Geoff Collins is a psycho — or at least, that’s the name given to his brand of aggressive defense. "The psycho defense" is ready to be installed as Collins and the rest of the Gators staff officially took over with a team meeting Monday night and the defensive assistant coaches met with the media Thursday.
Collins and former UF head coach Will Muschamp both learned under Alabama coach Nick Saban, and while the terminology in their defenses is different, the main principles stay the same.
Collins lucks out. He wants to fit his system around his players and his system already fits his players.
"Whatever the players can do, that’s what you want to do. If you’ve got a lot of man corners, play man. If you’ve got some long, athletic outside linebackers, then you play an odd front," Collins said. "So it just depends on as we go through what we have on the roster, which we’ve been able to see a little bit of it, and then what we’re able to sign in this class to really help fill some holes early for next season."
His end at Mississippi State was unceremonious at best. His former boss, Dan Mullen, gave a backhanded insult to him on his way out of Starkville, but when asked about it Thursday, Collins was nothing but cordial.
"I’m just excited to be a Florida Gator," Collins said. "I’m excited. It’s a great place to be. You get to coach these kids and work with Coach Mac and Coach Shannon, Williams, Callahan. It doesn’t get better than that."
Williams welcomes college challenges: Florida’s defensive line coach Terrell Williams dabbled in the NFL for three seasons with the Oakland Raiders, but he’s back where he cut his teeth in the first 13 years of coaching — college football.
While the NFL is non-stop football, college allows time for more relationship building primarily done during recruiting.
"You either can do it or you can’t. I was telling my wife when I got here on Monday, ‘I said I felt like I’ve got life back in me now,’" Williams said. "I’m recruiting, calling parents – well, not calling parents – but I’m calling coaches and dealing with that. Recruiting is something that you either like it or you don’t."
Williams is passionate about what he’s doing, calling being Florida’s defensive line coach the "best job in college football," and even said it was better than some NFL jobs, presumably even his former one.
Callahan comes back to Gainesville: For two years, UF defensive backs coach Kirk Callahan learned the tools of the trade as a defensive graduate assistant in 2010 and 2011.
He then left for his alma mater UCF to coach defensive backs before returning to UF.
"It’s great, a great opportunity, I obviously love this school it was a part of me earlier, you know in my time before. Extremely excited to be back and ready to get to work," Callahan said.
He walks into a position group stocked with young talent thanks to Muschamp who specialized in that position group, but Callahan knows even though he has stud defensive backs like Vernon Hargreaves, he still has coaching to do.
"I’m excited. I knew Vernon obviously from Tampa days where he’s from. He’s done a great job to this point and I’m excited to work with him in terms of that. He’s already a good player, well how can we make him better?" Callahan said. "And that’s going to come with me looking at film and our staff as we meet together and see how we can better him even more."
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
New head football coach Jim McElwain speaks at his opening press conference in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
