TROY, Ala. — He is in mid-sentence when the head coach’s office is plunged into sudden darkness. Neal Brown just laughs.

“Eight o’clock,” he says, noting the time. “If you don’t move, then the lights go out.”

The energy-saving feature in Troy’s new $24 million football operations building is actually a bug, considering the schedule kept by most college football coaches; at some point, an adjustment seems essential. But for Brown, there’s nothing to complain about in the facility in the north end zone of Veterans Memorial Stadium, which the football program moved into only weeks ago – and which is still incomplete.

The weights were delivered late last week. Signage is still being applied to the walls. One important message is already up, though, in the corridor with the coaches’ offices. It reads: “Troy pulled off arguably THE BIGGEST UPSET OF THE SEASON by going on the road to beat LSU …”

They might need to order a similar one. Never mind that a 24-19 win against Nebraska wasn’t even the biggest upset of the day. The Cornhuskers are in transition under new coach Scott Frost, and last Saturday was filled with wins by Group of Five teams against Power Five opponents – and by now, Troy is getting used to this deal, anyway.

Two years ago, Troy pushed Clemson to the brink before losing by six points; the Tigers went on to win the national championship. Last year’s win against LSU was the Trojans’ first win against a Power Five opponent since beating Oklahoma State in 2007. Beating Nebraska “was different,” Brown says, than the others – “and I think our kids have a better feel for how to handle it, too.”

We’ll see soon enough. Next up for Troy – and in many ways, more important – is Saturday’s game at Louisiana-Monroe, the start of the Sun Belt schedule. It’s not lost on Brown that a year ago, after beating LSU, the Trojans lost to South Alabama. He thinks it might’ve been because he warned players over and over against a letdown … and then they lost, anyway.

This week, the tact was different: Starting Monday afternoon, coaches focused exclusively on Louisiana-Monroe; the win against Nebraska might as well not have occurred.

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Don’t misunderstand. It’s still a huge victory, and it’s even bigger for those versed in Troy’s football history, which is of a steady ascension from NAIA to NCAA Division II to FCS and then, in 2001, to FBS. The Huskers welcomed the Trojans to the FBS level with a 42-14 pasting in the 2001 season opener. Nebraska followed up with wins in 2002, 2003 and 2006 – that last one by 56-0.

Several current assistant coaches were part of the program during those seasons, which might be why the “Winners’ Dinner” last Sunday evening, when Brown and his wife Brooke provide a meal for the staff and their families – there were 29 children for the feast of beef tips, chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, green beans and rolls – seemed especially festive. Beating the Huskers is one more gauge of a program’s progress.

“I was telling our players after the game – I didn’t bring it up to them a single time before the game – how far we’ve come in 17 years,” Brown says. “That’s the significance of this win.”

It’s more than that, of course. Brown received congratulatory texts from people including Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson, who noted Troy’s payday ($1.15 million) even as he pushed a preferred narrative.

“These aren’t money games,” Benson says, “they’re opportunity games. And Troy, I think, has shown what a win against the Power Five can do. And it goes well beyond the million dollars they get. The exposure is (worth) 10 times the monetary value.”

That’s probably true for Brown, too. At 38, he’s in his fourth season at Troy, making $800,000 a year. The win against Nebraska is only part of a growing resume that will make him an attractive candidate on the next spin of the coaching carousel. But that’s for later. For now Brown, who was an assistant at Troy from 2006-09, seems very comfortable building the football program in a close-knit community of almost 20,000 in southeast Alabama.

It’s why, as their bus approached Memorial Stadium in Lincoln last Saturday, Brown told Brooke to drink in the scene at one of college football’s traditional powers.

“I felt like we had a good chance,” he says. “It wasn’t like I knew we were gonna win, don’t get me wrong, but I felt like we had a good chance. We’d had a really good week of preparation. So as we were riding in, I was telling her, ‘Make sure you look around.’ ”

A few hours later, as the couple drove home from the airport, he returned to the subject.

“Think about it,” he said. “We were just in Lincoln. Think about this community, this size school with what this program has been able to do. We’re part of a program that just went to Lincoln, Neb., and defeated what you saw this morning. … What Troy has been able to accomplish in a little over 25 years (since making the jump from Division II to FCS), it’s really amazing.”

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Brown credits the school’s administration, beginning with chancellor Jack Hawkins, for having the vision that a Division II school could compete at the highest level. He praises longtime coach Larry Blakeney, his former boss, with building the program as it moved from Division II to FCS to FBS. Under Brown, it has morphed into something close to that original vision.

The lights snap off again. Brown laughs again and notes the tasks that still remain and the wrinkles still to be smoothed, including that energy-saving feature that functions like a bug.

“We’re a work in progress in many ways,” he says.

But clearly, the building process is going very well.