Geoff Collins breaks down year away from college football, preparing for next opportunity

Former Georgia Tech head coach Geoff Collins did some consulting work during the 2023 season, but he missed being down on the field and a part of the action.

Collins was hired as the defensive coordinator at North Carolina earlier this month. He’s ready to apply what he learned during his year off from coaching to help the Tar Heels be a much-improved defense in 2024.

“Going through the season, doing some consultant work, having access to all the tape – college tape, NFL tape, just studying the trends in college football. Seeing the things defensively that are coming from the NFL and from college back to it, it’s excited me,” Geoff Collins said. “Being a head coach is awesome, but I genuinely missed being a play caller and standing in front of a defense and calling plays on college football Saturdays. And having the opportunity to do that for coach [Mack] Brown is truly an honor.”

Collins attended a couple of games during Week 1 of the 2023 college football season. He knew after checking out matchups between Central Michigan–Michigan State and Michigan–East Carolina that he would be back on the sidelines soon.

“Just being on the field for both of those games, [the juices] were going pretty strong,” Collins said. “And I kind of knew the media career was going to be short-lived and I was going to be back on the grass coaching when the season ended.”

After landing the Tar Heels defensive coordinator job, Collins began intently studying the North Carolina defense.

He wanted to see how UNC attacked opposing offenses and also get an in-depth knowledge of the personnel he will be working with.

“After the bowl game, I watched every single game over the year, a couple of times,” Collins said. “In the bowl game, you got to see a lot of the younger guys get their chance to play. Then I did deep dives into their high school tape, and the transfers, their tape as well. So just very excited to get to work with them.”

Collins, who previously spent time on staffs at Alabama, Mississippi State, Florida and elsewhere, has an idea of what he wants his defense to look like in Chapel Hill.

“Just some things that we went through in the interview process – playing a lot of guys, creating chaos from our perspective, without being chaotic internally, matters to me,” Collins said. “Letting the players play fast, letting them play free, those kinds of things. …. There’s some really good players on this roster.”