Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz has a request.

He’s seen renewed anticipation in Columbia and around the state about his Tigers team.

While he dropped his daughter off at school, the coach said he was approached by a sixth-grader who told him how excited he was for the upcoming year. On a more tangible, tickets-based front, MU’s games against Oklahoma on Nov. 9 and Auburn for the homecoming matchup on Oct. 19 have already sold out. As of Aug. 14, there were no more reserved season tickets available, the team announced.

“That stuff just wasn't the same, or it hasn't been like that going into (a season),” Drinkwitz said, “so that's been awesome to really stir the passion and excitement of our fanbase.”

But there’s a more pressing matter on the coach's mind: The Tigers’ first game of the season, which is Thursday, Aug. 29 against Murray State on Faurot Field and still has reserved single-game tickets available for purchase.

So, that’s where he laid down the gauntlet.

“Our challenge is, we need to sell out this first game,” Drinkwitz said. “We're a top-11 program in the country coming off a Cotton Bowl win, and in my opinion if we don't sell out the first game then that shows me that we're not where we want to be as a fanbase yet. OK, that’s just the reality of it.”

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There are nine days remaining until the 11th-ranked Tigers take the field to open the 2024 season. Coming off its best season in nearly a decade, and with the expansion of the College Football Playoff field to 12 teams, Missouri finds itself firmly in the playoff conversation.

Missouri athletics currently is offering four tickets — paired with the additional lure of unlimited hot dogs, popcorn and fountain drinks — at a total cost of $99 in an attempt to sell out both the Murray State matchup in Week 1 and the Buffalo game on Saturday, Sept. 7 in Week 2.

Murray State is an FCS side that went 2-9 last season. Buffalo, which plays in the Mid-American Conference, was 3-9 in 2023.

Marquee matchups? Not particularly.

But Drinkwitz’s plea asked fans to view the games from a different lens.

“Don't sit on the sideline and wait, ‘well, it's got to be this game.’ No, no it doesn’t. Come watch this team and be excited about this team and embrace this team,” the coach said. … “Don't get excited about the game in November after the bye week. Like, I don't know what that game's gonna look like.

“I know next week versus Murray State's the most important game we have, and we need to sell it out because we need to show the rest of the country that we're serious about our program.”

Missouri had five straight sellouts to finish the 2023 season, the team’s longest streak since 1980, per a news release.

The Tigers open 2024 with four straight games at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, with Boston College and Vanderbilt coming to town before the team’s first of two idle weeks. Oklahoma, Auburn and Arkansas are the other games on Faurot Field this year.

But before then ...

“Let's establish ourselves. Let's eliminate all the noise about what the past history as a fanbase has been. Let's establish what our identity moving forward is going to be,” Drinkwitz said. “And the establishment of the identity moving forward is it doesn't matter if it's a Thursday night, Monday night or Saturday night. If we're playing on Faurot Field, we're selling it out.”

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This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mizzou football: Why Eli Drinkwitz asks fans to sell out opening game