BIDDEFORD — If in a few years you take out your phone to play Fantasy Coaching against your friends while watching an NFL game unfold, thank a group of students at the University of New England.

Sunday afternoon, Jimmy Rooney arrived at the Biddeford campus to have a group of students play a pen-and-paper version of the game he hopes catches the interest of football fans across the country once it is developed into an app.

Twenty students met Sunday at UNE’s Harold Alfond Forum. First, Rooney explained how the game is played. Players watch football and predict what is going to happen. Will the next play be a run or pass? Will there be a touchdown or loss of yards? Will the defense get a sack or force a turnover? You make your predictions, and you accumulate points depending on how many things you guess correctly.

You think you know football? With Rooney’s game, you can see how close your play calling is to the coaches who have to do it under the spotlight of thousands of fans second-guessing every move. If you predict a run and the team throws a deep pass down the sideline, you can second-guess, too.

The game between the Las Vegas Raiders and New England Patriots played out, and the students played the game. How many of us have wished the Patriots’ offensive coordinator would call a run in a certain situation, or stop calling short passes that don’t move the sticks? Now, the people playing the game could guess what they think the Patriots should do in certain situations.

Everyone who has watched football has moaned when a play doesn’t work, and told their friends if they were calling the shots the X’s and O’s in their head would certainly lead to nothing but success.

“Fans complain all the time,” said Aidan Buggee, a UNE senior who took part in Sunday’s test. “This puts you in the position of a coach.”

Rooney said he’ll use the students’ input to tweak the game and make improvements throughout the season. The app hasn’t been developed yet, but the students played on paper. Eventually, there will be an app that will need beta testing. UNE students could also take part in that.

“I told Jimmy this could be a huge opportunity for more connectivity,” said Nick Corneau, a junior who took part.

Rooney said developing the app will probably be a two-season process. He sees the game as something you can play with 8-12 friends, or even link up with people across the country. You’re in your living room, you can play. You’re at a sports bar, you can play. Either way, try not to get wing sauce all over your phone screen.

It’s hard to think of somebody more apt to create a football game app than Rooney. His great-grandfather, Art Rooney, founded the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the most celebrated franchises in the NFL. His grandfather, Dan Rooney, ran the team, and left his stamp on the NFL in numerous ways, including the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for coaching and front office positions. It’s not hyperbole to say football is Jimmy Rooney’s life.

“I grew up around it,” said Rooney, who gave every student who took part in Sunday’s test a Steelers T-shirt. The gesture was a thank you, not an attempt to change team allegiances forged in youth. Can’t everyone use another T-shirt?

Aimee Vlachos, a professor in UNE’s College of Business, met Jim Rooney, Jimmy’s father, five years ago, and a working relationship bloomed between UNE and the NFL. Vlachos has brought students to the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft, and a group of students will join her in Dublin, Ireland, later this month when the Steelers take on the Minnesota Vikings in one of the league’s seven international games this season.

So when Jimmy needed students to play his game, he knew right where to go.

“I’m just all about real world experience,” Vlachos said. “Anything I can do to help (students) gain real world experience.”

Buggee noticed that he and others improved at guessing what would happen as they played the game. The second round, he did better than the first. The game sparked conversation and debate among the students playing, Corneau said, even in the rudimentary pen-and-paper version they used. Even after Rooney left, off to analyze what he learned from the students Sunday afternoon, the game stayed in the students’ minds.

Corneau said he and his friends played it while watching the Sunday night game between the Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills.

“We were having more fun,” he said.