Will Stein has made another addition to the 2026 Kentucky football coaching staff. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports that coaching veteran Parker Fleming will make the move to Lexington in 2026 to coach the Wildcats’ special teams and inside wide receivers.
Fleming has coached at four different schools. Three of them were in this year’s CFP.
He got his start as a GA at Ohio State, then spent a couple of years coaching wide receivers at James Madison. Throughout his career, he’s either handled special teams, wide receivers, or both.
Fleming returned to Ohio State in 2018 and was eventually elevated to special teams coordinator, a role he held for three seasons. He most recently was an offensive analyst on Stein’s staff at Oregon.
After writing a few hundred words, I wondered why this name was so familiar. Parker Fleming is also the name of a statistician who’s pretty popular on college football Twitter, .
The previous coaching staff was filled with people from Mark Stoops’ Youngstown crew. Ohio played a vital role in the Wildcats’ success under Stoops. Fleming is the second former Ohio State native on Stein’s Kentucky coaching staff, joining Tony Washington Jr. While their connections cannot equal the decades of experience in Ohio from the previous staff, it’s clear Stein isn’t prepared to quit on the Buckeye state.
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2025 — Offensive Analyst, Oregon
2021-23 – Special Teams Coordinator, Ohio State
2018-20 – Quality Control/Special Teams, Ohio State
2017 – Special Teams Coach/Quarterbacks, Texas State
2016 – Special Teams Coach/Wide Receivers, Texas State
2014-15 – Wide Receivers, James Madison
2012-13 – Graduate Assistant, Ohio State
Will Stein’s 2026 Coaching Staff
KSBoard readers have learned from Adam Luckett that Fleming will serve as an analyst. That means Stein still has room for one more full-time assistant coach.
There you have it. That is ten on-field assistant coaches. Even though recruiting restrictions have been lifted, these are the top dogs. Plenty of analysts will fill out other roles (a tight end coach appears likely), but these are the guys near the top of the chain of command who will be spending the majority of their time developing talent for Will Stein at Kentucky.
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