Regardless of what happens on the field, the 2018 football season is already a social media success as the Redhawks met Dallas Cowboys’ running back Ezekiel Elliott after winning a Nike retweet contest.

“We got the email that Twitter competition was going to be starting and immediately I started reaching out to a lot of people,” assistant football coach Kenneth Schiumo said. “The biggest thing that helped us was Ezekiel Elliott retweeted us. Not sure why he chose ours out of all the other cleats that were out there. It was awesome.”

Nike presented each of the 10 Frisco ISD high schools with pictures of their school inspired football cleats with the team getting the most retweets getting to present their cleats to Elliott.  

Attracting 894 retweets in under a week, Redhawks pulled ahead. On Tuesday, varsity and JV players made their way to The Ford Center at The Star to witness a Dallas Cowboys training camp practice.

“The biggest takeaway was probably the intensity that all the guys practiced at and the high level of skill that they are all at,” senior Garrett Rowe said. “So I want to improve myself so that I can be better and win more games.”

Gearing the Twitter competition towards high schoolers, the retweeting contest helped strengthen Nike and the Cowboys’ relationship with FISD, but is still a ways from a well founded partnership.

“It’s always good to have your kids have an opportunity to go watch the Cowboys practice and all that kind of stuff,” head football coach Chris Burtch said. “But if it’s about a relationship or partnership that they’re trying to build with high school kids, then they’re probably needs to be some changes. I think there’s opportunity for him [Ezekiel Elliott] to maybe invest a little bit more time. The whole process took maybe a minute. If they really want to foster a partnership in a relationship, then the best way to do that is with time and time is valuable. I get that. I think we need to be pretty transparent with how much we’re going to invest in those partnerships and those relationships.”

However, being the only high school in the nation with the unique chance, the football players left ecstatic.

“I wasn’t sure if we were going to win the Twitter contest, and then everyone kinda pulled together and we got like over 700 retweets, got Zeke to retweet it, and coming down here was awesome,” senior Mitchell Miller said. “I mean, playing here is one thing, but then seeing the professionals out here and getting to dap up Zeke is cool too.”

This story was updated on Aug. 23 with the addition of an online article different from the broadcast script originally posted.