Under the Friday Night Lights

Prep flick's formula borrows elements from Hoosiers to Fast Times

By John Walters

Billy Bob Thornton turns in a solid performance as Perriman High coach Gary Gaines in Friday Night Lights. Universal Studios

Another year, another Emmys shutout for Gilmore Girls ...

So I found myself in a movie theater in Eugene, Ore., last Thursday night with the entire University of Oregon football team. The Ducks were attending a super-secret-double-probation screening of Friday Night Lights, because that's what college football teams do. They watch football movies -- not just game films.

If you were a college football player in the early 1990s, you couldn't graduate unless you had seen The Program. Then in the late '90s, you had to sit through The Replacements or Varsity Blues, and earlier this decade I'm sure you had to watch Remember the Titans. I wouldn't be surprised if Tennessee coach Robert Neyland took the Vols to see Horse Feathers when it premiered in 1932.

Anyway, if I had to break down the film adaptation of Buzz Bissinger's outstanding book -- and I do have to, if I want to get to the next paragraph -- it would go like this:

28 percent Hoosiers
23 percent Sling Blade
19 percent The Last Picture Show
14 percent All The Right Moves
11 percent The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training
9 percent Dazed and Confused
5 percent Fandango
1 percent Fast Times at Ridgemont High

And, yes, that's 110 percent, but isn't that what football coaches always ask you to give?

Let me tell you why this movie, which does not premiere until early October, has that recipe:

Hoosiers ... Well, there's the (relatively) new-coach-in-town storyline. There's also the little school from the small town versus the bigger, badder (and, yes, blacker) team from the big city meeting in the state championship game plot. There's even the alcoholic glory-days dad aspect, although played to less comic effect than Dennis Hopper's rendition. Thankfully, there's no Gene Hackman-kissing-Barbara Hershey as if he's a 4th grader playing the trumpet scene.

Sling Blade ... The film's two stars, Billy Bob Thornton (as coach Gary Gaines) and Lucas Black (as quarterback Mike Winchell), are Sling Blade alums. In that movie, Thornton went from a nobody to a guy who could even land a date with Angelina Jolie, while Black proved that not all great Southern child characters are named Scout. Here Thornton is solid, while Black is outstanding. He's so much more believable as a Texas quarterback than James Van der Beek ever was (or Chris Simms, for that matter). He's not only a major star, he's a Major Applewhite. Also, there's a scene in which Winchell and his buddies are eating "french frod p'taters, mmm-hmm." By the way, the soundtrack of FNL sounds a lot like that of Sling Blade. Dark and heavy on guitar. Solid.

The Last Picture Show ... It's got that coming-of-age in a nothing-ever-happens-in-this-dusty-l'il-Lone-Star-town theme running through it.

All the Right Moves ... Although this film may now be remembered as the place where Craig T. Nelson got his start in on-screen football coaching (has anyone ever moved up the ranks in coaching the way Nelson did as a thespian?), it also had a fairly realistic sense of how a high school football team can mirror a town's self-esteem. And the action scenes were fairly realistic. For the most part, FNL shines in those two areas as well.

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training ... I include this one because it also stages the climactic contest in the Houston Astrodome. FNL eschews the "Let them play!" scene, thankfully.

Dazed and Confused ... More Texas high school flavor, plus both films have a scene where the football gods are hanging out on a Friday night and an unintentionally hilarious has-been waxes poetic on life to them. Matthew McConaughey nailed this tiny role in Dazed as does the actor here.

Fandango ... This is my all-time favorite coming-of-age flick, and, like FNL, it takes place in Texas and is bittersweet.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High ... In its only football scenes, this film seemed to think that high school football players wear anti-gravity boots. Too many air-borne tackles. Director Peter Berg (yeah, the guy from Cop Land and The Last Seduction) falls a little too in love with that gimmick as well, although most of the football footage is right on.

So armed with that info, and not wanting me to spoil any of the important plot elements, what else would you like me to tell you? Let me give it a shot.

• A month from now every high school or college football player will have memorized and used the following two phrases: "If you wanna win, put Boobie in" and "Get it done."

As to the former, it refers to the film's most charismatic character, star tailback Boobie Miles. Boobie is infectiously cocky, as played by Derek Luke (who played the title role in Antwone Fisher). I'd love to see Luke win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this role (he is excellent), which would be the second Oscar to go to someone playing a football player in the last seven years (Cuba Gooding in Jerry Maguire). Then I'd love to see Luke invite Mariska Hargitay from Law & Order: SVU up on stage with him, because that seems to be the cool thing to do these days.

As to the latter, it's the non-stop refrain from people in Odessa, Texas, toward their beloved Permian High School coaches and players. I already heard people around the Oregon Ducks using it before their game last Saturday in Norman, Okla. It's 2004's "Just Do It", which, by the way, I learned this weekend, is on a sign in Nike CEO Phil Knight's skybox bathroom at Autzen Stadium in Eugene.

• What else? I was really, really happy to see that the actor who plays "Fat Kid" in just about every teen movie of late (Remember the Titans, Varsity Blues, and yeah, he's even in Drumline), is nowhere to be seen in FNL. That's just one of the many fantastic things about this movie (that and the fact that nobody abuses a '60s R&B tune in a locker room bonding-moment scene). Like Bissinger's book, the movie is an unflinching and realistic view of high school football. And Berg gets a lot of the little things right about prep football, such as showing monkey drills and hamburger drills in practice.

I never saw North Dallas Forty (hey, everyone has a blip or two in their viewing catalogue), but I'll put FNL down as the best movie in which football played a pivotal part since The Longest Yard.

More Boobie

A modern-day version of Boobie Miles may well be Oklahoma's true freshman tailback Adrian Peterson. Like Boobie, Peterson is a Lone Star native with a wealth of talent. Watching the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Peterson shred Oregon's defense in the second half Saturday (he ran for 183 yards and two TDs), I couldn't help but think of former Sooner Marcus Dupree, who for one season was as punishing a back as you'll ever see. ABC's Tim Brandt actually said that Peterson is already better than Dupree. People have short memories. But Peterson, who became the first OU back to gain at least 100 yards in each of his first three games, is Heisman material if he remains in college for even three years.

Instant replay

I can't believe I'm agreeing with ESPN's Trev Alberts, but I too am against instant replay review of calls in college football. Trev and I are vastly outnumbered, by the way, if you listen to the ABC and ESPN announcers. My stand on this stems from a general belief of being opposed to anything that makes college football more like the NFL. For example, I am against the commercial-kickoff-commercial tango that the NFL has been foisting upon us for a decade or so. It totally kills the momentum of the game. College football has not yet taken its avarice to that degree.

But, you say, don't you want to eliminate the chance for a bad call to blow the game? Sure, but I also want it to be sunny and 75 every day, and I'd like the man sitting next to me on the subway not to be giving himself cavity searches. But you can only ask for so much.

Bottom line: Even with instant replay, you are not going to eliminate bad refereeing. Just look at last Saturday:

• In Norman, where I was stationed, Oregon quarterback Kellen Clemens tossed a screen pass that landed on the OU sideline. While Clemens was under heavy duress from the Sooner rush and had not rolled out beyond the tackles, he did have a Duck receiver in the path of the ball. Clemens just threw a bad pass, about 10 yards over the receiver's head. The referees correctly did not throw a flag. But then Bob Stoops, well, there's no other way to say it, went apes--- on the OU sideline. At least 10 seconds after the play was over, a referee tossed a flag. Intentional grounding, Oregon. You cannot review that call, and it was an awful call. Brandt correctly told viewers, "Bob Stoops made that call."

• How about the personal foul against LSU on Auburn's missed extra point? A horrible call, but don't believe that instant replay would have been able to reverse it.

• Of course, I saved the best for last. The Florida-Tennessee game. The personal foul against Florida in the final minute. Instant replay would not have reversed that call which, by the way, is now my official "Worst Call I've Ever Seen" in college football. I know I'm piling on here, but here's why:

Florida leads 28-27 and has the football with just over a minute left in Knoxville. It's third down. You know the Gators are going to run, and they do. A Tennessee cornerback gets all up in the grill of UF wideout Dallas Baker, who retaliates. Baker's retaliation is no worse than what the Vol corner did to him, but before you say, "The second foul is always the one that gets called," remember why you say that. Because the referee did not see the first one.

That's not the case here. CBS' cameras show the ref looking directly at both players before the first slap to the facemask (from the Vol defender). So, if the ref does not flag that, then he should not flag Baker. But only Baker drew a flag for a 15-yard personal foul.

It's bad enough for the Gators that the refs not only declined to call off-setting penalties, they made matters worse by failing to restart the clock until the ball was snapped on the next play. With the errors, the Gators punted on their own 23 with 0:55 on the clock, rather than on their 38 with about 30 seconds remaining.

So, yeah, that flag was pretty huge. And me, I just want to hear the ref justify why Baker's response was worthy of a 15-yard penalty while the Vol corner's initial hit wasn't. Especially since he was staring straight at both players the entire play from a distance of no more than eight yards.

The 'rooski's Top Five*

Ground rules: I throw out the preseason ranking. Doesn't matter. Also, there's a "wuss coefficient" for BCS schools who schedule weak non-BCS sisters (Are you listening, Virginia? Playing Akron?) unless they are in-state programs striving for the monumental upset (Utah vs. Utah State).

1. Southern Cal ... more talent than HBO
2. Miami ... the 'Canes relish the big game
3. Oklahoma ... waiting for Oct. 11 showdown with Texas
4. Florida ... yes, they lost, but Chris Leak is the man
5. Purdue ... Boilermakers test the wuss coefficient, but they have outscored two opponents 110-7

*(not to be confused with a Power Ranking)

Just wondering ...

Had you even heard of Elaine Stritch 24 hours ago? ... Does the cast of 7th Heaven even get invited to the Emmys? ... Now that Frasier and Friends are gone, maybe Scrubs will finally get some attention (if I were hip I'd have said "some love", but I'm not). John C. McGinley as Dr. Cox had a quality rant in the season premiere about things he could not possibly care less about, such as "white guys who end words in --izzle." ... Rush Limbaugh and Daryn Kagan?!? Really? Perhaps he takes the "com-" out of "compassionate conservative." ... Bill Maher made an interesting point on Larry King Live last week. King asked him about former President Clinton's heart bypass surgery, and Maher hammered home the point that the most dangerous thing we face as Americans "isn't cigarettes, it isn't SARS, it isn't a monkey virus, it's food; we are poisoning ourselves as a nation." He's right, of course. And so I'd like to take this moment to thank many of the airlines for helping you and me combat that virulent, venial predator, food, by no longer serving meals on flights. Thank you! Thank you for saving our lives!

Until I get a snazzy sign-off ...