Five days after Geoff Collins left Temple in the dust for Georgia Tech, the Owls are reportedly set to hire Miami defensive coordinator Manny Diaz as their new head football coach.
Diaz will become Temple’s fifth head football coach of the decade.
Yahoo! Sports reported the deal Wednesday afternoon, after an Inquirer report pointed to Diaz as the school’s top choice for the job:
Diaz, 44, was the defensive coordinator at Miami for the past three years. He was nominated for the Broyles Award in 2016, an award give to the top assistant coach in college football.
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The Hurricanes ranked in the Top 30 in the country in points allowed per game in each of Diaz’s three years as defensive coordinator.
A Florida native who attended Florida State, his coaching career began in 1998 with the Seminoles.
Diaz’s first defensive coordinator gig came with Middle Tennessee, from 2006 to 2009. He then served as DC for Mississippi State for one season, before moving on to the Texas DC job.
He was fired at Texas after one of the worst defensive showings in Longhorn history.
Diaz served as Louisiana Tech DC in 2014, and Mississippi State DC in 2015 before landing in Miami.
Temple is set to face Duke in the Independence Bowl on Dec. 27.
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