What if buying a season ticket didn’t just get you a seat in the stands — but a seat in the meeting room where the game plan gets built?

That’s the idea behind Akron’s latest promotion, where one randomly selected season-ticket holder will get to “help” head coach Joe Moorhead put together the Zips’ opening drive against Robert Morris on Sept. 12.

This isn’t just a behind-the-scenes tour or a fun fan experience. It’s tied directly to how the team prepares to play. Every season-ticket holder is automatically entered, with extra entries for each ticket and referral. The winner gets drawn on Aug. 19 and then brought into the process to help shape Akron’s first offensive series of the season.

In other words, it’s not just fan engagement. It’s a ticket sales pitch wrapped around actual game planning.

The Opening Script Isn’t A Souvenir

Opening scripts are basically coaches trying to make the first few minutes of a game feel like the one part of football they actually have under control.

It’s not random at all. Those plays are picked because they fit certain matchups, certain personnel, and whatever the staff thinks they’re going to see from the defense. They get repped all week so the quarterback, receivers, backs, and line can come out and play fast instead of thinking.

The idea's simple: show up with answers already in your pocket. Sometimes it’s about testing a look you plan to come back to later, sometimes it’s about getting your best player involved early so he doesn’t spend the first quarter just standing around. And yeah, it’s called a “script,” but it’s not like coaches are reading it line by line no matter what happens. One busted first-down run, and the whole thing can go out the window anyway.

And honestly, Moorhead understands all of that at a pretty high level. This is a guy who was twice named national offensive coordinator of the year at Penn State, and in 2016 his offense set school records for total yards and passing. His whole thing has basically been building game plans that already anticipate what the defense is going to do before the defense even knows they're doing it. Which is why it’s a little funny — and a little weird — that a slice of that process is now being handed out like a raffle prize.

Now, to be fair, the actual football danger here is probably close to zero. Moorhead can easily hand the winner a limited menu of concepts, explain what each one is supposed to attack, and quietly shut down anything that sounds like it came from a Madden franchise mode. But that’s kind of the issue. If the fan actually has real influence, then you’re letting a promotion bleed into game prep. If Moorhead is still making all the real decisions, then “Offensive Coordinator of the Game” is basically just a fun title and a photo op with extra steps.

Either way, the opening drive stops being purely football and starts being something the ticket office can package and sell.

Akron Got The Attention They Were Looking For

It’s not hard to see why Akron needed to boost some sales this season.

The Zips averaged about 7,700 fans a game last season in a stadium that holds 30,000. That’s better than the year before, but it still means most of the seats are empty on Saturdays. Season tickets start at just $75, which is pretty reasonable, but Moorhead is 13–35 in four years, the program hasn’t been to a bowl since 2017, and MAC coaches had them ranked 10th out of 13 teams heading into 2026. In other words, a normal “buy season tickets!” post wasn’t exactly going to move the needle.

This one actually did. By midweek, Akron’s announcement had racked up something like 12 million views. For a program that’s usually fighting for attention in August, that’s a win before a single ticket is even sold. Suddenly Robert Morris on ESPN+ is a game people outside of Akron might actually click on, even if it’s just to see what the opening drive looks like.

And honestly, the jokes kind of write themselves because of Akron’s recent history.

Last year’s home opener against Wyoming started with three straight incompletions and a punt. The year before that against Colgate, the first drive was three plays that all went for negative yardage. They haven’t scored a touchdown on the opening drive of a home opener since 2021.

Access Has To Stop Somewhere

College programs should absolutely be finding better ways to make fans feel involved, especially the ones still paying for tickets in 2026. Bring a season-ticket holder into a meeting. Let them sit in on a practice. Put them in the coaches’ booth before kickoff. Let them hear Moorhead break down the opening script after it’s already been installed.

There are a lot of ways to open the doors a little wider without turning the actual football into a gimmick. Fans don’t need the keys to the offense — they just want to feel closer to it than a seat and a parking spot. The line has to stay on the football side of things.

And that’s really where this gets tricky, because Akron’s players aren’t props in a marketing idea. Reese Poffenbarger is trying to lock down the quarterback job. Jordan Gant just put together the program’s first 1,000-yard rushing season since 2008. These guys have real stakes attached to every drive.

Moorhead's going to protect them from anything that doesn’t make sense, sure, but ideally you never even get close to needing that disclaimer in the first place. The preparation for a game shouldn’t feel like something you can win in a raffle.

And look, this probably doesn’t swing the game one way or the other. If it somehow turns into a touchdown, the school will lean into the feel-good story. If it goes sideways, the internet will do what it always does. But the outcome was never really the point here anyway.

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