Collins Grasping The Nuances Of UNC's New D

CHAPEL HILL - This time last year, Chris Collins was in the very early stages of his college football career and still feeling his way around the Kenan Football Center. It was a process all young Tar Heels go through.

Fast forward 12 months and the Richmond, VA, native isn’t a freshman anymore, knows where everything is and the only adapting he’s doing is getting even more familiar with North Carolina’s new defensive scheme. Yet, that’s why in some respects he still feels like a newbie again.

Mack Brown took over the reins of the UNC program for the second time last November and basically overhauled the staff and nearly everything else about Carolina football. One of the new coaches is defensive coordinator Jay Bateman, whose task is transforming a defense that finished second-to-last statistically in the ACC over the past two seasons.

The former Army defensive coordinator, who had a top 10 defense last year at West Point, brought a successful pedigree to Chapel Hill along with a somewhat-off beat scheme the players describe as “controlled chaos” that was quite foreign to them.

Playing primarily as a defensive end in 2018, Collins' hands have been full since spring practice trying to learn his new hybrid defensive end/linebacker role. The “outside linebacker” position, as Bateman likes to call it, is a staple of the scheme and one Collins is enjoying learning so far.

“In the spring, it was a little bit challenging because I was new to it, everybody was new to it as a defense,” Collins said. “But now we’ve had the whole summer to rep it and now we’re getting into this fall camp and it’s time to go. Everybody’s getting the hang of it.”

Collins had a hand on the ground at the line of scrimmage for almost all of the 150 snaps he played during his freshman campaign. This season, however, will be completely different as he will often line up in an upright two-point stance, much like a traditional linebacker does.

This new position comes with more responsibility, too, but Collins’ main objective remains the same.

“My role is to rush the passer first, coach always tells us that, that’s always our first role,” he said. “Our second (role) is to set the edge and then our third (role) we just try to drop back in coverage and make sure we’re good.”

Dropping back and covering receivers is a completely untried facet of Collins’ game that he never had to do in John Papuchis’ defense last season. He lacks experience in that respect, but Bateman thinks the 6-foot-4, 240-pounder has all the tools to excel in his role as he continues to get more reps.

“Chris, he’s got to be a little bit better at the point of attack, but he does some things better than all of them,” Bateman said. “And that’s our job, that’s Scott Boone’s job, that’s my job to get those positions into the spots they do best.”

Covering players in open space will force Collins to be more mobile across the field but he must balance that aspect of his game with attacking at the line of scrimmage. Even with the responsibility of being more active on any given play, Collins still put on more weight in the offeason so he can be more physical when tasked with rushing the passer or stopping the run.

Players have to be more versatile at this position and that’s something Boone, the special teams and outside linebackers coach, has been drilling into Collins and the position group as a whole since he took over.

“I’m still doing my same pass rush drills with the guys, Tomon (Fox), (Allen) Cater, Jake (Lawler), all the guys in the outside linebacker room,” Collins said. “It’s not all about quickness on the edge it’s mainly about staying low and getting underneath the tackle. That’s what coach Boone preaches to us as outside linebackers.”

With the season opener less than two weeks away, it’s impossible to know how prepared Collins is for his hybrid role until he’s tested in a real game. No amount of practice can replace live game experience, especially when trying to learn an unfamiliar position, but he’s feeling more poised with every rep he takes in practice.

“I’m a lot more comfortable,” Collins said. “I had all summer playing at workouts to get adjusted so I’m a lot more comfortable.”

Even though the learning curve that comes along with grasping his new responsibilities will make him feel like he’s starting all over again at times, Collins has the confidence of his coaches to succeed in his second year in Chapel Hill.