Can Sharks swim in The Swamp?
Long Island University is gearing up for its biggest game in program history, opening on the road at No. 15 Florida in Gainesville under the lights Aug. 30.
“You definitely have to go into this game with a chip on your shoulder,” Sharks starting quarterback Ethan Greenwood told The Post after a Wednesday practice.
“We need a lot of grit, a lot of heart. Everyone needs to be on the same page and executing their plays and assignments,” he added.
Getting physically ready for the Labor Day Weekend affair is just one component for the NEC team traveling into the heart of SEC territory for a David vs. Goliath duel, though.
Drain the swamp
Head coach Ron Cooper is getting his guys conditioned for the environment of enemy territory at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium — with a capacity of 88,548, just a smidge larger than the Sharks’ 6,000-seat field.
“You’re not going to be able to hear,” said Cooper, a former analyst for Nick Saban at Alabama and secondaries coach for LSU and Texas A&M.
“It’s the first week they’re back on campus. … You know what students do during the day, so they’ll be a little rowdy by the time we get there at night.”
Anticipating that stadium-shaking atmosphere, he’s using SEC insight to train the team for deafening decibels by blaring crowd noise in the LIU gym every morning at 6:30.
“We turn up the speakers and blast it,” Cooper said, adding that they can’t use the stadium because the high volume would defy local North Shore noise ordinances.
“We’ve probably made it a little louder than it will be directly on them [during the game]. The first several days, we had problems. … But the guys have picked up on it now.”
Greenwood, a third-year QB who played at nearby Kellenberg Memorial High School and later transferred to LIU from The Citadel, said his coach even bumps Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down,” which is chanted at the top of Gator Nation’s lungs heading into the fourth quarter.
“I get it stuck in my head all the time now,” he joked. “It’s going to be a shock getting in there, but I think we’ll be fine.”
There ain’t no easy way out
LIU, which has been a Division I FCS program for only the past five seasons, is not ignorant of the task at hand.
“[The Gators are] not going to take this game lightly,” Cooper said.
“They are preparing like they’re playing Georgia right now — there’s no doubt,” added the coach with realistic expectations who, more than anything, wants his roster to come home healthy.
Cooper also recognizes that Florida, which has more than 43,000 students, is on an entirely different pay grade than LIU, which has just more than 15,000 enrolled.
“What’s crazy is they probably have one kid on [NIL] more than our entire budget,” he said of his football team.
The Gators even paid the Sharks a number north of $500,000 to take the game, LIU officials confirmed.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean Long Island University can’t show the sports world what the young men of Nassau County are made of — or aspire to what would be a historic college football upset.
After all, defensive coordinator Tyquan Hammock’s brother, Thomas Hammock, stunned the world last season when his Northern Illinois Huskies shook down the thunder and beat No. 5 Notre Dame 16-14.
“At the end of the day, it’s just another game. They’re just a little faster and stronger,” Greenwood said.
“I’m going to soak it all in. If I score a touchdown against Florida, that’s a blessing right there.”
Cooper, who called the matchup “a preseason bowl game,” is preaching similarly and wants to see his team soak in the once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“It’ll be a great experience. It’ll be something that they’ve never seen,” he said.
“I told them all they can do is put out 11 guys — and we put our 11 out. So it’s still just 11-on-11 playing together as a team.”
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