It's still not official that Florida will hire Doug Nussmeier as its offensive coordinator. But there's nothing suggesting that Nussmeier won't eventually get the job, just some smoke that he might share the title with someone like Alabama wide receivers coach Billy Napier — Thomas Goldkamp does a good job of explaining it here ($).
And that means we have a really interest piece of game film to dissect: Nussmeier's Alabama team beating Collins's Mississippi State team 20-7 in a 2013 game in Starkville.
It's not common that a program's new OC and new DC coached against each other as recently as two years ago.
Alabama and Mississippi State met in 2012, too, but that MSU defense was only partly Collins's to command; he shared the DC role at Mississippi State until 2013. And this game produced Alabama's worst scoring output of 2013, its fourth-worst yardage total (second-worst: a game against Jim McElwain's Colorado State), and four turnovers; since 2008, Alabama's first 10-win season under Nick Saban, only five teams (one of them 2014 Florida) have forced four turnovers against the Tide.
Alabama did put up nearly six yards per play, but the Tide scored just two red zone touchdowns on five trips, went four-for-12 on third down, and gave up a pick-six. And Mississippi State losing wasn't a shocker: 4-5 coming into the game, the Bulldogs had just given up 51 points and 537 yards to Texas A&M.
The way the Bulldogs frustrated Alabama's mighty offense, though, might be something you enjoy watching on Christmas Eve. In the most recent battle between Florida's presumptive OC and its DC-to-be, the defense "won."