Ron Cooper is charged with running the 'Brookville Project' for LIU football

Call it the ‘Brookville Project.’

There isn’t much anyone knows about the Long Island University football program at this moment. The team that’s won two games in two Division I fall seasons is almost unrecognizable.

They have a new coaching staff — led by head man Ron Cooper, who worked as a senior analyst on Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama last year and hasn’t been a fully installed coach since 2001 (he served as the interim coach at Florida International for the final eight games of the 2016 season).  

They have a new quarterback — Derek Green, an SMU transfer who has eight career pass attempts and is the son of former NFL quarterback and current CBS analyst Trent Green.

As far as programs go, they pretty much have new everything. They’ll kick off their third fall season in Division I Thursday night in Ohio when they take on Toledo, an FBS opponent who played in the Bahamas Bowl last season. 

What Toledo doesn’t have is tape on LIU. No one does.  No one has seen a team run completely by Cooper in two decades, and no one has ever seen a team quarterbacked by Green.

That could be a good thing for LIU, which begins the season with a gauntlet opening three weeks. After Toledo, they’ll host No. 8 Villanova and visit Kent State, another FBS team who played in a bowl last season.

“We’re watching games from last year on our opponents, and if they're watching games from last year on us, I can't really say they're getting much out of it,” said Green, a graduate student.  “I think it's definitely an advantage that we need to take advantage of.  That may be one of our only legs up on Toledo going into Week I, so we really need to take advantage of that.”

Green said he’s expecting about 20 of his family members, including his father, to be in attendance Thursday to watch his first significant action since high school. Last season, he went into fall camp thinking he had a decent shot at winning the SMU starting job, but was beaten out by Oklahoma transfer Tanner Mordecai. Mordecai went on to set SMU records and Green started to look for another place to play.

“I don't know if I would say annoyed, but I was definitely disappointed,” Green said. “…I can't be bitter about that. I’m good friends with Tanner Mordecai, whose still at SMU and going to be starting again this year. It is what it is. It's football, it's a business. Even at this level, it's a business. So, I wouldn't say annoyed, but I would definitely say (I have) a chip on my shoulder to prove that that I can play for sure.”

Cooper thinks he can.

“You talk about a talented young man that can run, can throw,” Cooper said. “He's smart and he's durable. Those are all a plus for us and I'm looking forward to watching him compete.”

As a former FBS quarterback, Green said he knows what Toledo is thinking about this week — and it probably isn’t LIU. 

“I've been in the position where I'm playing against the lower level FCS team and you kind of overlook them a little bit,” Green said. “We know it's tough for an FBS school to play an FCS school because we really have nothing to lose. When you look at it like that, we just have to go in and expect to compete and see what happens. I think the guys on the team have responded really well to that. Understanding, that it's not out of reach.”