Trama

Due to NCAA sanctions, the Texas State University Fightin' Armadillos must form a football team from their actual student body, with no scholarships to help, to play their football schedule.

Due to NCAA sanctions, the Texas State University Fightin' Armadillos must form a football team from their actual student body, with no scholarships to help, to play their football schedule. With fewer players than most teams, the makeshift team must overcome obstacles that the best teams in the country couldn't deal with. Using a thirty-four-year-old quarterback, a female placekicker, and a gang of misfits, Ed "Straight Arrow" Genero must take his team to play the number one Texas Colts.—Kevin <Kibble@vm.temple.edu>

Paul Blake is a 34-year-old farmer who was once a star high-school football player, one of the best quarterbacks in Texas. Paul was forced to drop out of sight when his father died, leaving Paul with the family farm to run. Now, after a 16-year absence, he's lured back to football by his former coach, Wally "Rig" Riggendorf. Rig has recently been hired as assistant coach to head coach Ed Gennero, who has been hired by Texas State University to turn around the Texas State Armadillos -- a team that was placed on probation for corruption, and university president Carver Purcell wants results as soon as possible. The team that Gennero and Rig assemble includes a military fanatic who admires General Schwarzkopf, a physics instructor, a swift martial-arts champ named Eric "Samorai" Hansen, Andre Krimm, and a female kicker named Lucy Draper. On the field, Paul does his best to get himself back into shape, while he has to overcome the awkwardness he feels about attending college classes at his age. And Paul finds himself attracted to journalism professor Suzanne Carter. Paul, Gennero, also have to deal with Dean Phillip Elias, who wants to scrap the university's football program, and the Armadillos are out to beat the almost impossible odds of winning at least one game this season.—Todd Baldridge