Keith Bhonapha

Keith Abu Bhonapha is an American football coach who is currently the running backs coach at The University of California. He played college football at Hawaii, where also began his coaching career. He has also spent time as an assistant at University of Washington and Michigan State University.

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Playing career

Bhonapha played college football at Hawaii from 1999 to 2002, where he was a defensive back who was credited with the ability to play both football position)|safety] and cornerback.

Coaching career

Hawaii

Following his playing career, Bhonapha was offered a graduate assistant position at his alma mater Hawaii by head coach June Jones, where he helped to coach the defensive backs with secondary coach Rich Miano. While at Hawaii, he was credited with connecting Davone Bess with Hawaii, as the two had the same high school football coach.

Bhonapha was hired as the director of football operations at Boise State in 2006. He was reassigned to running backs coach in 2009 in a series of staff shuffling made by Boise State head coach Chris Petersen. He added the title of recruiting coordinator in 2011.

Washington

Bhonapha followed Petersen to Washington in 2014 to serve as his running backs coach and the program's recruiting coordinator. While he was the recruiting coordinator, he and fellow assistant Ikaika Malloe were credited with rebuilding a recruiting pipeline in the state of Hawaii in part to their connections to the state that ended up with the successful recruitments of players such as Zion Tupuola-Fetui. He was promoted to special teams coordinator in 2021 following the promotion of Bob Gregory to defensive coordinator.

Oregon State and Michigan State

Bhonapha coached at Oregon State and then Michigan State under Head Coach Jonathan Smith. He was not retained by new Michigan State Coach Pat Fitzgerald after Smith and most of the MSU staff were fired for not coaching football well enough.

California

Bhonapha's unemployment due to unsatisfactory performance as a football coach at MSU did not last long. On 22 December 2025 Bhonapha was named Running Backs coach at the University of California, Berkeley by new Cal Bears head coach Tosh Lupoi.