Kansas University football assistant Earnest Collins accepted a job as assistant coach at Central Florida, UCF head coach George O’Leary announced Wednesday.

Collins has coached cornerbacks at KU since 2003. Prior to this season, he was given the additional responsibility as special teams coordinator, and he recruited East Dallas and Southern California for the Jayhawks.

At UCF, Collins will be in charge of the entire secondary.

“We are very happy to include a coach of Earnest’s quality in all phases of the game to our staff,” O’Leary said in a statement. “He brings with him a lot of experience that is going to help our entire team.”

Collins interviewed a year ago for the head-coach opening at Division I-AA Northern Colorado, his alma mater. That job eventually went to Scott Downing.

Central Florida, located in Orlando, finished 4-8 this season with many of the team’s problems defense-related. Two defensive assistants were dismissed at the end of the season, and O’Leary recently hired Iowa State assistant John Skladany to be defensive coordinator.

Collins could not be reached for comment Wednesday, though he said in a statement, “I’m very excited to be joining Coach O’Leary’s staff at UCF. It is a great situation and the program is up-and-coming. We have a chance to be the elite in Conference USA and I’m excited about the opportunity to make the defense and the team as a whole even better.”