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| Justin Higgins, the only head coach Keystone has ever had, is moving on, but the program should still exist going forward. Keystone athletics photo by Timothy R. Dougherty/Double Eagle Media and Photography |
By Patrick Coleman
D3sports.com
It's been a tough year at Keystone College.
The small school in northeast Pennsylvania has had to battle erroneous published reports that it was closing its doors in December, as well as a threat to its academic accreditation, and the loss of its spot in the Landmark Conference for football. The Giants won't even field a full Division III varsity schedule this fall, playing just two varsity programs, a JV team and a handful of other club-type programs.
And now they are losing their head coach. Justin Higgins, who is the program's first and only head coach, is leaving to take another coaching position.
Higgins, who has led the program through its startup phase, then saw the pandemic rob the Giants of what would have been their first varsity season in 2020, feels there is still room for optimism and growth as Hugh Kirwan takes over as head coach. Kirwan, the pass game and special teams coordinator, has been an assistant for the past five years.
"This is the right time," Higgins told D3sports.com. "It's a good time for Hugh to take the reins and I feel confident in his ability to recruit and bring the program back up to what it needs to be to get back into a conference."
This upcoming season will be a reboot and a developmental year for Keystone. Student-athletes will not be using a year of eligibility in order to participate. At this moment, the Giants are playing varsity games at Southern Virginia, and Maine Maritime, which is returning to varsity play this fall after a developmental season in 2024.
Keystone's accreditation issues kept it from being able to recruit during January and February, and the reports of the institution's demise prompted some of the current team to transfer out, but the program is hoping it can get enough people in the door to get the program back to close to 75 people in the fall. The school had around 800 full-time undergraduates before the news broke.
Ultimately, Keystone will not be able to fully succeed unless it can get back into a conference. Whether that's in the Landmark, which removed them from the conference schedule when the erroneous news broke, or another conference, will be determined over the next year-plus, but Keystone has high hopes of being there at the end of the 2025-26 season.