern and had only recently settled a lawsuit against Northwestern that cleared him of any involvement in the hazing scandal than ended his tenure there.
J Batt’s coaching hires in non-revenue sports
John Ames (Georgia Tech swimming and diving)
When Georgia Tech swimming and diving coach Courtney Shealy Hart resigned shortly before the 2024-25 season to “pursue a new professional opportunity outside of sports,” according to a news release, Batt named longtime diving coach John Ames as the interim head coach. In February 2025, Batt named Ames the full-time coach. Batt did create some controversy in the swimming world by slashing the size of the Georgia Tech roster below the thresholds set by the NCAA’s House settlement for the 2025-26 season.
Alan Drosky (Georgia Tech track and field)
In August 2024, longtime Georgia Tech men’s track and field coach Grover Hinsdale announced plans to retire at the end of the 2024-25 season. Drosky was already the school’s head coach for cross country and women’s track and field. In March 2025, Batt announced Drosky would also take over leadership of the men’s track and field team following Hinsdale’s retirement.
James Ramsey (Georgia Tech baseball)
Batt gets only partial credit for this hire, but considering it happened three days after he was named athletics director at Michigan State, we can assume he was still involved in the process. Danny Hall, who led the program for 32 seasons, announced in March 2025 that the upcoming season would be his last as coach. Georgia Tech promoted Ramsey, the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator, to head coach. Ramsey led Georgia Tech to a 50-11 record and the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament in his first season, but the Yellow Jackets were upset in the regional round.
Tamara Durante (Michigan State field hockey)
Michigan State announced in January field hockey coach Helen Knull was resigning after 15 seasons to “pursue professional opportunities outside of the sports industry.” A month later, Michigan State promoted Durante, who had spent the past 11 seasons in East Lansing as an assistant coach, to head coach. Batt decided to promote from within the program despite the fact that the field hockey team had not posted a winning record since 2014 and was 5-59 in Big Ten play since 2017.
Mike Flowers (Michigan State men’s tennis)
Batt’s most recent hire came in May when he announced men’s tennis assistant coach Mike Flowers was being promoted to head coach on the same day the school announced former coach Harry Jadun had resigned to pursue opportunities outside college coaching. Flower’s promotion was a logical choice since the program was coming off a season that included Big Ten regular season and conference tournament championships. The school had not won a conference title in the sport since 1967.