Joe Harasymiak is the head football coach at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was named the 32nd head coach in program history on Dec. 4, 2024, and entered his second season at Massachusetts after building a reputation as one of the top defensive coaches in college football.
Before taking over at UMass, Harasymiak spent seven seasons coaching at the FBS level. He came to Amherst from Rutgers, where he served as defensive coordinator from 2022 through 2024 and also coached the linebackers in 2024. He was a Broyles Award nominee in both 2022 and 2023, and Rutgers reached bowl games in each of his final two seasons there. In 2023, the Scarlet Knights posted their first winning season since 2014, and his defense finished among the national leaders in several categories, including total defense and pass defense. Rutgers followed that with a 7-5 regular season in 2024 and another bowl appearance. In his first season with the program, the defense showed major improvement from the previous year and produced multiple All-Big Ten honorees, while Christian Braswell later became Rutgers' first NFL draft pick since 2010.
