Akron announced that one season ticket holder will get to design the opening drive of the home opener against Robert Morris. It is a fun promotion, and it took over coaching Twitter for a day. It is also a legitimate football question, because scripting an opening drive is a real skill and most coaches never see anyone else’s process.
So Matt built one. A full 10 play script for the Zips, complete with the research: Robert Morris in a 4-2-5, concepts already inside Akron’s offense, a running back who can catch it out of the backfield. He moves through trips, two by two, eleven personnel wing sets, split gun, trio wing, and heavy unbalanced, because the point of an opener is not just to move the ball. It is to make the defense show you what it has.
The script opens safe with zone stick, works power read off motion, gets to Y cross and wing counter with a glance RPO, then takes a shot with mesh rail out of condensed splits. Play seven is the one Matt was building toward all along: pin and pull into the boundary with the glance route replacing the force safety. Plays eight through ten assume you are inside the twenty and get progressively heavier, ending on a rub concept against man with the back as the check down.
Kyle counters with a defensive coordinator’s opening script, which is one play, and involves running out of the stadium.
Whether or not you ever get handed a drive at a Group of Five stadium, the underlying lesson stands. Change your formations. Change your personnel. Get every look you need inside those first ten snaps.
