UPDATE
WKYT reports that Matt House has traveled to Kansas City to meet with the Chiefs. The report also states that UK believed House would remain at UK as of Thursday night.
Elsewhere, Justin Rowland adds that it looks like a 50-50 call as to whether House stays at UK or joins the Chiefs.
It’s safe to say House isn’t a done deal to the Chiefs as it originally looked when the first reports of his interest in Kansas City came out.
On Wednesday, head coach Mark Stoops hinted that an assistant coach was getting NFL interest after being asked about the importance of keeping his coaching staff intact.
“I just fielded a call from a head coach in the NFL 15 minutes ago.” Stoops said. “It’s not quite over. I hope we keep everybody intact, but I’ve had much more NFL interest than I’ve had in the past.”
Two days later, Stoops’ fear seems to becoming a reality.
Defensive coordinator Matt House is expected to join the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL as their new linebackers coach, according to Field Yates
Source: the Chiefs are expected to hire University of Kentucky defensive coordinator Matt House as their linebackers coach.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) February 8, 2019
The deal is not yet official according to Jon Hale of the Courier-Journal and Matt Jones of KSR, but it does not seem House will be staying with the Wildcats
The loss of House comes a few short weeks after Stoops was able to fight off Georgia to retain Eddie Gran as the offensive coordinator. It appears; however, Stoops won’t be able to win a battle with the NFL to keep his second coordinator.
Losing House is a significant loss as the defense is coming off a season where they ranked 16th in the nation in total defense and will have a lot of new starters in 2019.
Some of the speculated names to replace House include outside linebackers coach Brad White, former Oklahoma defensive coordinator and brother of Mark Stoops, Mike Stoops.
White is the most deserving, as he came in and dramatically improved the linebacking unit at Kentucky, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be a good defensive play-caller.
We’ll update this story as more details come out.