This episode focused on change. How they needed to change from last season. It starts with a man talking about how Buddy wants to change. After watching the documentary, he didn’t like what he saw and that he needed to change. That arrogance can cause you to lose sight of what is important. We then get introduce to the new players and why they are here. Most of them have made some mistakes and they are here getting their lives back on track. They came to East Mississippi to start over and to get their second chance and this is the whole teams second chance. 

Wagner meets all the players and talks to them about school and how to stay on track to graduate in December and be eligible. She said that a lot of them are on track to graduate on time, but she is worried that they are going to be distracted. With everything that happened last year and with all the cameras on them she is worried that they won’t focus as much as they need to on school.  

We don’t really hear from Buddy until later in the show with is different from last season because he was normally the first one to talk. Buddy is focused on changing and making this season different from last year. He is trying hard to change and with how in interacts with the players. 

The big problem of the episode is that the team has to finish out their suspension. That means that every player, coach, or manger that was at the game last season can’t go to the first one. With the exception of the head coach. The team will be going into the first game with only half a roster. They have to get all the new players ready to play in the first game with a sub-in coaching staff. They need the freshman to step up and lead the team and give everything they have to the first game. 

The game doesn’t start off really well. The offensive line and coaches are having a hard time communicating and they are making a lot of mistakes. The defensive line starts off really well and they play well for most of the game. At the end of the first quarter just when they seem to be finding their rhythm everything falls apart. Which is how most of the game goes.  As the game goes on, they are getting more and more tired and the game is getting away from them but in the end, they managed to dig deep and bring the score within two points. They end up losing the game by those two points. At the end when Buddy is talking to them, he tells them that he couldn’t be prouder of them. The way that they played and how they fought and played till the end is something that they should all be proud about.

The documentary is a social justice piece raising awareness about how NCAA athletes are treated. They focus on how players should get paid, are misled by companies/schools, and are unfairly treated. 

Nick is a high school senior and is being recruited by many schools to play basketball. Nick’s story shows how much athletes have to go through to get to NCAA sports. He said that he worries about failing and that can put a lot of pressure on someone. When he announced what school he was going to he was just happy that it was finally over. Nick’s story also showed us how big-name companies are using high school athletes. When athletes are outstanding, and they have a big social media presence it is free advertising when they wear their brands. 

Mike is a senior from Bradley. He got a career ending injury and this ended his plans to play professionally. He goes home after school and you can see that he is struggling with what to do next. He’s just taking time to figure life out, but it seems like he’s still trying to come to terms with the situation. He goes to physical therapy for his injury.  Which he struggles with physically and mentally. He ends up going to a psychiatric hospital. The NCAA doesn’t care what happens to athletes after they get what they can from them. 

Shamar is a graduate of Rutgers, 2010. All he wants is to play professional. He went to college to make it pro and he got the chance to go to the Bears minicamp. Where he fell and hurt his shoulder. The only reason why they are there is to make it professional and most of them don’t even do that. They are forced to choose between being a good student or a good athlete. Which means if they don’t make it their degree doesn’t go as far. 

Silas is ineligible and was banned from college football. He excepted a place to live and food from his friend’s family. The NCAA said that he violated a rule. These schools are making so much money each year while they have players living in their cars. Silas is then unable to be recruited for professional football. It was also strongly suggested that if he went to a better school and was more likely to be drafted. His punishment wouldn’t have been so server and he would have gone back to playing. 

John was a coach for the NCAA and became an advocate for players. He was told that you can’t fight a billion-dollar industry but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying. He polled players whether they would want the flashy stuff that the schools give them or the money. Everyone said they wanted the money. They paid these coaches so much money and they just stood there and let their players live below the poverty line. 

The fifth episode focuses on doing your job and putting in the work. They push them to try harder in school and football. Wagner has a talk with DJ about trying harder and putting in the effort.  She thinks that he may not be trying because then there is a real chance that he could do what he wants but if he just doesn’t try then he will just fail that way.  Buddy doesn’t come in till later in the episode and talks about how he wants to work on his anger. This week they were playing for the division championship. This game was the type of game that you get really excited about. They went on to win the game and become the division champions. Buddy seemed to keep it together for most of game. There was only one time where he lost it and that was at half time when he was talking to John Franklin. 

The last half of the episode is all about the last game of the regular season. It is against the team that they always had issues. They beat them every year and they run up the score on them each time. All week the coaches talk to them about how they have to keep it together and that they can’t let the other team get in their heads. The other team has nothing to lose going into this game and they have everything to lose. When they get to the game there is a fight that breaks out during warmups and the one kid had to get stiches. From that point on you can see the tension escalating. As we saw at the beginning of the season this episode ends with both teams clearing the benches and getting in a fight. 

The last episode is mainly the aftermath of the fight. Buddy losses it on the players and is calling them thugs and rednecks. The team gets really upset with buddy because they were just protecting their teammates and he won’t listen to any of them. It isn’t until one of the other coaches says somethings, about how all their guys were waiting on the sideline and then the whole other team was cleared until they left, that he goes back and watches the tape. Buddy apologies to them but it showed what he thinks of them. How much he actually trusts his team and shows what he really thinks of them. He didn’t respect them enough to even listen to them This fight ended the teams post-season. The show starting with the fight and building up to it really put it into context. This fight ended their season and everything that they have worked hard for. 

The rest of the episode focuses on them getting recruited and trying to finish out the school year. For some of the guys they really needed to get their grades up or they weren’t going to graduate or be eligible for D1. Ollie and DJ really put in the work in the last couple of weeks. Ollie was able to get an A in his class which he really needed to be eligible. DJ wasn’t able to graduate in December, but he still got recruited with the promise that he would graduate in the spring. 

This episode focuses around Homecoming and they talk about the past and how it compares to today. The show similarly starts off by talking about the head coach but from a couple of decades ago. They are talking about the former coach Bull and how hard he was on them, but how they were better because of it. Which is similar to the way that Buddy coaches. They are extremely hard on their players and they always expect a lot from them.  Which is the same attitude the whole town has for them. The town is very proud of their team. They are all about their football team and in return expect a lot from them. We also find out the Co-Lin played two ineligible players in their first couple of games and that they either had to forfeit their first three games or forfeit the rest of the season. So, the team may be getting their undefeated streak back. 

This episode focuses a lot around the players grades and them going to class. Especially DJ Law. He is missing many classes and is on the verge of being dropped from several of them. He is also not doing well grade wise. This is worsened by the fact that he gets injured in this week’s game and is told that he can’t play for two weeks. This completely crushes his spirit and he no longer wants to even go to school and is potentially ruining the rest of his school year and football season. 

This weeks football game starts out with the team playing how everyone expects them to play. They don’t make many mistakes and they are winning by a couple of touchdowns going into the half. After the half is when thing go a little sideways. I think that Wagner put it best. That when you play the way that they do and they run the score up on teams for as long as they have been that the other teams just get tired of it, and start to take cheep shots on them and they started to fight back. Two players were ejected from the game but none of the players from the other team were ejected. It escalated to the point to were buddy got into it with a ref and the ref ended up ejected from that game and buddy was asked to leave. Buddy ended up being suspended for two weeks which means that he can’t be at the next two games and was forced to watch them at home. 

The episode ended with them comparing now to how they were in the past. By telling the story of how Bull got fired because the school was worried about his temper. Which they seem to have been comparing him to Buddy the whole episode and they probably picked Bull for that reason. Which makes it seems that they may be leading to Buddy getting fired. 

This TV show falls under two genres. It is descriptive and a documentary. This show is telling the story of several players and staff members and their journey through East Mississippi college football. This show is trying to convey what it is actually like for these players and what they have to go through. That it isn’t exactly what everyone thinks it is. That there is more to them then just football and that they have other things going on in their lives then just sports. The second episode of the series is mainly about the QB story and who will be the starting quarterback. It shows the difference in personalities of John and Wyatt and I think that they choose to include their stories in this episode because of how they played in the game. That John was acting like a big shot and that he was going to play football professional and that was his only plan. While Wyatt was more down to earth and knew that football might not work out and, that there is a real possibility that he won’t play professionally, and that he had another plan if it didn’t work out. 

The production company had to do some research on this team and its players and staff so they could find out what stories they were going to tell and when they were going to tell them in the series. The third episode mainly told the story of Ollie, which we have heard about in the previous two episodes and we knew that he had it hard, but we didn’t know what really happened. We finally get his full story from his aunt and sister. This helps the show to gain trust with the audience because they were first hand witnesses to the event and it is their family that they are talking about, so it is easier to believe. Ollie also gets a concussion in this episode and that is why he goes home. When Ollie first started to complain of the symptoms of a concussion no one really believed that he had one, not even the coach who is supposed to have the health and well-being of his players in mind. They thought that he was faking because it was ollie saying it. Not because they had medical proof that he didn’t. With all conditions you can have one or all the signs and symptoms of it, you don’t necessarily have to show all them to have it. This episode also talked about them losing the week before and them being worried about how the team will bounce back. They mainly just said that team played badly and tried to use more of an emotional approach then a logical one to try and get the team to rally. 

The opening scene of the show is a fight between two football teams. You hear a voiceover of the coach yelling at the players that it isn’t expectable for them to act this way and that he won’t be a part of it. Throughout the first episode it seems that the head coach is the one that is talking the most and his story is the first story that we hear. You find out how he got there and what kind of coach he is before you even meet one of the players. Which I think is a bit off because the show is about the college athletes and why they are there. The documentary is about college athletes that have either left Division 1 schools for one reason or another or because they needed to get their grades up to be eligible for Division 1. 

For the most part the coaches and staff are the ones telling the stories of the players not the players themselves. Which is interesting because you have to wonder what parts of their stories they are emphasizing and what parts they are leaving out. It also makes you wonder if the players would include the same parts or add in different stories. What they think is important in their own story.  One story that they frame is DJ’s story. They make it seem like he only has two options in life. Play football and be good at it or end up like your dad and go to jail. Which there are so many more options then just to play football or fail. 

It seems that in all the stories of the players that each one just needs one more thing to make it, to achieve their dreams. Compared to when they talk about the head coach, they mostly say how he saved this place and how he really turned this program around. It seemed like they were describing the players more by their challenges and their ability to play football. While the staff was described by their personalities and what they have contributed to the team. 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton