Geoff Collins will be the new head coach at Temple, ESPN's Brett McMurphy reported Tuesday. We have confirmed the hire.
Collins is in his second season as the defensive coordinator at Florida, where helped the Gators to back-to-back SEC East championships under head coach Jim McElwain. Florida ranks ninth nationally in yards per play allowed this season, and ranked eighth last year. He'll take over a team that ranks fifth nationally in the same metric this season and is fresh off an American Athletic Conference championship.
Prior to Florida, Collins coordinated defenses at Mississippi State and Florida International and served as recruiting coordinator and linebackers coach at Central Florida in 2008-09. Collins was on Nick Saban's original staff at Alabama as director of player personnel.
Collins also worked alongside former Temple head coach Matt Rhule from 2002-05 at Western Carolina, where Collins served as the team's defensive coordinator and Rhule was assistant head coach, special teams coordinator and linebackers coach. Collins is a Georgia native who graduated from Western Carolina in 1994.
Though he spent the majority of his career in SEC and ACC country, Collins does have northeastern experience at Fordham and Albright College in Reading, Pa.
Temple's hiring of Collins fills every FBS head coaching position at this time.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.