COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2013 Veteran college coach Geoff Collins has joined the Gamecock football staff as a senior defensive assistant coach, South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer announced today.<\/p>\n
Collins, a 28-year coaching veteran, most recently served as the defensive coordinator on Mack Brown\u2019s 2024 staff at North Carolina after a four-year stint (2019-22) as the head coach at Georgia Tech. In total, Collins has six years of head coaching experience and 12 years of experience as a defensive coordinator at the collegiate level, including six years in the SEC. He has recruited and\/or coached more than three dozen players that have gone on to play in the National Football League, including six NFL draft picks in his four seasons at Georgia Tech.<\/p>\n
During his lone season in Chapel Hill, Collins\u2019s Tar Heel defense recorded 41 sacks, tying for the sixth-best mark in the nation.<\/p>\n
While the head coach at Georgia Tech, Collins installed a pro-style spread offensive attack after 11 years of option football at Tech, all while battling the Covid-19 pandemic. An accomplished recruiter, Collins produced back-to-back top-25 recruiting classes. His first full recruiting class in 2020 was the first top-25 class at Georgia Tech since 2007 and just the second in school history. His second recruiting class at Tech in 2021 was a top-20 class. In all, Georgia Tech added 34 four- or five-star recruits and 18 of the 50 highest-ranked high-school recruits in program history.<\/p>\n
Prior to taking the reins at Georgia Tech, Collins put together the most successful first two seasons by a head coach in Temple\u2019s 121-year football history in 2017 and \u201818. Collins compiled 15 wins and led Temple to two bowl games. The Owls win over FIU in the 2017 Gasparilla Bowl, was just the third bowl win in school history.<\/p>\n
Prior to becoming head coach at Temple, Collins was one of the nation\u2019s most respected defensive coordinators, serving in the role at Florida (2015-16), Mississippi State (2013-14, co-DC: 2011-12), FIU (2010) and his alma mater, Western Carolina (2002-05).<\/p>\n
Highlights of his career as a coordinator included ranking among the nation\u2019s top 10 in total defense in each of his two seasons at Florida (No. 8 in 2015 and No. 5 in 2016), ranking among the top 25 nationally in total defense (18th \u2013 2013) and scoring defense (23rd \u2013 2014) during his two seasons calling plays at Mississippi State and leading the Sun Belt Conference in total defense, scoring defense and turnover margin in his lone campaign at FIU (2010).<\/p>\n
At the time, Collins was the only coach to ever be nominated for the Broyles Award, given to college football\u2019s top assistant coach, at three different schools (FIU \u2013 2010, Mississippi State \u2013 2014 and Florida \u2013 2015).<\/p>\n
Collins\u2019 coaching career also includes a pair of prior stints at Georgia Tech. He first came to The Flats as a graduate assistant (1999-2000), then tight ends coach (2001) under head coach George O\u2019Leary from 1999-2001, followed by a year as director of player personnel under head coach Chan Gailey in 2006.<\/p>\n
Collins has also served on the staffs at Western Carolina (student assistant \u2013 1993-94), Franklin (N.C.) H.S. (assistant coach \u2013 1995), Fordham (linebackers coach \u2013 1996), Albright (defensive coordinator \u2013 1997-98), Alabama (director of player personnel \u2013 2007) and UCF (linebackers coach\/recruiting coordinator \u2013 2008- 09).<\/p>\n
As a student-athlete, Collins totaled 194 career tackles as an outside linebacker and defensive back at Western Carolina (1989-92).<\/p>\n
Born April 10, 1971, Collins is married to the former Jennifer Haynes. They have a daughter, Astrid.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WCSC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2013 Veteran college coach Geoff Collins has joined the Gamecock football staff as a senior defensive…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":97951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,64107,64108,43059,1317,1315,1316,9661,3036,24116,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-97950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-gamecock-football","10":"tag-geoff-collins","11":"tag-georgia-tech","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-ncaafootball","15":"tag-sec-football","16":"tag-south-carolina","17":"tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114927851629457809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}