Geoff Collins details importance of North Carolina defensive line, continuity

The North Carolina Tar Heels recently introduced former head coach Geoff Collins as the team’s new defensive coordinator. He will replace Gene Chizik, who held the role for the last two seasons.

While speaking in his introduction, he spoke about the value of continuity on defense and the importance of terminology.

“Well, one of the biggest things is the terminology piece,” Geoff Collins said. “Trying to salvage as much terminology as we possibly can and that’s why having the coaches be able to translate because it’s you know, whether you run a 3-4, 4-3, middle field, or open middle field close, the terminology is the part that is the learning curve for the guys. And I’ve gone in transition before when we tried to keep a lot of the terminology, especially as techniques and fundamental things. So, having that piece will be huge.”

In particular, this is important for the defensive line, according to Collins. Luckily, he thinks the Tar Heels have excellent talent at that position to take advantage of.

“But the thing that I’m excited about is the piece that you always want to make sure you have is the defensive line. And I think we’ve got a lot of good defensive linemen returning,” Collins said.

“I would be remiss to start spouting off names because I do not want to leave anybody off during the introductory, but there’s some really good players that we have returning and I’m excited about the new guys that are coming in as well.”

Along with Gene Chizik, head coach Mack Brown also made the decision to move on from defensive line coach Tim Cross. In his place, senior defensive analyst Ted Monachino was promoted to defensive line coach.

Mack Brown addresses North Carolina’s constant defensive coordinator changes

North Carolina has struggled on defense during Mack Brown’s second tenure with the team, going through plenty of turnover at defensive coordinator in the process. That’s a problem that Brown recently addressed.

“You know, we weren’t very good on defense when we got here. We were really good on offense and a lot of the offensive players have been drafted. So we continue to get better defense players. Jay Bateman just got the defensive coordinator job at Texas A&M, so sometimes it’s just the circumstances. And these jobs are hard now, I think there were 37 defensive coordinators fired this year. Hard to play defense, hard to play defense,” Brown said.

“I’m sitting there interviewing some defensive coordinators that are giving up more points than we did and they’re highly recommended. ‘We would’ve all loved them,’ and I’m thinking god-dang, they didn’t stop anybody. So it’s hard, defense is hard. All the rules have made it for the offense and it’s harder to play safety, it’s harder to play corner. They spread you out so much, it’s harder with tempo because they go so fast, it’s harder to get calls in. So there’s a lot of stuff right now that’s hard for defenses and that’s why I wanted a lot of experience.”