Extra Points: Lab Rat

By Lee Pace

Of the four walls of Geoff Collins' office on the fourth floor of Kenan Football Center, one is devoted to personal memorabilia—a photo with wife Jennifer and daughter Astrid in the middle, to one side a pair of shots of him as the Temple head coach beating No. 16 Cincinnati in 2018. There are some mindset books from authors like Tim Grover and some coaching books from Bill Walsh and Pete Carroll. There is even one of those iconic UNC No. 1 Coke bottles from the Tar Heels' national basketball title in 1982.

"I collected those as a kid, I just so happen to have a Tar Heel bottle," he says.

Two walls are completely blank—just a coat of fresh white paint since he took occupancy in January as the Tar Heels' new defensive coordinator. The fourth wall is made of glass and looks out onto the playing field in Kenan Stadium. Collins' desk has a computer and keyboard. There is nothing else—no folders, no notes, no memos anywhere. Talk about minimalism …

"I'm never here," he says. "Anyone looks for me, they go to the lab."

Ah, "The Lab," the rectangular room in the middle of the floor where Collins holds court up to 12 hours a day, quaffing energy drinks and coffee from a new hi-tech dispenser in the break room nearby. He sits at the head of the table, spaces around it for a half dozen defensive coaches. There's a big viewing screen on one side, grease boards adorned with Xs-and-Os around another wall, depth charts and personnel boards stretching one wall. It all fits the "mad scientist" label a writer foisted upon Collins in writing a profile a decade ago on his prolific defenses at Mississippi State, when the Bulldogs were the No. 23 team in the nation in scoring defense and the team ranked No. 1 in the nation at one point.

"Mad scientist," he mulls the words. "I'd take that as a very nice compliment."

Beside one door in the "D LAB," as Collins calls it in texting shorthand (always including a test tube emoji), is a graphic that he produced soon after his arrival on Mack Brown's staff paying homage to those great 1996-97 Tar Heel defenses, with Brown as the head coach, Carl Torbush the coordinator and players like Vonnie Holliday, Greg Ellis, Brian Simmons and Dré Bly wreaking havoc across the ACC and beyond. Collins got a brief behind-the-scenes look during those days when, having left Western Carolina in 1994, he was an assistant coach at Franklin High near the Tennessee border and came to know Torbush when Torbush recruited that corner of the state and conducted some coaching clinics.

"Coach Torbush was a great man," Collins says. "I was a young coach and he let me follow him around like a lost puppy. That year and the next year when I was a graduate assistant at Fordham, I'd visit Chapel Hill and he let me sit in the back of the meeting room and then watch practice. It was a great experience for a young guy."

He pauses and considers the dozen years of defensive ills haunting the Tar Heel program since Robert Quinn, Bruce Carter and Butch Davis took their leaves from Chapel Hill in the 2010-11 era.

"Whatever happened here in recent history, this place used to be known as having one of the best defenses in college football," Collins says. "That's our goal, get back to where it used to be."

Those efforts crystallized Tuesday morning when the Tar Heels took to the practice field for the first day of spring practice, 15 sessions leading up to the spring game April 20th. Over the next month, Collins and his staff will introduce the playbook and mindset predicated on generating heat—from every angle, every position, every down-and-distance.

"You can tell, the energy's different," senior defensive end Kaimon Rucker says. "It starts from the top down. Coach Collins from day one when we stepped into the team meeting room, he brought energy. I feel like it's energy our defense needed."

"From the first day I met him, he was full of energy," adds senior cornerback Alijah Huzzie. "I love the energy he brings to the team, that aggressive mindset and intensity."

Collins bounced around the practice complex Tuesday morning like a pinball, wearing white shorts and a Carolina blue pullover that he slept in Monday night.

"It's kind of a tradition with me, the first day of camp and first day of spring ball," he says. "You're so excited the night before, it's like Christmas Eve."

Collins' March frenzy emanates from two sources. One, he's happy to be back coaching after 15 months of personal and professional regrouping after being dismissed as Georgia Tech's head coach in midseason 2022. And two, he's curious to see how much better a unit that features talents like Rucker, Huzzie, Power Echols and Des Evans can be over its 2023 numbers of yielding 27 points and 404 yards a game.

"It's been a blast, I've had so much fun doing this," he says. "It was fun being a head football coach, but the piece I missed the most was the lab, worrying about the defense, scheming things up, engaging the defensive guys.

"One of the pieces that excited me about this job watching games from the last two years is to see the talent, especially along the front four. That's one of the biggest pieces. On defense, you've got to be good on the front four, and we have some really good players coming back."

Perhaps it was ordained Collins' next step would be in Chapel Hill. It helps that Collins has ties to the state of North Carolina, having played college ball in Cullowhee, his wife is from Lenoir, and her parents live in Jamestown having both worked in the furniture industry.

Several days before Christmas 2023, Collins took his seven-year-old daughter Astrid shopping. They passed a shoe store, and he noticed a pair of throwback Bo Jackson trainers, pointed at them and told his daughter that those were his favorite shoes growing up in the Atlanta area. Then a few days later, he opened a Christmas present from Astrid—a new pair of Nike shoes. But they weren't the Bo Jackson model.

They were Jordan Brand, white with Carolina blue accents. Collins is wearing those very sneakers the day before spring practice started.

"This was before the bowl game, this was before any job opening here," Collins says. "A little seven-year-old must have known something."

Chapel Hill writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) enters his 35th year writing about Carolina football under the "Extra Points" banner. He also works as the sideline reporter for the Tar Heel Sports Network. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

Players Mentioned

Power Echols

Alijah Huzzie

Kaimon Rucker

Related Videos