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Iowa Football: Impact of Geoff Collins Accepting Temple Job

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:40 p.m. ET

Fansided, Jeremy Karll/FanSided via Dear Old Gold

A look at how Florida’s defense might look without Geoff Collins

In the midst of Charlie Strong signing with South Florida and Purdue landing former Western Kentucky head coach Jeff Prohm, the Florida Gators, Iowa football‘s Outback Bowl opponent, also lost their defensive coordinator, Geoff Collins.

Collins left the Gators to accept his first career college head coaching job with the up and coming Temple Owls.

Coaches leaving before bowl games is nothing new. Teams try to sway coaches away from their current situation sooner and sooner nowadays to ensure they’ll get their guy. In turn, it leaves their former team out in the cold looking for a quick one-game replacement.

There were rumors saying that Collins might stay and coach Florida’s bowl game before leaving for Temple, however, yesterday, Florida announced Randy Shannon will take over as defensive coordinator in the Outback Bowl.

Shannon, the linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator for Florida this season, is not in a new situation. He was the defensive coordinator at Miami from 2001-06 until he accepted a head coaching job there in 2007.

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Simply put, he has experience in forming an elite defense at Miami and is well accustomed with Florida’s defense this season. Collins will get most of the credit, but Shannon played a major role in forming a top-10 caliber defense.

The Gators allowed the seventh fewest points per game in the nation at 16.5 per game in 2016. Also, they allowed just 3.8 yards per carry and teams completed a mere 46.4 percent of passes against them. In fact, Florida only allowed more than 15 points to one unranked team this year — Arkansas scored 31 points.

Still, many wonder how Collins leaving will impact Florida’s defense.

In a nutshell, it won’t.

The Gators won’t drastically change their scheme, how they practice or play because Collins is gone. Even their change in defensive coordinator isn’t that drastic compared to others. As previously mentioned, Shannon’s been an integral part to the defense’s success this year, so he knows his players strengths and weaknesses.

If anything will slow down this Gators’ defense before the Outback Bowl, it will be their insane amount of injuries. Key players such as Jarrad Davis, David Reese and Nick Washington are all banged up right now and might not play in the Outback Bowl.

The injury bug is nothing new to the Gators, though. Almost every defensive starter has been questionable or missed a game at some point this season. Not to mention the lingering issues that hung around for linebacker Jarrad Davis, who is the second leading tackler on Florida and a leader for an injury-plagued linebacker group.

Plus, Florida already lost key players in Marcus Maye, Jordan Sherit and Alex Anzalone for the season. They combined for 141 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks this season before being lost for the season.

It’s telling of how good, deep and focused this Florida defense is. If they were to implode this season, it would have already happened with young players needing to step in at key positions against good teams. Instead, the Gators maintained a top-10 caliber defense and held four of their first five opponents to seven points or less.

Besides, it’s not like Florida is losing their head coach Jim McElwain. There would be reason to think Florida might be distracted or not play well if their head coach took another job at this point of the season.

A head coach leaving right before a bowl game actually benefitted Florida in 2009 when Brian Kelly left Cincinnati for the Notre Dame head coaching job. Maybe Florida was better than a 12-0 Cincinnati team, however the Bearcats losing 51-14 is telling of how much they needed Kelly in that game.

Defensive coordinators leaving, especially a defense as good as Florida is, doesn’t have the same impact, though. Barring Florida going out there to play for Geoff Collins but ending up playing with too much emotion and making crucial emotional mistakes, this change won’t ruin their chances of beating Iowa.

They still have a defense compiled of future NFL players, including Teez Tabor, who is one of the best defensive backs in the nation. Just because their coach left doesn’t mean their talent followed. Randy Shannon is familiar with their defense and injury problems, so expect them to be as sharp as ever on January 2.