Most Egregious Historical Untruth in a Football Film

[Todd Pence]

The recent thread on football films inspired me to raise the question: What is the worst historical innacuracy or untruth to appear in a football movie purporting to be historical? REMEMBER THE TITANS is full of historical inaccuracies and lies in order to tell a story the way it wants it to be told, not the least of which showing the TC Williams Titans playing night games at home (night football had been banned in the city of Alexandria during the 1971 season). It's the JFK of football movies.

Also of note is the conclusion of WE ARE MARSHALL claiming that Coach Jack Lengyel is in the College Football Hall of Fame. He's actually not.

[Reaser]

Friday Night Lights (the movie) has a bunch of inaccuracies. Including the entire state playoffs (wrong amount of teams, wrong teams shown in the bracket, they lost in the SF's and not State Championship, etc) ...

Not the most egregious because the movie would have still been the same quality and basically the same movie had they stuck with what really happened, instead of "hollywooding" it up.

[oldecapecod11]

Nothing purports to be accurate more than a documentary.
Nothing can be more inaccurate than "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29."

[bachslunch]

Nothing purports to be accurate more than a documentary.
Nothing can be more inaccurate than "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29."

Reminds me of when I've seen the statement that "the Boston Red Sox won the 1975 World Series 3 games to 4."

[BD Sullivan]

2008 The Express
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According to this movie, Art Modell bought the Browns in about 1957 (instead of 1961) and Paul Brown never existed.

[JohnTurney]

Paper Lion, I think it was season Alex karras was suspended, but he was in movie

[JohnTurney]

Paper Lion, I think it was season Alex karras was suspended, but he was in movie

[JohnR]

Nothing purports to be accurate more than a documentary.
Nothing can be more inaccurate than "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29."

Phil, are you a bitter Yalie?

[ChrisBabcock]

In the opening scene of Invincible the Eagles lose 31−0 to the Cincinnati Bengals on December 7, 1975. The main character of the movie Vince Papale is at the game and either he or his buddy makes a comment that the Eagles lost to a team worse than they were. In 1975, the Bengals finished 11–3.

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

Any Given Sunday had a couple of real peaches. There's a game where both teams are wearing their dark uniforms. There's a part early on where Pacino talks about how they're 6-5, but if they win their last five games, they'll have home field advantage. I'd like to see those standings after eleven games where that's possible.

Those are the two that I remember, though I acknowledge I wasn't entirely sober when I saw it, so I may have misremembered those, and forgotten some better ones....