Pity the players who make up the Permian Panthers, an elite high school football team in Odessa, Texas, a town for which the game is an obsession that rules the people�s lives and is the very essence of their existence. In Odessa, they have long forgotten the old saying that it �doesn�t matter whether you win or lose but how you play the game� � for them, winning is everything and the young men are quite seriously told that it is their duty �to protect this town�.
If the players are under pressure, their coach, Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) carries an even heavier burden. He�s the guy who everyone expects to take the team to its fifth straight championship. Wherever he goes, he is bombarded with questions, criticism and suggestions from the townspeople.
Gaines� team includes powerful star player, James �Boobie� Miles (Derek Luke), an egotistical, talented guy who is its key to victory, but when he badly injures his knee in the first game, the other players have to take more on their broad shoulders. Among them is Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) whose bullying father (Tim McGraw) was a member of the illustrious team twenty years ago and who thinks nothing of walking onto the field to abuse his son when he makes a mistake. It is one of several subplots that run concurrent with the central theme of the team�s striving to win the championship � an outcome that for most is considered a foregone conclusion.