Please explain "Friday Night Lights" to me, specifically, the college football part.

August 3, 2009 5:04 PM

Please explain "Friday Night Lights" to me, specifically, the college football part.

I'm watching "Friday Night Lights", and although I love the show, I'm realising I don't understand much about American football.*

Specifically, the guys in the show are good enough to win the state high-school championship. But the main tension and drama on the show is about whether they will get to go to college.

This may well be a dumb question, but why do they have to go to college? Why can't they just sign up with a team, leave school and start playing football professionally?

The only vaguely similar sport I know about is soccer. Kids can sign with big-league teams at any time, so if they're good players and not particularly academic, they just leave school and start playing.

Obviously, bulk and physical strength play more of a part in American football, and the average seventeen-year-old probably isn't up to playing against people in their twenties. But if you were signed up by a team at seventeen, they could develop you in any way they wanted, without the distraction of having to study at the same time.

The show may be harping on the point about going to college because of the kids' blue-collar/disadvantaged backgrounds, but please explain to me how the system works. It seems like the pro teams use the college teams as a free training program.

* people who've avoided the show because they don't like, or don't understand, American football, should think again.

posted by AmbroseChapel to sports, hobbies, & recreation (32 comments total)

Negative, you have to go through College Football here in the states till at least your third year to be drafted and play in the pro's. Just the way the rules are written. So you're right the pro teams do use college teams as a free training program.
posted by Sgt.Grumbless at 5:07 PM on August 3

Meet the NCAA, the semi-benevolent dictatorship that really rules American big-league sport.

The other point, though less relevant in narrative terms than the desire for that scholarship, is that college football is at least as widely-supported as the NFL. Become a college legend, even if you don't make it as a pro, and as long as you stay near your alma mater, you aren't going to go hungry.
posted by holgate at 5:17 PM on August 3 [2 favorites]

Grumbless got it; you can't play in the NFL straight from high school. the rule is actually different for each of the four "major" sports in the USA, but relevant to this question is the NFL rule.

To more broadly answer your question, the concerns for the players on FNL are getting into the college they want - Smash thinks he's good enough to play for someone like USC, but while he may be the most talented back in Texas, there are plenty of other hotbeds of football recruiting that major programs draw from. Besides, as you may have gathered by now, kids from Dillon -besides Saracen, Landry and Julie - aren't exactly the brightest students in the world.
posted by sjuhawk31 at 5:20 PM on August 3

The NFL has a rule which says you have to be three years out of high school to be eligible for the draft. This rule was unsuccessfully challenged in court a few years ago.

And yes, a lot of people agree with you that professional sports teams simply use colleges as their training grounds, more or less for free. Many folks also think that college players are exploited by their schools - the schools benefit financially, but the players aren't allowed to get paid or receive any remuneration.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 5:20 PM on August 3

And it isn't so much as the rules but the collective bargaining agreement between the National Football League and the player's union, the NFL Players Association.

Not only is it free training but also free public relations as the players in college start to build a following and a name for themselves which then transfers into the pros.

The model that you lay out is closer to what happens in American Baseball. Each professional team has several different levels of competitive "minor league" teams that they use to evaluate and train talent. Kids are routinely signed out of high school to go play in the minors (although it is also common for them to play in college and then the minors). American Football doesn't have any sort of extensive professional "minor" league system (NFL Europe, Arena Football and Canadian Football not withstanding).
posted by mmascolino at 5:20 PM on August 3

The NFL has, in the past, had a reputation for chewing up players and spitting them out, leaving them without a career or any real future prospects at an age between 25 and 30. So for publicity reasons the NFL requires that its players attend college, in principle so that they're gotten an education and are prepared for some sort of reasonable life after football.

In actual practice it still works that way because a lot of colleges have had rules allowing football players to slide. The NCAA (National College Athletics Association) has, in turn, been clamping down on that kind of thing, even to the point of suspending certain college teams because their students weren't really studying.

But anyway, the main reason for the rule you're talking about regarding elegibility is publicity.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:21 PM on August 3

Many folks also think that college players are exploited by their schools - the schools benefit financially, but the players aren't allowed to get paid or receive any remuneration.

Well, they do get scholarships.
posted by axiom at 5:23 PM on August 3 [3 favorites]

You also have to consider that unlike soccer or baseball, there are no developmental leagues and/or programmes in which young players tied to professional clubs can hone their skills.

When you are drafted by an NFL club it's more or less assumed that you have enough training to at least make the practice roster (no mean feat). It is felt (probably rightly, really) that college is a necessary step in the training process.
posted by hiteleven at 5:23 PM on August 3

Another thing to keep in mind that as far as Texas is concerned, they are five state championship teams per year based on different criteria (usually the size of the school). I don't know if the show has ever revealed which level the Panthers play for but it is possible that a lot of the player's might be average to middling talents at the big time college football level (except for Smash for whom the show has established is recognized as a big time prospect).
posted by mmascolino at 5:27 PM on August 3

"... But if you were signed up by a team at seventeen, they could develop you in any way they wanted, without the distraction of having to study at the same time. ..."

It is nearly impossible to develop a football player, without putting him in team situations, and having him amass playing time. It is, after all, a team sport. College programs provide valuable skills training, and a graduated environment for the physical, mental and emotional growth of student athletes, as they pass from their late teens, to their early 20s (or, at least, that's the NCAA take on the value of college football to student athletes). NCAA Division 1 colleges, in return, earn about 70% of their total revenues from football, which they then use to fund scholarships and facilities in other, less remunerative sports programs.

It is not unusual for a student athlete to get significant life experience, and social and emotional coaching, while in college programs, too. Besides growing physically, perhaps as much as 20% from high school weight and strength, a student on NCAA Division 1 scholarship is going to be getting media exposure experience, some practical protection from fans and gambling influences, and some "life coaching" with respect to handling the worldly temptations NFL money and fame will surely escalate, that he'd get no other way.

All that is still barely enough, to keep the majority of NCAA student athletes sane and on a productive track for the duration of their brief NFL careers. The NFL itself now does formal financial counseling, media coaching, and advice sessions for incoming players, which is, apparently, still not enough to keep bad things from happening to young pro players, nearly every season. But without the seasoning and exposure they'd gotten in NCAA Division 1 settings, most new NFL players wouldn't make it through their first training camp, period.
posted by paulsc at 5:29 PM on August 3

Everyone else is right so far...

You bring up this
But if you were signed up by a team at seventeen, they could develop you in any way they wanted, without the distraction of having to study at the same time.

and answer yourself:

It seems like the pro teams use the college teams as a free training program.

In MLB, you have the farm system. Basketball has the NBADL. NFL has college football. It is free training for college teams, and a way to scout a player before signing his to millions of dollars. Instead of having to go through the trouble of creating a second league or a player filling up slots, the NCAA does it for free (to the NFL, that is).
posted by jmd82 at 5:29 PM on August 3

Even if people skipped college the way some athletes skip in basketball straight to the NBA, football is a contact sport. It's not only free training, but also offloads the risk of injury to the players. Substantial injuries can end careers, and contact sports involve lots of injury.

There's also experience to consider. High school rules are different than college, which is different again than NFL. Some are simple play clock rules, but others are about player safety. Dropping a high school player into the field is a recipe for injury and death. Graduating straight to NFL denies players experience on the field. You'd have to give them a feeder league anyways.

Finally, there's a pyramid effect. Lots of high school teams, fewer college programs, and even fewer NFL teams. A football scholarship isn't automatically ticket to the NFL. Many players recognize this and use the scholarship as a way to pay for a college degree.
posted by pwnguin at 5:29 PM on August 3

Even if a kid is really good at high school football, that doesn't mean that they will even cut it in college ball. While the team on FNL is a great team, a lot of the teams you play against in high school are super easy to beat until you get up to playoff-levels. Teams from schools where the football program isn't as good. Some high school stars make it to a good college team but don't end up playing much if at all, their football career essentially over. It's probably better for everyone to find that out before the kid skips college and the NFL team plunks down a ton of money.
posted by ishotjr at 5:32 PM on August 3

A football scholarship isn't automatically ticket to the NFL. Many players recognize this and use the scholarship as a way to pay for a college degree.

Totally this.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:41 PM on August 3 [1 favorite]

Yes, the OP is dramatically overestimating the likelihood that any given high school player (even one who played for a team that won the state championship) will even make it into the NFL, much less succeed.

AmbroseChapel: Even most extremely talented high school football players never make it anywhere near professional football. There are huge numbers of reasons for this but I'll list one that may not have crossed your mind. Guys playing in the NFL are huge. Huge and still fast and agile. A player on a state championship winning football team may well have a ton of innate talent and be very quick but still lack the sheer size to make him viable in the NFL.

I knew a guy like this in college. He was truly gifted at athletics but he was a little guy. He would smash up anyone in a pickup football or basketball game but he had no chance of making it professionally because of his size.
posted by Justinian at 5:57 PM on August 3

Also Dillion Texas is supposed to be a pretty small town (although apparently not too small for 2 high schools - but I guess we'll see how that works out next season) - 1 Applebees, a burger joint, 2 bars, a grocery store and a strip club. I got a little confused when JD appeared and had a McMansion. Previously I thought that Buddy G. was the only person in town doing well financially.

Therefore, the point about State Champs -- that might be the "small town" state champs, right?

Smash and Jason Street (and now JD?) were the only ones that were really looking toward a professional sports career. The rest of them were trying to get a free ride to college.
posted by k8t at 5:58 PM on August 3

There are currently 32 clubs in the NFL, pretty much saturating the market at the major league level. Where in hell would you put 2 or 3 farm clubs for each of those?

A farm team system for football would be extremely difficult. A basketball team is 13 players. A baseball team is 25. A football team is 53, and that means that a farm league would have to make enough in gate receipts to support several thousand players, and pay maybe a dozen coaches per team, not to mention pay 8 or more refs per game.

It wouldn't really be possible.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:00 PM on August 3 [1 favorite]

Yes, the OP is dramatically overestimating the likelihood that any given high school player (even one who played for a team that won the state championship) will even make it into the NFL, much less succeed.

Not really. The OP is just coming at this from the perspective of a professional soccer fan. In that sport, talent is signed up at a very young age, as each club vies to secure the top-flight talent of the next generation. Such new hires try to prove themselves in developmental leagues. The good are kept, the bad are sold off to lesser clubs or discarded.

So if the Dylan Panthers were a soccer team, many of the players would be signed to professional clubs, even if few had a chance of playing in top-flight leagues. Baseball works almost exactly the same way.
posted by hiteleven at 6:09 PM on August 3

Good point. I suppose I've simply internalized the works of the NFL to a point it makes it hard to see it in a different way.

I do think it's probably easier to weed out quite a few people who have absolutely no chance of being a pro football player at an earlier age than it is for soccer or baseball, though. The size thing I mentioned earlier, for example.
posted by Justinian at 6:22 PM on August 3

One other consideration is that playing college football is way better than the development leagues or farm teams in other sports. At the larger schools, it is probably the equal of the NFL: the stadiums are just as big, the games are on national TV, and the players are worshipped. Not a bad gig.
posted by smackfu at 6:49 PM on August 3

If the real-life 1988 Permian Panthers are any guide, "middle linebacker Ivory Christian... would become the only Panther to get a Division I scholarship, obtaining a free ride to Texas Christian University." This despite being in Texas's largest high school size division (5A), and being called "the unofficial national champion" for 1989.
posted by ormondsacker at 7:30 PM on August 3

Thank you all for your posts, it's been very interesting and informative.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 7:41 PM on August 3

I just want to drop in a line that I think a lot of this, historically, has to do with the way the professional game developed --- football was a lot like rugby (so much like it that it is in part a rip off of rugby) but also in the sense that it was invented at posh schools and mostly played there for a long time during the early part of its development. Indeed, from the late 19th century until the 1950s or so, football was seen as a collegiate sport, with the biggest games being the season-ending exhibition games between various regional teams (the bowls) for a trophy. There had been professional teams for quite some time, but the pro game was distinctly a backwater to the college game. That only changed when TV came along and started showing pro games on Sundays, which popularized the NFL. So for decades before pro football really got going, you had this system where the highest competition you could face and recognition you could receive was in the college game, and then maybe afterwards if you were a good player who didn't have other prospects you might then play pro for a few years for the money, or even just play the odd exhibition here and there. (I gloss a bit, but that's the gist.)

Meanwhile, the colleges on their end had for bloody decades been running this "athletics is part of the well-rounded student's life according to the classical Greek ideals from which we take our inspiration" line of bull, while all the while the rivalries that developed between various teams became a cash cow for eliciting alumni donations, not to mention the bowl money, if you managed to get into a popular one of those....so on one side they were spending absolute oodles to have the best football teams possible, but on the other side they were trying to keep up the facade that this was an amateur endeavor for student athletes, emphasis on the "student" bit, any form of compensation very much a no-no, and this was eventually codified into the NCAA rules which govern college athletic programs....

When the pro game really started to pick up in popularity and become something that could make you rich and famous, it had already for decades been relying on a player's performance in college as a kind of proving ground from which to select talent. Furthermore, due to the formalized hypocrisy of the college's position, it could draw from that talent pool without having to spend a dime to develop the players. So why no continue doing so? Not to mention that with football in particular, and only becoming more so as the years have gone on, even the best high school player would almost certainly get creamed in the pros, they're simply not big enough or tough enough, they need seasoning.
posted by Diablevert at 7:56 PM on August 3 [5 favorites]

Oooops! Sorry :) it just really bugs me that no one ever mentions this major event.
posted by k8t at 7:58 PM on August 3

And it's not like the colleges are being exploited just for training purposes. For the bigger collegiate programs, it's a cash machine. Tickets for the Texas vs. Texas A&M game are currently selling on ebay for $500.
posted by tamitang at 8:42 PM on August 3

There's also the fact that children (at least today) often play soccer and baseball from the time they're 5 years old or younger, but almost no one plays football at that age. Football doesn't really start until middle school age, so say maybe 11 years old is about as early as you could start, playing a watered-down, low contact version of the sport. And then, football values speed and agility but also size, something teenage boys usually take a while to develop. Soccer players all seem to be thin and strong, a profile a lot of teenage boys fit. Guys often don't fill out until their late teens or early 20s. This puts football on a different time scale than soccer. Just another aspect or two to consider.
posted by MadamM at 9:05 PM on August 3

To expand on Diablevert, college football is still a very, very, very big deal in the United States. For many schools, football is the flagship sport and even a perpetually losing team will sell twice as many seats and get better media coverage than a nationally-ranked soccer or swim team. A football player at one of the top college conferences will play 10-14 season games, about half of which will be broadcast to regional markets, one in a national market, and a shot at a highly promoted bowl game. A minor league baseball or developmental league basketball player can put in 3-4 games a week for entire seasons in obscurity. Because colleges don't tend to move and inspire considerable brand loyalty, they can leverage traditions and rivalries like the Army-Navy game (79 years) or the Old Oaken Bucket (started 1925), to fill seats and sell advertising even if a program is struggling. Collectively, holiday college bowl games edge out the Superbowl in ratings, although the NFL gets more viewers in the regular season.

NFL franchises, in contrast, are often relative newcomers to a market with problematic relationships with their local cities. NFL franchises have used the threat of negotiating with other markets to get concessions from their host cities, and players can be shuffled from team to team. While some markets are fanatical about their NFL teams, others are more lukewarm.

The bottom line is that especially for basketball and football, getting recruited onto a Division 1 school's team provides fairly intense media attention, coverage and fame over a much shorter season.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:23 AM on August 4

MadamM, check out Pop Warner I know families who have kids in Pop Warner at five or 6.
posted by tayknight at 8:58 AM on August 4

In case this wasn't obvious: There's a huge jump between the top high-school talent, and the bottom college team talent. So, no matter how good you are, there's a worry that you won't make the cut for a college program, or your presence will be flat-out missed by college scouts.
posted by Citrus at 12:08 PM on August 4

if the Dylan Panthers were a soccer team, many of the players would be signed to professional clubs, even if few had a chance of playing in top-flight leagues.

They wouldn't be in school any more, simple as that: they'd leave at 16 and sign on with a club youth system. At middle school, there'd be players competing with amateur clubs -- like the famous Wallsend Boys Club on Tyneside -- while the cream of the crop would be training a few times a week at the pro facilities.

Diablevert makes a fantastic comment: the NCAA's rules are perhaps the last bastion of the Victorian division between "gentlemen" (amateurs) and "players" (professionals), which is more or less gone from those English-origin sports of the period (soccer, cricket, rugby, tennis) and the majority of Olympic disciplines. The compensatory element of amateurism was a sham from the outset, but it served as a status indicator, and created the social and regional tensions that split off rugby league and remained vestigiously in the FA until the end of the maximum wage in 1961.

Unlike the NFL, college football is more or less unknown to international audiences, because it's rarely televised overseas, so it's easy to underestimate how big a deal it is. As in: "100,000-capacity crowds" big deal.
posted by holgate at 2:40 PM on August 4

Unlike the NFL, college football is more or less unknown to international audiences, because it's rarely televised overseas, so it's easy to underestimate how big a deal it is. As in: "100,000-capacity crowds" big deal.

Not only is 100K+ crowds (or close) but is that kinds of crowds in places where the average non-North American has never heard of. This list of the largest American Football stadiums is admittedly out of date but lists places like State College, PA, Tuscaloosa, AL and Gainesville, FL. Each of these are hours away from any city you've likely heard of and they do that kind of draw for 6 or 7 dates each Fall.
posted by mmascolino at 6:50 AM on August 5

Just to follow up on something that was mentioned, no, the show doesn't give any hint that there might be more than league in operation, i.e. that Dillon High weren't the only "state champions".

I watched some signage carefully and it just said they were playing in the "Texas High Schools" championship.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:09 PM on August 6