AMHERST — Both coordinator coaching positions now appear to be in place for the UMass football team.

UMass is hiring Rutgers nickelbacks coach Jared Keyte to be the program’s next defensive coordinator, sources confirmed to the Daily Hampshire Gazette on Thursday afternoon. UMass hasn’t officially announced the hire, but Keyte has “Defensive Coordinator [at UMass football]” in his bio on Twitter/X. Keyte worked closely with Minutemen head coach Joe Harasymiak during the three seasons Harasymiak was with the Scarlet Knights, and Keyte also spent time on Harasymiak’s staff at Maine – where Keyte spent seven seasons.

Keyte served as the Black Bears’ defensive coordinator in 2022, worked as the team’s special teams coordinator from 2018-21 and also coached Maine’s linebackers (2018, 2021) and safeties (2019-21). He has experience coaching nearly every position on the defensive side of the ball.

The connection between the two coaches began even before Keyte was hired by Harasymiak at Maine (where Harasymiak was the head coach from 2016-18). In 2013, Keyte served as a graduate assistant coaching defensive backs at Springfield College – where Harasymiak played and graduated from six years prior and coached at in 2010 – before becoming the team’s co-defensive coordinator in 2014.

This was Keyte’s second stint at Rutgers. In 2015, he was a quality control coach who worked with the linebackers.

Keyte is a native of Holland Patent, N.Y. He will finish up this season with Rutgers, which plays Kansas State on Dec. 26 in the 2024 Rate Bowl in Phoenix, before coming to Amherst to assume his new role.

It’s very likely that Harasymiak will call the defensive plays in 2025, but he now has a coach he trusts and has worked with extensively both at Maine and Rutgers. Harasymiak has a good chunk of his defensive position staff filled, as UMass now has its DC (Keyte), special teams coordinator (Joe Castellitto), cornerbacks coach (Tre’ Bell), linebackers coach (Garrett Gillick) and defensive line coach (Nyeem Wartman-White) on board.