Friday Night Lights

Connie Britton and Brad Leland both had roles in the original 'Friday Night Lights' (2004) movie, also directed by series creator Peter Berg. Their roles were identical to those they have in the series, the coach's wife and a football booster respectively.

Emmy Rossum was originally approached to play the role of Lyla Garrity. She declined the part, later saying that she was fearful of being typecast as "the good girl".

During the 2012 U.S. Presidential Campaign, Republican nominee Mitt Romney used the phrase "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" in one of his stump speeches. Peter Berg, one of the show's writers, directors, and executive producers, responded in an open letter that Romney had "plagiarized" the phrase and that his "politics and campaign are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in our series. The only relevant comparison that I see between [the Romney] campaign and Friday Night Lights is in the character of Buddy Garrity -- who turned his back on American car manufacturers selling imported cars from Japan." Berg finished his open letter to Romney by saying "please come up with your own campaign slogan."