Stony Brook football program has come a long way in first season under Billy Cosh

The foundation has been poured. It has settled. And now the task for Stony Brook athletic director Shawn Heilbron and football coach Billy Cosh is to build the football program upon the bedrock that was laid in the course of the 2024 season.

It is an undertaking Heilbron is anticipating with equal doses of enthusiasm and eagerness, which are fully justified.

“The program has never been stronger,” Heilbron told Newsday in a wide-ranging phone interview Thursday afternoon. “We’re in such a great place.”

The discussion centered around the state of the football program ahead of its regular-season finale, a 55-47 loss to Monmouth on Saturday at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium.

Although Tyler Knoop threw for 408 yards and three touchdowns, No. 20 Stony Brook (8-4, 5-3) ended its season with consecutive losses. The senior day defeat on a cold, blustery afternoon was an unfortunate end to a week that began with Cosh being named the 2024 AFCA Region 1 Coach of the Year in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).

After the game, Cosh and Knoop made arguments for Stony Brook to be one of the 24 teams that will comprise the FCS playoff field.

“I’d like to believe we’ve done enough, but at the end of the day, we had two games at the end of the season and had to win one and we didn’t get the job done,” Knoop said when asked if he thinks Stony Brook deserves a postseason berth. “Ultimately we had the opportunity to control our fate and we didn’t. So at the end of the day, it’s their choice.”

The field will include 10 conference winners. The remaining 14 teams will be selected by a committee and announced on Sunday.

The Seawolves last appeared in the playoffs on Nov. 24, 2018, suffering a 28-14 loss to Southeast Missouri State. The last time Stony Brook hosted a playoff game was Nov. 25, 2017, a 59-29 win over Lehigh.

“I think we’re a really good outfit,” Cosh said. “I know that for sure. I know if we keep playing, we can prove that to people.”

So even though the Seawolves missed out on a chance to determine their fate, their 2024 season has been a success. Especially when factoring in that at this time one year ago, the school had fired longtime coach Chuck Priore after an 0-10 season.

“When the decision was made to go in a different direction, we just needed to build confidence back within our locker room first but then within our fan base,” Heilbron said. “We were clearly in a tough place at the end of last season, but we weren’t far off from being able to turn it around quickly, which is why I felt that with the right coach, we could do just that.”

A coaching search began in earnest, and exactly 31 days after the program announced it had parted ways with Priore, Stony Brook announced that it had hired Cosh.

“He had a vision for what Stony Brook football would look like. He was very specific and very detailed,” Heilbron said. “What he was able to do was very, very specifically explain how he was going to do it, step by step.

“ . . . He has more than lived up to it. Everything he said he was going to do, he has done, and it’s been awesome to see it come from those first conversations into reality.”

Cosh has created renewed interest in the program from prospective recruits, potential season-ticket holders and those willing to donate money, according to Heilbron.

All are signs of a program on an upward trajectory.

Heilbron recognizes that he and Cosh are entrusted with making sure the enterprise remains on track, because the goal is sustainability.

“We’ve got to keep working at it,” Heilbron said. “By no means do we want this to be a one-season success story. We’re trying to relaunch this program, and it wasn’t just for this one year. It’s for the long haul.”