SPORTS
Friday Night Lights lost me with the “Mud Bowl” episode
The “Friday Night Lights” television show is now remembered as one of the most beloved series from the mid 2000s.
An extension from the 2004 movie that was adapted from the 1990 book written by Buzz Bissinger, it dramatized the various storylines of people in the fictional Texas town of Dillon centered on the high school football team.
Head Coach Erick Taylor and his wife Tami led his Panthers players both on the field and off through their various life problems during five seasons.
Despite struggling with ratings while it was airing, it was one of those shows that everyone who did watch did not just like but love, including critics as it was nominated for every award show in existence.
As the 2010s saw streaming services revolutionize the way people watch television, many have now seen the show through one of these services years after its last season aired in 2011.
With the series centering around not just high school football, but specifically Texas high school football, I figured it was my obligation to give it a shot in high school since I had never heard a bad thing said about it.
I admit the first season wrapped me up in the ride of the Dillon Panthers and the various storylines, but some second season storylines had me rolling my eyes and put a stop to me wanting to continue to watch the series.
Only when thinking back at some of the earlier plot points in season one did I realize the show was just too dumbly unrealistic the whole time and I just never noticed.
I realize every great television show is full of unrealistic things people look past all the time. Only on television can a character go from one major plot line to the next and not have a mental breakdown.
While some real people live hard or eventful lives, go look up your favorite television character’s biography and wonder how they are so relatable after going through all that.
I can suspend my disbelief most of the time, but when it comes to sports I know too much to just turn off my brain sometimes.
The Dillon team needs to win one more game to make it to the state title game.
In real life, athletic directors at both schools negotiate the site of each playoff game. Usually both want the game be as equal a distance drive for each school as possible, but also taking into affect what school district stadiums will be open to hosting the game and how much they will cost.
“It is all about negotiation,” Bowie Athletic Director Cory Mandrell said. “Some coaches are real laid back about it and some are a pain in the butt about certain things.”
The only home field advantage is one that is agreed upon, but usually does not happen and certainly not in the state semifinals.
In the show, Coach Eric Taylor is determined to keep his home field advantage. A wrench is thrown into that at the beginning of the episode 20 called, “The Mud Bowl.” A train not only derails but explodes near the school. Get this, the train was carrying vaguely dangerous chemicals.
School officials say the school grounds will have to be empty for at least a week, which means the Panthers will not be able to play in their home stadium. No mention on how the kids will continue to have lessons that week though. That’s not important.
Playing the Brant Vikings, the fictional Brant must not be too far from Dillon because the coaches meet in person at a proposed stadium. While it is not Brant’s stadium, Coach Taylor accuses the other coach of having ties to the stadium that might give him an advantage somehow.
In desperation, he sees a plot of farm land with someone’s cows on it is available for lease in Dillon and gets to work with his team making it a football field. When Brant’s coach objects, Taylor gets officials to sign off by reading vague rules that it meets field expectations and goads him into agreeing by saying the field conditions will not matter.
I argue it apparently does if you went to the trouble of going through the logistical nightmare of constructing a makeshift field, stands and lights on a cow pasture.
The field factors in another way because all of a sudden it starts raining hard and does not let up until the end of the game. The grass field becomes a mudpit.
I think the whole reason for this episode was the camera crew really wanted to film one of these types of games in all of its glory. It delivers as the players uniforms turn brown and the players slip and slide all around.
The final score is predictably low as the Panthers win on the final play of the game as quarterback Saracen dives into the end zone to make it 14-8.
To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.
A solid day was had by Montague county high school tracksters at the State Track and Field Meet May 16 in Austin.
Bellevue’s Mattie Broussard had a pair of second place finishes in both the 800-meter run with a time of 2:21.41 and the 3,200-meter run with a time of 11:31.33. Broussard also was 4th in the 1,600-meters with a time of 5:22.18.
Her teammate Brylie Hager was 9th in the 110-meter hurdles in 19.93.
Forestburg’s Brenna Briles was 4th in the triple jump with a 35’9 1’2” leap. Her teammate Jocelyn Rich was 4th in the pole vault with a 9’ leap.
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
Bowie had a pair of top four finishes at the State Track and Field Meet May 14.
Sophomore Brayden Willett made it onto the medal stand, finishing 3rd in the 1,600-meter run with a time of 4:17.89. Bowie junior Tyler Richey finished 4th in the pole vault after a 14’6” effort.
The top two finishers from Holliday, also in Bowie’s district, celebrated with him after he crossed the finish line.
“It was kind of surprising,” Willett said about Ryder and Noah Stroman embracing him in a celebratory hug. “They’re good guys, so it was kind of cool.”
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
This past week found your outdoor scribe doing some rather mundane things such as yard work, vegetable gardening and repairs around the old cabin. Oh, I also wrapped up a couple of magazine articles. I always enjoy sharing my adventures with all of you in this column but to be perfectly honest, not nearly as much as my ‘field work’ hunting and fishing which is an iatrical part of any good outdoor column. If you’re like me, you much prefer reading about an adventure that you can also partake.
I am far more comfortable telling you about an outdoor experience I had firsthand knowledge of rather than the reporting part of my job as an outdoor communicator. So, this week, I’d do a bit of ‘reporting’ and share some planned adventures I have scheduled for the next couple weeks. By the time you’re reading this, I will have already been in the woods in quest of a fat ‘eater’ hog and probably have some freshly caught blue catfish fillets in the freezer, details will follow in the next couple of weeks.
I’ll kick things off early in the week heading down to my friend Jeff Rice’s Buck and Bass Ranch located on the upper end of Lake Fork. Jeff produces our weekly TV show “A Sportsman’s Life” which airs on Carbon TV and YouTube. Our plan is to film a segment of our show on stalking wild hogs. It will be a challenge to capture the shot with all the thick grown spring vegetation. It could happen fast and require a fast shot. We will be breaking in my CVA Cascade scout rifle in 308 caliber. This short barrel little rifle is light and easy to handle in thick cover, ideal for this type of hunting. Our plan is to hit the woods during the last couple hours of daylight and ease along the trails, watching and especially listening for hogs. Wild porkers are vocal critters and it’s common to hear them before seeing them. We will play the wind and attempt to get downwind and then close the distance for a shot but you can never guess how a hog hunt will unfold. Wild pork or not, Jeff and I always have a great time together and I plan to bring a side of wild pork ribs already slow smoked and covered in brown sugar and BBQ sauce with a side of camp baked beans!
After a tasty dinner we plan to get a good night’s sleep and head out the next morning for a planned fishing trip with guide David Hanson at Lake Tawakoni. Both channel and blue catfish are on a very good bite right but it’s hard to pass up those snow white blue catfish fillets when the bite is good. David is, to my knowledge, the most veteran catfish guide on the lake and became friends close to a quarter-century ago when we first began fishing
together. The plan is to use freshy cut shad in shallow water and target eater size blues weighing between 2 and about 10 pounds but as every catfish angler knows, it’s always possible to connect with a big trophy size blue when fishing Tawakoni.
Next week, I plan to join my long-time friend J.C. McCollough on the Red River below the Texoma dam. I’ve been fishing and hunting with J.C. for many years and look forward to getting with him again. I would describe this to catching big catfish in a barrel but in this case the deep holes in the river are comprised of several acres. The water level in the river below Texoma are dictated by the water release at the dam by the Corp of Engineers. When there is a current in the river, fish move upstream to feed on baitfish coming through the dam. When the water recedes, they fish move into the deeper holes where baitfish also seek refuge from the falling water. Catching will be fast paced with the chance to connect with some big fish as well as limits of “eater” size fish. We’ll be rigging with big live gizzard shad fished weightless on a free line, using medium spinning gear. The bigger fish will often nail the frisky live shad and the fresh cut bait is a sure way to connect with lots of smaller fish. There is something very exciting about fishing big live baits on a slack line. One minute your bait will be darting around and you will occasionally feel it taking up slack and the next when a big blue catfish grabs the bait, the rod will bow and the fight will be on. There is usually no ‘setting the hook’, by the time you feel the fish, it will already be hooked and making a strong run to the nearest submerged brush. Your job will be to keep the drag set just enough to keep pressure on the fish but not so much as to cause the line to break.
J.C. uses his airboat to access these deeper holes because of the very shallow water. While it’s not impossible to portage a kayak or small boat in the river, it often requires a few miles travel to get to these deep holes, this is best accomplished by experienced kayakers with plenty of endurance. There was a time when I was game for this type fishing but I much prefer to do my river fishing these days from a boat designed to negotiate the shallow waters.
Squirrel season is underway in many of the east Texas counties and there’s some pretty good fox squirrel hunting here close to home in Kaufman county and I’ve been thinking about how tasty a big skillet of smothered squirrel with rice, gravy and biscuits would be. Bream are on the beds now and my friend Edgar Cotton invited me to come do some ‘perch jerking’ with him and his son David-it’s in the plans! Well, hopefully next week I will have a ‘sure nuff’ adventure of two to relate you you-I’m ready to get some relief from all this work around the homeplace! LC
You can contact Tawakoni/Fork catfish guide David Hanson at 902-268-7391. Contact J.C. McCollough at 580-372-0320.
Listen to Luke’s podcast, “Catfish Radio” just about everywhere podcast are found.
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