It’s about football and there is LOTS of swearing. Once you get by that it provides great insight into how desperate many of these young men are to better their lives. Often they mess up but some really find success. Other make another big mistake. Support staff and profs are saints. Also the follow-up episode for Season 3 is great.
Were we supposed to guess the name?
I’ve watched it for the prior 2 years and was really looking forward to this year, but was very disappointed. The first 2 years were more about the college lives, challenges, families of the players and the staff, but this new season and school it was very hard to get into the characters. I did not find the ‘Straight Outta Compton Into the Heartland’ focus interesting. I didn’t think they did as much to show how the school is important to the football story.
I thought you meant Ballers when you said football with lots of swearing. 
@twoinanddone, I agree. I loved the first two seasons. Loved the Dakota Allen story line (Wreck’em). This season is not doing if for me. I want to get invested emotionally and I can’t. I miss Brittany Wagner.
Later on they spend time at each players hometown, etc. Also they dont have a dedicated counselor like Ms Wagner but the English teacher is very very good doing both. Her ideas go deeper too. Certainly the Compton white guy thing gets old fast.
The follow-up on the other series is good too. Lots of ups and downs Wagner moves to Atlanta and meets somebody.
Wagner’s roll at EMCC was much more defined as to the football players (and I think she did basketball too). At the new school, the English teacher is just that, one teacher. There was another woman who was brought in who tries to get them qualified for D1/D2. They didn’t develop that well.
I just wasn’t as invested with the players this year, and didn’t care for the coach at all. I looked up Malik Henry and no one wants him. In watching in the prior seasons, those players who ‘did the program’ did get to go on to higher teams. Some didn’t succeed, but it wasn’t because they didn’t have their “Last Chance U” supporting them.
I guess it comes down to I just didn’t like the kids this season. I did like the townspeople more.
I wasn’t aware of the show. Does it have a Friday Night Lights vibe at all, where it’s about a lot more than football?
I think this is reality TV, where the scripting happens in the editing room, the people are pretty much real people, and the colleges real colleges. Friday Night Lights was a scripted (and rescripted, and scripted again) series featuring a bunch of really talented, charismatic actors and taking place in what my daughter called “a mythical small town in Texas populated entirely by supermodels.”
No, Friday Nights Lights was a drama series. Last Chance U is a documentary.
The first 2 years were filmed at East Mississippi Community College, a very southern, mostly black, college that plays in JUCO. Many of the players (and most of the featured ones) were D1 football players who got into some kind of trouble at their big (Florida State, Auburn, Penn State) schools and are playing at EMCC to try to get back to D1 or somehow get to the NFL. Some didn’t have the grades/ACT scores to get into D1 directly from high school but were good athletes. The school has won the JUCO national championship a few times.
Some of them are the very stereotypical dumb jocks people picture playing college football but not being able to add and subtract. A few have criminal records. A few have babies to support. Some act like 12 year olds and can’t remember to bring a pencil to class (thus Ms. Wagner, who is part babysitter, part guidance counselor, has 1000 pencils for them). A few are good students, good athletes, who got into trouble at other schools. One football player who was a top recruit at FSU was dismissed from the team for punching a girl in a bar in Tallahassee the first week he was in college (she really did provoke him). One was arrested while at Texas Tech for armed robbery.
The new season is at Independence Community College in Kansas. It is not a powerhouse in JUCO football. Every word out of the coach’s mouth starts with F. The community at EMCC is very poor, mixed black and white. The community in Independence Kansas is poor and white, and they’ve placed a lot of black football players from Los Angeles into this setting that is totally foreign to them.
@twoinanddone To be fair, not all of the words coming out of the Indepndence coach’s mouth begin with F. Just as many of the words he uses begin with the letter M. 
There was another good series shown I think on ESPN with a similar premise but of high school athletes in Chicago.
I’ve watched this since the beginning with S18 (a football player). I liked season 3, not as in depth with the players. It brings up many emotions - annoyance that scholarships are given to such poor students, but then seeing what they are up against, I’m happy to see them given a chance! Breaks my heart to see these kids with a ticket out who then go and blow it. The boy this season who was asked to name 3 positive traits he has - and he couldn’t! Sad…
@twoinanddone I got the feeling Malik was pretty much over football. Dad is trying to live through him. Malik seems like he would be a good coach when he matures - he really does understand the game. Just doesn’t seem to enjoy playing it anymore.
Oh, man, I thought this was going to be some recommendations on great Netflix shows to watch until the season premieres of the new fall shows.
Malik Henry is uncoachable. He has good skills, but won’t be part of a team. FSU puts up with a lot, but the coaches wouldn’t put up with Malik.
I liked the first two seasons so much I now follow FAU football for the players and coaches who transferred. Chad Kelly wasn’t featured, but he went to EMCC for his Last Chance, and now is with the Broncos. We’ll see if he makes it.
I do look at the show as the Last Chance for many of them who have no other options to get even a basic education. If football (or baseball or basketball) is keeping them in college, I’m all for it.
Chad Kelly is related to Jim Kelly, right? I remember in the beginning of the season they mentioned him, but he never got air time. I figured that meant he was a good student and kept out of trouble, so didn’t make much of the final cut! It was interesting how Season 3 kind of skimmed over the coach apparently catching some of the team with drugs (pot, I think?) but never showed it; just some vague references to it in a couple of the later episodes.
Nephew/Uncle. Chad’s father is Jim’s younger brother.
Yes, Chad Kelly is Jim’s nephew. He hasn’t stayed out of trouble, though. I know I’ve seen at least 2 or 3 different instances of news reports out of Buffalo where he’s been in trouble with the police.
It’s probably more likely that Kelly didn’t consent to being on the show, other than in a very limited way. Unlike most of the other players, he did not need extra publicity to get noticed.
Yes Chad went to Clemson, trouble occurred, and he went to Last Chance. I think it was the year before the filming started, but they won the Nat’l Championship with him at quarterback.
Many of the players took advantage and did return to a D1 team after bringing up either academics or athletic discipline or both. I really enjoyed the first two years and looked forward to this season, but just didn’t like it as much.
@tutumom2001 I finished Halt and Catch Fire today. Best two and half weeks binge! Great cast, subject is the 80s start of computers. The last time I was this involved in a series was Friday Night Lights. Not familiar with the show on this thread