We report on the epitaxial film growth and characterization of CoV2O4, a near-itinerant spinel vanadate, grown on (001) SrTiO3. The symmetry lowering of the unit cell from cubic in the bulk to orthorhombic in the films results in dramatic differences in the magnetic anisotropy compared to bulk, as determined from structural and magnetic characterization. Bulk cubic CoV2O4 has been found to defy predictions by showing orbital degeneracy seemingly lasting to very low temperatures, with only small anomalies in magnetization and neutron experiments signaling a possible spin/orbital glass transition at T = 90 K. In epitaxial thin films presented in this paper, structurally tuning the CoV2O4 away from cubic symmetry leads to a completely different low temperature non-collinear ground state. Via magnetization and neutron scattering measurements we show that the 90 K transition is associated with a major spin reorientation away from the ferrimagnetic easy axis [001] to the [110] direction. Furthermore, the V-spins cant away from this direction with extracted perpendicular moments providing evidence of a larger canting angle compared to bulk. This result indicates that compressive strain pushes the system deeper into the insulating state, i.e., away from the localized -itinerant crossover regime.Magnetic oxides composed of a frustrated magnetic network of 3d transition metals, in which orbital, spin and structural degrees of freedom are strongly coupled 1 , have been an active playground for researchers due to the promise of finding routes to new behaviors. In recent years the focus has been more and more on geometrically frustrated systems in which spin-spin interaction result in macroscopically degenerate ground state manifolds 2-4 , lots of entropy, a large density of states that can be manipulated, and emergence of unusual low temperature properties when perturbations are applied. Furthermore, localized spin and itinerant electron behavior are strongly coupled in geometrically frustrated systems 5 leading to spin liquid behavior 6 and other exotic phases 7-9 as observed in pyrochlores.Spinel vanadates, in which itinerancy and frustration can be controlled via manipulation of the V-V distance 10-15 , are poster materials for orbital physics in frustrated antiferromagnets. They have been intensely studied to gain a better understanding on how orbital order can help relieve spin degeneracy. Vanadates (AV 2 O 4 ) with non-magnetic atoms on the A-site (A = Zn, Cd, Mg 1,16-21 ) show two successive transitions, first a structural transition that leads to orbital order, and at lower temperature, a transition to an antiferromagnetic state. It has been shown before that these vanadates can have different structural distortions and thus different low temperature orbital states 1 . Vandates with magnetic atoms on the A-site (A = Fe, Mn) show multiple structural phase transitions as a function of temperature, eventually leading to non-collinear and orbitally ordered ground states 22 . The origin of the spin canting transi-tions i...