LIU names Ron Cooper as its new football coach

LIU went to the college football mountaintop and climbed down with a new head coach.

Ron Cooper is the school’s new football coach, LIU announced Monday. He is a senior analyst on Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama — a role he will remain in through the national championship game next Monday night, LIU said.

"I’m excited to be named head football coach at Long Island University," Cooper said in a statement released by LIU. "I want to thank president Kimberly Cline and director of athletics Dr. William E. Martinov Jr. for the opportunity to build on the strong college football tradition at LIU. From the high academic standards in the classroom to success on the field of play, LIU has proven to be a national teaching and research institution, and I take great pride in joining the LIU community."

Cooper’s statement continued: "My role as head coach will focus on developing a commitment to excellence in all areas of the game of football and to build on the highly regarded LIU student-athlete experience by preparing young men for success beyond the game."

Cooper, 59, has been a head coach at Eastern Michigan (1993-94), Louisville (1995-97) and Alabama A&M (1998-2001) and was the interim head coach at Florida International for the final eight games of the 2016 season. He’s also coached in different roles at Texas A&M, LSU, Arkansas, Notre Dame, South Carolina and Mississippi State. Cooper was the defensive backs coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012.

"We welcome Ron to Shark Nation and look forward to supporting his development of teams that will challenge national contenders," Martinov said in a statement.

While at LSU from 2009-11, Cooper coached one of the top secondaries in the country, led by Morris Claiborne, Patrick Peterson and Tyrann Mathieu. At South Carolina in 2008, he was part of a staff that boasted the top defense in the SEC and the No. 2 pass defense in the country, allowing 160 yards per game. He was at South Carolina from 2004-08 and helped lead the team to appearances in the 2005 Independence Bowl, the 2006 Liberty Bowl and the 2009 Outback Bowl.

Cooper has a chance to build a program virtually from the ground up. Last season, its third in Division I, LIU went 2-8 under interim coach Jonathan Gill.

He replaced Bryan Collins, who resigned last June after a 23-year run that featured success in Division II as the C.W. Post Pioneers and a transition to Division I under the LIU Sharks moniker, which unified the university’s Post and Brooklyn athletic programs.

LIU went 0-10 in 2019, its debut Division I season, and was 2-2 in a shortened 2021 spring campaign after the fall 2020 season was canceled because of the pandemic.