When Scott Frost returned to UCF for his second act as head coach, one of his first calls went to Steve Cooper.

The pair first met a decade ago. At the time, Frost was offensive coordinator at Oregon and Cooper was the OC at nearby Portland State. The two struck up a friendship amid shared offensive philosophies, with Frost eventually hiring Cooper at Nebraska as an analyst.

This time at UCF, Cooper will be the offensive coordinator and tight ends coach.

Cooper, speaking at UCF's recent staff media day, said he closely followed the Knights during Frost's first run.

"In fact, the first time he was head coach here, I came out each year to visit and talk football, kind of study and learn while he was here... I got to be a fan. Watching the games from afar, I got to see what the staff put together and what they were able to do the last time, and it was fun to watch, obviously."

Cooper spent four years at Nebraska (2018-22) with Frost, mostly in an analyst role but in 2021 he served as interim offensive coordinator and QB coach for the Huskers' final two games.

Cooper said he and Frost have continued to remain close. In 2023, Cooper was OC at Maine. He spent the 2024 season an analyst at Boise State.

"Coach Frost and I, we talked probably at least, if not every week, every other week for the last few years, just generally talking about football," Cooper said. "Like, hey, did you see this game? Did you watch that play?

"And he would track what I was doing. Obviously, I was staying in touch with him. If it was a recruiting trip out in the area, I'd go and see him.

"When he called and told me that he was going back to UCF and asked if I would join him, man, it fired me up to get the opportunity."

Cooper is excited to get to work.

"We're really fired up," he said. "The state of Florida is a great place to coach football. This is a great campus to coach ball at. There's a lot of good players in the area, and we're fired up to get to work.

"We've got a lot of work to do, and there's things that we're just getting started on because we just finished the recruiting cycle. But it's exciting. You've got a pretty good buzz going here right now with the coaches and us getting to know each other and getting to know these kids.

"The guys are working hard, still learning some names and that kind of thing. We've got most of the offense down."

Frost will call plays, but has said the offense as a whole will be a collaborative effort.

"It's always fun talking football with Coach Frost," Cooper said. "The last time he was head coach here, he was really the predominant figure in regards to game planning.

"But the cool thing about Coach Frost is it always comes down to a collaborative effort. Someone's got a good idea, we're going to find a way to implement that idea if it fits what we're doing.

"So my philosophy, I'm going to lean on Coach Frost for that. He wants to play fast and he wants to play physical, but we also want to be very fundamental with what we're doing. We want to have base rules for guys to apply those rules and then be able to go attack.

"You're going to hear Coach Frost say a lot, 'attack, attack, attack,' and you're going to hear the same thing from the offensive staff. One of my big jobs is to help manage that and make sure that we're getting done those things that Coach Frost really believes in."

Cooper has spent the bulk of his career coaching quarterbacks, though he's also coached wide receivers and tight ends.

In 2010 as Portland State's tight ends coach, Cooper coached Julius Thomas, a PSU basketball player who decided to join the football team as a college senior. He would go on to be drafted by the Denver Broncos in the fourth round and spent seven years in the NFL, making two Pro Bowls.

"He made three contracts in the NFL and he's doing really well for himself," Cooper said. "That's a good example for these basketball guys. They all have hoop dreams and think they're going to get drafted in the NBA, but a lot of those body types, the 6-foot-5 and bigger basketball players, end up being pretty good tight ends too.

"And the thing about Julius is you couldn't find the guy without a book in his hand. He's always reading, and what I took from that, he's always trying to find a way to get better, and in nine months the dude goes from being a really good basketball player to getting drafted. He ends up playing with Peyton Manning and catching touchdowns, getting a chance to play in a Super Bowl.

"So it was just one year (coaching Thomas) and I got lucky to work with a really good one."