Capacity in the Caesars Superdome for New Orleans Saints games lists at roughly 70,000 but for Sunday's regular-season opener against Arizona, it easily will accommodate about 6,500 Moore.

The latter is the number of residents in Prosser, Wash., in 2024, the most recent tally. And every one of them will be carried into the game neatly packaged inside native son Kellen Moore, the Saints' first-year head coach.

"The townspeople, we're all kind of living vicariously through Kellen," said Mark Little, who coached running backs under Moore's father, Tom Moore, at Prosser High during Tom Moore's storied tenure (1986-2008), including Kellen's prep career (a four-year run that concluded in 2007).

"Everybody is super excited for him."

It's a logical pride: The small-town kid who grew up wanting to be a Prosser Mustang and setting a slew of records that still stand after stepping into the huddle at quarterback, is one of just 32 NFL head coaches and at age 37, is the youngest in the league.

But taking the man out of Prosser didn't pry Prosser out of the man. The roots are evident, deepened by the experience of having played for his father, a legendary coach who led Prosser High to 21 league titles and four state championships.

"Everything in my life revolved around trying to be a Prosser Mustang," Kellen Moore said. "That was my goal, that was my aspiration.

"(He and his brother, Kirby) went from water boy to tee boy to ball boy – you worked your way up. That was my childhood; it was being around those guys. After school, you'd get done with school and you'd go from elementary school to the high school and I'd go watch practice and be around them.

"That was how I kind of grew up; I grew up around the game, I grew up around football, just hanging with the players and hanging with the coaches. It was a lot of fun."

BOY GENIUS

What you've heard is true, that Kellen Moore drew up football plays while he was in elementary school. True, too, is something you may not have known, that he was counting by sevens probably even earlier.

"I remember telling his dad this, and I got such a kick out of it," Little said, laughing. "(Kellen) was, like, in kindergarten, just a little guy. And he could count by sevens. I thought, 'Look how smart he is,' and Tom goes, 'He's counting touchdowns.'"

Also true is that in high school, he threw 66 and 67 touchdowns, respectively, as a junior and senior while calling his own plays, setting career state records for completions (787) and touchdown passes (173) while being named Gatorade Player of the Year for Washington in 2006.

"As the defensive coordinator, I loved it," Doug Fassler said. "We were racking up points like crazy and beating teams by 50, 60 points.

"At a young age, he was always in our coaches meetings – he was in elementary school. And then we had film after games and he'd be there watching. The legend of him having his own playbook as an elementary school kid is true. He would draw up plays and that kind of thing, even as a little boy.

"He was on the sidelines Friday nights, so he was around coaching during that time as he was growing up. You could tell he had an affinity for it and he enjoyed that part of the game, especially the offensive side of the ball."

Kellen Moore said it was a natural progression for him.

"We were around football a lot and so as little kids, we were probably the knucklehead kids with all the blocking dummies and all that on the sideline, making too much noise and playing flag football all the time," he said. "As we grew older, you start getting into more and more of the football, the real football part of it."

The on-field passion was Friday Night Lights-ish, and Moore and his teammates delivered more often than not.

"It's still the foundation of how I see football," Kellen said. "I spent a lot of time around (my dad). Certainly, there's other experiences like at Boise with (Coach) Chris Peterson and different stops in the NFL, but that's your foundation."

APPOINTMENT TV

Kellen Moore often has mentioned the influence Peterson and his Boise State staff had on Moore in college.

"It was an incredible group," Moore said. "It was a group that competed at the highest level at Boise State, had a ton of success, but they did it the right way. They were awesome people."

And by every statistical metric, the team was led by an awesome quarterback.

Moore completed 1,157 of 1,658 passes for 14,667 yards and 142 touchdowns, with 28 interceptions, while leading the Broncos to a 50-3 record, with the three losses by a combined five points. He's the all-time leader in quarterback wins in college and finished seventh, fourth and eighth in Heisman Trophy voting in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

"There's an old theater in Prosser, and they used to screen the Boise State games," Little said. Everybody would go down to the theater and watch Kellen.

"I remember we went (to a game) his redshirt freshman year, when they played Oregon. I remember thinking, 'I just don't want him to get killed. Not to sound negative, but I was hoping he just didn't embarrass himself and get crushed."

Moore, in his third collegiate start, completed 25 of 37 passes for 386 yards and three touchdowns, with one interception, in a 37-32 victory.

"It looked like one of our high school games," Little said. "He was super in control and making great fakes and everything was right on target. He got lit up that game, and just hopped up."

SAINT KELLEN

The task now for Moore, the 19^th head coach (interim and full-time) in Saints history, is to help the franchise get back up.

New Orleans enters this season on a four-year playoff drought, and the NFL's youngest coach is tasked with leading the return to competitiveness a franchise that won a Super Bowl (XLIV in the 2009 season) and four consecutive NFC South Division titles (2017-20), while he was working his way up the NFL ranks: quarterback for the Lions (2012-14) and Cowboys (2015-17); quarterbacks coach ('18) and offensive coordinator (2019-22) of the Cowboys; offensive coordinator of the Chargers ('23); and offensive coordinator of the Super Bowl-winning Eagles ('24).

"I probably always wanted to coach," Moore said. "At a young age you don't exactly have that path written out yet.

"I thought I would coach college football, but there's always twists and turns in life, and Scott Linehan (Cowboys passing game coordinator in '14, and offensive coordinator from '15-'18) and Jason Garrett (Cowboys head coach from '12-'19) and those guys in Dallas had a huge impact on me, as far as going on from playing to coaching there.

"At that point, I wanted to coach at some point. Where, capacity and all that, I didn't have the answers to all that."

Moore broke his ankle in 2016 with the Cowboys and instead of disappearing to injured reserve, Linehan and Garrett allowed him to stay in the quarterback room and help.

"And I think it gave me a lens from the other side of football, the coaching side of it, the tactical side," he said. "And it gave them a chance to kind of see me from that lens as well. They gave me a few little responsibilities – whether they actually looked at any of it or not, I don't know – but it was a really good opportunity for me."

Sunday, Moore will lead the Saints onto the field and carry Prosser, Wash. – a Seahawks town that decidedly has become Black and Gold-colored – along with him in his latest opportunity.

"He never became too big for his britches," Fassler said. "I just saw him in July at his dad's birthday party, he's the same ole guy. Big smile and personable.

"He never got too big for his hometown and has always carried himself with a lot of humility."