A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.
Bobby Boucher is a water boy for a struggling college football team. The coach discovers Boucher's hidden rage makes him a tackling machine whose bone-crushing power might vault his team into the playoffs.
After becoming the winningest coach in college football history, Joe Paterno is embroiled in Penn State's Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, challenging his legacy and forcing him to face questions of institutional failure regarding the victims.
A star quarterback ignites a players’ strike hours before the biggest game of the year in order to fight for fair compensation, equality, and respect for the athletes who put their bodies and health on the line for their schools.
Harold Lamb is so excited about going to college that he has been working to earn spending money, practicing college yells, and learning a special way of introducing himself that he saw in a movie. When he arrives at Tate University, he soon becomes the target of practical jokes and ridicule. With the help of his one real friend Peggy, he resolves to make every possible effort to become popular.
From 1981-1984, a small private school in Dallas owned the best record in college football. The Mustangs of Southern Methodist University were riding high on the backs of the vaunted "Pony Express" backfield. But as the middle of the decade approached, the program was coming apart at the seams. Wins became the only thing that mattered as the University increasingly ceded power of the football program to the city's oil barons and real estate tycoons and flagrant and frequent NCAA violations became the norm. In 1987, the school and the sport were rocked, as the NCAA meted out "the death penalty" on a college football program for the first and only time in its history. SMU would be without football for two years, and the fan base would be without an identity for 20 more until the win in the 2009 Hawaii Bowl. This is the story of Dallas in the 1980's and the greed, power, and corruption that spilled from the oil fields onto the football field and all the way to the Governor's Mansion.
When Pete Carroll took over the football program at USC after the 2000 season, the once-great Trojans were under siege. But thanks to his football knowledge, upbeat personality and recruiting skills, Southern Cal was soon back atop the college football world as home attendance skyrocketed, Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush won Heismans and the Trojans put together a 34-game winning streak. As it would be later discovered, though, the program was committing sins that would result in lost scholarships, victories and one of those Heismans. But those revelations didn’t come until after the national championship game in the 2006 Rose Bowl between USC and the University of Texas. Featuring interviews with Carroll, Leinart and others inside the USC program at the time, “Trojan War” looks at Carroll’s nine-year USC reign through the prism of that game, considered one of the greatest in college football history. It was also the beginning of the end.
Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.
Throughout the 1980s, Miami, Florida, was at the center of a racial and cultural shift taking place throughout the country. Overwhelmed by riots and tensions, Miami was a city in flux, and the University of Miami football team served as a microcosm for this evolution. The image of the predominantly white university was forever changed when coach Howard Schnellenberger scoured some of the toughest ghettos in Florida to recruit mostly black players for his team. With a newly branded swagger, inspired and fueled by the quickly growing local Miami hip hop culture, these Hurricanes took on larger-than-life personalities and won four national titles between 1983 and 1991. Filmmaker Billy Corben, a Miami native and University of Miami alum, will tell the story of how these “Bad Boys” of football changed the attitude of the game they played, and how this serene campus was transformed into “The U.”
Scheming coed Babs comes between college buddies Eddie and Biff.
"Youngstown Boys" explores class and power dynamics in college sports through the parallel, interconnected journeys of one-time dynamic running back Maurice Clarett and former elite head coach Jim Tressel. Clarett and Tressel emerged from opposite sides of the tracks in Youngstown, Ohio, and then joined for a magical season at Ohio State University in 2002 that produced the first national football championship for the school in over 30 years. Shortly thereafter, though, Clarett was suspended from college football and began a downward spiral that ended with a prison term. Tressel continued at Ohio State for another eight years before his career there also ended in scandal.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, a generational football talent, embarks on a journey that began from a childhood family prophecy. Follow Tua as he attempts to overcome a career-threatening injury and rise as one of the most uniquely skilled players in the history of the game.
All his life, teenager Daniel Huffman and his grandma have dreamed of Daniel playing college football. After Daniel is cut from his high school team, his grandmother's encouragement and coaching get him a second chance at that dream. He works hard and becomes so good his coach believes he has a shot at making a top-ranked college team. But now Daniel faces a heart-wrenching choice that could force him to forever give up his dream.
Football is a religion to many people. But few know the depths of both faiths as well as Bill McCartney, the former head football coach of the University of Colorado and the founder of Promise Keepers, a Christian men’s ministry. “The Gospel According to Mac” tells the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of Coach Mac’s controversial national championship run – two seasons that followed multiple arrests and strife between his mostly African-American players and the Boulder police, continued with McCartney’s own daughter becoming pregnant by the team’s quarterback before seeing that same quarterback struck by cancer, and culminated in consecutive Orange Bowl match-ups against Notre Dame. Bill McCartney’s passionate and often polarizing beliefs have made him many enemies and many admirers, but it’s difficult to deny that he embodies the essential issues facing football in America to this day.
A radical campus group persuades student Carol Arlington to lead a protest of a college's football team. She manages to recruit Larry Davis, even though he is a star player for State's team.
This Dogville comedy is a spoof of college football movies. A man in debt to a loan shark uses his daughter to stop football hero Red Mange from playing in the big game between Airedale College and Spitz University.
A documentary examines the claims the Tuohy family have made about adopting Oher for over a decade, casting scrutiny on the conservatorship they put in place which has now been terminated by a judge. Oher’s litigation with the Tuohys continues, with the latter filing a sworn document on November 8 that they paid Oher more than $138,000 in profits from the film. Oher is expected to file any counterclaims by the end of November.
A gambling ring run out of the Mogul Taxi company is intent on fixing college football games. Football star Harold "Red" Grange is a target for the gamblers, whose thugs try to eliminate Grange from playing. Grange's buddy Buddy is himself vulnerable to blackmail, since he has broken team rules by marrying. The crooks use all their wiles to keep Grange and Buddy from leading their team to victory.
On October 15, 1988, Notre Dame hosted the University of Miami in what would become one of the greatest games in college football history. It was tradition vs. swagger, the No. 4-ranked Fighting Irish versus the No. 1-ranked Hurricanes, one coaching star, Lou Holtz, versus another, Jimmy Johnson. But the name still attached to the contest came from a t-shirt manufactured by a few Notre Dame students: “Catholics vs. Convicts.” As compelling as the tale of Notre Dame’s dramatic victory is—even losing quarterback Steve Walsh calls it “a helluva ballgame”—the backstory is just as riveting.
Alfalfa imagines himself being the star football player on a college team. After a big pep rally he ends up letting the team down when his poor grades cause him to be suspended from play.