The film Friday Night Lights is a reasonably accurate depiction of the subject, the 1988 football team of Permian High School in Odessa, Texas, and its impact on the town. However, quite a few details were changed, presumably to create a stronger narrative.
Players
- Several players had their numbers and positions changed from the real 1988 team.
- Boobie Miles was depicted as one of the team's three captains. The real team had that number of captains, but Boobie wasn't one of them.
- The film depicted Don Billingsley's father Charlie as having been on a state championship Permian team. The real Charlie was never on a state title team; Permian's best finish during his time at the school was a loss in the 1968 state final.
Regular season
- The Panthers are shown practicing in full pads with full contact on the first day of practice. In real life, members of the University Interscholastic League (UIL), Texas' governing body for public high school sports,note cannot do so until the fourth day of practice.
- Permian is depicted as practicing mainly at its home field of Ratliff Stadium, located well away from campus. The real Panthers mainly practiced on campus.
- A Permian booster was shown toasting Coach Gaines' second season as Permian's head coach. The real 1988 season was his third.
- Boobie Miles' first leg injury actually took place during a preseason scrimmage at Texas Tech's stadium in Lubbock, instead of a home regular-season game.
- The film shows top-ranked Permian defeating an outclassed Marshall Mavericks team on a Friday night in Odessa. Permian did play Marshall in 1988, but the real Marshall team (whose colors are red and white, instead of purple and gold in the film) entered that game ranked third in the state, and defeated the then fourth-ranked Panthers 13–12 on a very hot Saturday afternoon in Marshall.
- District play began in week 2 in the film, but started in week 4 of the real 1988 season.
- In the film, Permian defeated "North Shore Galena" in a mid-season (presumably district) game. There's no school called "North Shore Galena", but there is a North Shore High School in the Galena Park Independent School District... more than 500 miles from Odessa in suburban Houston. As of the 2023 season, those two schools have never played.
- In the film, Permian was tied for the district title with Abilene Cooper and Midland Lee, with each team having two district losses. The real Permian team was tied with Midland Lee and Midland High, and all were 5–1 in district play.
- Mike Winchell is shown with Coach Gaines at the coin toss in the film. No players from any of the teams involved were allowed at the real coin toss; the real Gaines was accompanied by assistant Mike Belew.
- In the film, Lee easily defeated Permian, with the Panthers never having a chance. In real life, Lee had to come from behind to win 22–21.
Playoffs
- Permian's first playoff opponent in the film was Dallas Jesuit. The UIL was strictly a public-school governing body in 1988, meaning that while private and public schools could (and did) schedule one another in the regular season, they couldn't face off in the playoffs. Jesuit was the first private school allowed to play in the UIL, but that didn't happen until 2003. Permian's real playoff opener was against Tascosa High out of Amarillo.
- Another Permian playoff opponent was "Hays" High, nicknamed Rams and wearing green and white. The real Jack C. Hays High, located near Austin, wears red, white, and blue; is nicknamed Rebels; and couldn't have played Permian in the playoffs until 2000, when it became a 5A school—it was a 4A school in 1988. Hays was in the film because the makers filmed crowd shots at the real Hays High during a regular-season game.
- Permian was depicted as playing "San Angelo" in the quarterfinals. The San Angelo ISD then (as now) had two high schools, with San Angelo Central being the only school in Permian's enrollment class both then and now; the playoff structure meant that the only time the two schools could have played was in the quarterfinals. However, Central finished 5th in its district in 1988, at a time when only the top two schools in each district made the playoffs. In reality, Permian played Arlington Lamar in this round.
- The playoff brackets show a "Baytown". The Houston suburb had two public high schools in 1988 (and now has three); the school in the real 1988 playoffs was Baytown Lee.
Permian vs. Carter
- Dallas Carter was depicted in the film as the state's top-ranked team; the real Carter team was never higher than #3 in the AP poll.
- Permian and Carter played in the fifth round of the playoffs in both the film and reality. However, the real-life game was a semifinal and not the final. The format of UIL football playoffs doesn't allow teams from North and West Texas to play one another in the final.
- During the meeting between officials of Carter and Permian to determine a game site, Carter proposed Texas Stadium in Irving as its "home" site. Not depicted in the film was Carter changing its desired "home" site to the Cotton Bowl, within the Dallas city limits. (Under UIL rules, if teams can't agree on a site, each selects a "home" and a "neutral" site, with a series of coin flips determining which site is used.) The two real-life schools eventually agreed on the Texas Longhorns' home of Memorial Stadium in Austin as a neutral site.
- The film's Carter–Permian game was played at the Astrodome in Houston before a crowd of 55,000. The real game was played in a heavy downpour in front of 10,000 in Austin.
- The film's final was a high-scoring affair, with Permian making a dramatic comeback only to lose 34–28. In the real semifinal, Permian had a 9–7 lead for much of the game, and Carter made the dramatic late comeback to win 14–9. Also, on the last play, the real Mike Winchell threw an incompletion instead of running it himself close to the goal line.
Permian and the city of Odessa
- Permian is depicted as a large high school in a one-horse West Texas town. The real Odessa had about 90,000 people in 1988. Also, Odessa then had (and still has) two large public high schools. The other one, Odessa High, was not mentioned in the film, even though the two schools have been in the same UIL district since Permian opened in 1959.note
- Odessa is depicted as a mostly Anglo town with a substantial African-American minority. The real Odessa of 1988 was about a third Hispanic, with African Americans making up only 5% of the population.
