In 2013, NBC produced a 4-minute, 41-second commercial to hype up its acquisition of broadcast rights for the English Premier League. Jason Sudeikis starred as “an American Coach in London.” After that viral marketing success, some TV writers and producers realized that Ted Lasso, as Sudeikis’ character was named, could be good television. The resulting series became the first big hit for Apple TV+ in 2020 and, despite the wishes of many, is still coming back for more.
We may have Ted Lasso to thank for what happened next: In 2022, ESPN produced a seven-minute bit in which two-time Super Bowl–winning quarterback Eli Manning pretended to try out for a walk-on spot at Penn State. He wore a prosthetic face and went by the name “Chad Powers.” After that video went viral, some TV writers and producers realized that Chad Powers could be good television. Now Glen Powell has tagged in for Manning, and Disney is hoping that the rebooted Powers also makes for good TV. Amazingly, it does.
This six-episode season of Chad Powers premieres on Hulu today, with each installment coming in around half an hour. Powell plays washed-up quarterback Russ Holliday, who in turn plays Chad Powers, the unknown redneck quarterback who takes college football by storm. Russ was already a big star, eight years earlier. The show begins with him running in a national championship–winning touchdown for Oregon at the sport’s most hallowed venue, the Rose Bowl. Except he doesn’t run in the touchdown. He accidentally drops the ball in celebration at the 1-yard line, and Georgia, his opponent, picks it up and runs it back for a touchdown the other way. An enraged Russ punches out a fan who collapses into the wheelchair of his cancer-stricken son, and so begins his fall from grace. A short time later, Russ is using a childhood football trophy of his to open a bottle of malt liquor. An athlete at rock bottom sees a chance to disguise himself as somebody else, and the show flows from there.
I did not think this would work. The Lasso pivot from marketing stunt to good show was neat but hard to repeat. I guessed Chad Powers was a vehicle to appease Eli Manning and brother Peyton, whose Omaha Productions label now does a lot of work with Disney, parent of ESPN and Hulu. When the Hawk Tuah girl appeared within the first five minutes of this season, my pessimism grew. But few shows have grown on me more in a six-episode run than this one did. By the end, I wanted another season.
The Lasso comparison is most clear through a development lens, but the two shows share a good bit in common plotwise, too. Sudeikis’ character flees marital problems and mental health difficulties stateside to coach an entirely different sport in London. Powell’s character in Chad Powers is running from his life as a washout. After the catastrophe at the Rose Bowl, he went down a YouTube rabbit hole about Princess Diana’s death and couldn’t help sharing his observations with the public. He has friends in crypto and drives a Cybertruck, but he can’t even lock down a job in the XFL, the football minor league that has flopped in several iterations. Eight years after his college career ended, Russ gets the idea that he can pretend to be another person, prove his durable talent as a quarterback, take the mask off, and make a comeback as himself.
Lasso is not the only influence on this show. There are strong hints of Eastbound & Down, the HBO show that starred Danny McBride and remains the gold standard of the deadbeat ex-athlete genre. One can also detect the aroma of The Waterboy, the 1998 Adam Sandler comedy that I would submit was the last truly great piece of film or television to be set in the world of college football. That one is set at the fictional South Central Louisiana State University, home of the Mud Dogs. This one is set at the also-fictional University of South Georgia, home of the Catfish. As the team’s fans chant: Go Fish!
College football is not an easy sport to take to Hollywood. The New York and Los Angeles–based executives who greenlight projects do not tend to be big fans of college ball and often do not understand it. College football is the country’s second-biggest sport after pro football, but it fights the perception of only having fan concentration in the South and Midwest. (That’s not really true, as hordes of Big Ten and Southeastern Conference graduates take their fandom to places like New York and L.A. after they graduate.) The sport is changing all the time, with different rules going into effect every five minutes. These changes tend to affect the stuff that would be most interesting to build a show around. Blue Mountain State got three seasons on Spike between 2010 and 2011 and later became a cult Netflix hit. That show’s bits about players making seedy deals with agents would not be funny in 2025, now that players get paid above board.
The makers of Chad Powers do a good job building the world, though. Powell, who is also credited as a co-creator and executive producer, is a real-life Texas Longhorns fan. The two most famous Manning brothers played at Tennessee and Ole Miss. In other words, the show doesn’t feel like it was made by people who were just dropping in. Powell and co-creator Michael Waldron, who wrote the pilot, alongside director Tony Yacenda, build a funny entry into this universe. This isn’t a realistic show about college football, but its absurdity stays on the right side of the line between fun and silly. No, a celebrity in his 30s cannot re-create his identity and become the quarterback of a major college football team within a few weeks. He cannot collude with the team’s mascot (Frankie A. Rodriguez) to fool an entire university, let alone an entire country. But the pair’s attempts to carry on the ruse are a joy.
What the show excels at is using the scenery of college football to build punchy characters who feel true to the sport. Chad Powers features obnoxious donors who meddle with the coaching staff and compete with each other for status. (Is there anything more embarrassing than someone else giving more money to your favorite football team, or having a jet whose engine needs less time to warm up?) Steve Zahn plays the team’s head coach, who’s faced at least one death threat from a deranged fan and barely talks to his wife during the season. In classic college football–coaching form, Zahn’s character dabbles in nepotism, hiring his own daughter (Perry Mattfeld) as an assistant coach. They all work at a fake university that is nicely built out. I’d quibble with a few things about the University of South Georgia: We’re led to believe it’s a backwater, but it also has a nice stadium and appears to be in the SEC. But, overall, this show feels like it’s set in real-world college football. That makes the absurdity of Powell’s character shine properly. In theory, it should be easy to get the little details right, but some sports shows fail this simple test.
The story also clicks together nicely. Russ’ father Mike (Toby Huss) is an acclaimed Hollywood makeup artist who tasks his unemployed son with delivering some prosthetics to the Fox lot for an upcoming shoot. While waiting to enter the lot, Russ watches a video in which Stephen A. Smith informs him that the Catfish are holding quarterback tryouts. At the same moment, Chad looks up and sees a banner for Mrs. Doubtfire, the 1993 Robin Williams classic. The message is inspired, if a bit heavy-handed: Just as a divorced dad can pretend to be a nanny to stay close to his kids, a former quarterback can shapeshift to get back into the game.
But in Mrs. Doubtfire, Williams’ character learns a lot about himself, and parenthood, through his deception. While a fraud, he becomes a better dad, and he ends the story in a much different place than where he began. In Chad Powers, we are left to wonder: How will Powell’s character evolve while he cosplays as someone else? And in the meantime, how far can he take South Georgia? To that, all I can say is: Go Fish.
