Most Egregious Historical Untruth in a Football Film

[Rupert Patrick]

In Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the Dolphins lost Super Bowl XIX to San Francisco due to a botched FG where the laces were in instead of out. The kicker was unfairly blamed for losing the Super Bowl and went to great lengths to exact revenge on Dan Marino, who was the holder on the kick and didn't line up the ball correctly.

[Todd Pence]

I once made a list of all the historical "liberties" in MONDAY NIGHT MAYHEM. One of the worst happened in the scene where they were beginning the broadcast of the very first game between the Browns and the Jets. The opening montage for the intro shows Chuck Foreman running in a Vikings uniform. At the time in real life, Foreman was still a sophomore at the U of Miami.

[Gary Najman]

In the film "Rudy" Notre Dame HC Dan Devine was portraited as the villain who didn't let Rudy dress for a game, while in fact it was Devine's idea to let Rudy play (by the way, the Notre Dame players didn't our their jerseys in Devine's office).

[Rupert Patrick]

I once made a list of all the historical "liberties" in MONDAY NIGHT MAYHEM. One of the worst happened in the scene where they were beginning the broadcast of the very first game between the Browns and the Jets. The opening montage for the intro shows Chuck Foreman running in a Vikings uniform. At the time in real life, Foreman was still a sophomore at the U of Miami.

The biggest problem I remembered having with the movie is I couldn't keep Don Meredith and Frank Gifford straight. John Turturro was not bad as Howard Cosell, but the other guys were awful.

[Gary Najman]

In Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the Dolphins lost Super Bowl XIX to San Francisco due to a botched FG where the laces were in instead of out. The kicker was unfairly blamed for losing the Super Bowl and went to great lengths to exact revenge on Dan Marino, who was the holder on the kick and didn't line up the ball correctly.

In real life in the 1983 preseason, rookie free agent kicker Alex Giffords from Iowa State was in the Dolphins camp and was told by any means to be much careful with Marino as a holder. I know this because Giffords is my running partner in Mexico City.

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

"The Last Boy Scout", the running back, Billy Cole, on the way to the end zone, pulls out a gun and shoots three opposing defenders before shooting himself in the head.

No flag on the play. So unrealistic I couldn't believe it.

[Rupert Patrick]

"The Last Boy Scout", the running back, Billy Cole, on the way to the end zone, pulls out a gun and shoots three opposing defenders before shooting himself in the head.

No flag on the play. So unrealistic I couldn't believe it.

And in that movie Any Given Sunday, the one player lost an eye on a play, it was literally pulled out by the root, and was lying on the grass, root and all, and there was no flag either for that play.

[Shipley]

"Remember the Titans" is also inaccurate making it seem like the games were close and the championship game came down to the final play. In fact, both teams had been champions the year before the schools merged, and they crushed all of their opponents.

[Jay Z]

In the film "Rudy" Notre Dame HC Dan Devine was portraited as the villain who didn't let Rudy dress for a game, while in fact it was Devine's idea to let Rudy play (by the way, the Notre Dame players didn't our their jerseys in Devine's office).

That was done with Devine's approval. Apparently, the filmmakers felt they needed a villain, someone who opposed Rudy. Instead of just telling the story of a walk-on who gets a (half) sack in the last minute of a blowout.

[Todd Pence]

"Remember the Titans" is also inaccurate making it seem like the games were close and the championship game came down to the final play. In fact, both teams had been champions the year before the schools merged, and they crushed all of their opponents.

Hammond, one of the teams that had been absorbed into TC Williams, won the region title in '69.
The movie plays as if the Titans were some kind of underdog. In reality, their enrollment after the merger made them into a superpower which gave them a somewhat unfair advantage. So much so that teams during the '72 season started to talk about boycotting playing them. That debate was put on hold late in the '72 season when the Titans were upset 8-7 by Fort Hunt, knocking them out of the playoffs.

REMEMBER THE TITANS features the Titans early in their schedule playing the "undefeated Groveton Lions". In the first place, the Groveton team's nickname was the Tigers, not the Lions. In the second place, Groveton was a perennial doormat who probably never got three games into a season unbeaten. My high school used to play Groveton, in my senior year they merged with Fort Hunt to become the West Potomac Wolverines.