Lights, Camera, Hook ‘Em: The Texas Football Movies We Need

In case you missed it, we posted our draft of the best football movies to our Inside Texas Football YouTube channel last week. The members of our message board also declared a victor between myself, Ian Boyd, and LC. To nobody’s surprise, I took home the gold medal. If I can’t win a football movie draft, my whole life has been spent in vain.

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To be honest, drafting My All American, the story of Texas Longhorn legend Freddie Steinmark and Darrell Royal, sealed the win with our older population. Hey, I know where our bread is buttered and who pays the bills.

The process did get me thinking—where has the great football movie gone? Or even the average but entertaining one, for that matter. The Replacements won no Oscars, but I’m still nostalgic for it.

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The genre seemingly peaked in the late ‘90s and early 2000s with Remember the Titans and Friday Night Lights. Now, football on screen is mostly seedy true crime stories like the Aaron Hernandez saga. And yet, Hernandez is played by a 5’9″ actor who took fewer real snaps than I did, while Rob Gronkowski is portrayed by an oaf who cries into his Michelob Ultra after striking out in grown-man softball.

We need to resurrect the football film, and the rich history of Texas football is ripe for adaptations beyond just My All American. Here are some Texas football stories that belong on the big screen, or Netflix, or just our phones.

The Fall of the Southwest Conference

Sam Khan and Dave Wilson wrote an excellent oral history on the SWC’s collapse for ESPN in 2020. The backroom dealings that left Rice, TCU, Houston, and SMU out in the cold while Ann Richards and Bob Bullock maneuvered Baylor and Texas Tech into the Big 12 would be catnip for both football and political junkies. This might be too niche for a feature film, but a miniseries could capture the high-stakes drama. If done in a fast-paced style, it could be Sports Night meets Texas politics. Or, if it leans into the cutthroat side, imagine a Succession-style Texana saga with DeLoss Dodds as a Logan Roy stand-in, played by Kyle Chandler back in the saddle—this time as a power broker orchestrating the death of a once-proud, Texas-centric conference.

Darrell and Earl

Biopics are the most tired kind of cinema. But I’m a sucker, and I’d love a buddy movie about Darrell Royal and Earl Campbell.

Despite their differences, they saw themselves in each other. Royal was born in rural Oklahoma in the depression and his mother died at birth. Campbell grew up on a rose farm in Tyler, Texas, one of 11 children in a small home. Their bond helped Texas win one of the most hotly contested recruitments of all time. Royal prying Campbell out of John Tyler is the stuff of legend, but their friendship went far beyond football.

Both loved music. Royal would often call Campbell at his dorm and tell him to come down to a house concert in South Austin, where someone like Willie Nelson might be “doing some picking.” Their connection changed Texas football forever, and it belongs on screen. Bijan Robinson wants to be an actor, so cast him as Campbell. Let Matthew McConaughey take on Darrell, the role the Minister of Culture was born to play. Sign me up.

Bull of the Century

Football movies have disappeared, but so have the ridiculous animal films I grew up with, like Homeward Bound and Air Bud. Let’s fix that.

Enter Bull of the Century, where a talking Bevo, voiced by Texas ex Owen Wilson, guides the Longhorns through decades of football history. Bevo I’s story is out. We can’t do the one that got eaten at a barbecue. That’s a fact I conveniently left out of my children’s book. Instead, we’ll follow Bevo XIII, the winningest Bevo ever, who took over in 1988 and stood on the sidelines until 2004.

In our movie, Bevo communicates with John Mackovic (Jesse Plemons) and later Mack Brown (played by Glen Powell in a bad wig). 

Roll Left: James Brown to Derek Lewis? Bevo dreamt it. 

Don’t make Ricky Williams a blocking fullback? Bevo’s idea. 

Running the zone read for Vince Young? Bovine inspiration. 

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We also see his legendary defecation on Nebraska’s endzone logo, his appearances at presidential inaugurations, and his mentorship of Bevo XIV, who stood on the sideline for the 2005 national championship. Hearing “The Big Guy” speak will liven our ears and enrich our hearts.