Necessary Roughness came on the heels of the baseball film "Major League" and follows the same script formula of a group of misfits overcoming all odds and winning the big game. Due to NCAA sanctions, the Texas State University Fightin' Armadillos must form a football team from their actual student body, with no scholarships to help, to play their football schedule. With fewer players than most teams, the makeshift team must overcome obstacles that the best teams in the country couldn't deal with. Using a 34 year old quarterback, a female placekicker and a gang of misfits, Ed "Straight Arrow" Genero (Hector Elizondo) must take his team to play the number one Texas Colts.

Scott Bakula plays Paul Blake...once a top recruited high school QB who never played college football is brought into lead the team who must play both offense and defense because they don't have enough players. Sinbad plays Andre, a teacher at the college who also joins the team along with Jarvis (Jason Bateman) and a female kicker named Lucy (Kathy Ireland).

The Armadillos go out and get massacred in every game they play, much to the delight of the Dean (Larry Miller) who is no fan of athletics and wants to see the team fail. At the end of the year they find themsevles having to face their state rivals and #1 ranked Texas Colts...the stereotypical team of bad guys you always find in movies like this. Well you can probably guess who wins the game in the end.

Movies like this never come as a surprise. You always know what's going to happen in the end and the joy is the ride getting there. The team is suitably horrible with wide receivers who can't catch, and lineman who can't block and a coach who grows more frustrated with each practice.

Sinbad is always fun to see and brings his usual charm and infectious smile to his role and Bakula does a fine job as the team's "old man" QB leading a team of mostly young kids. There's a pretty funny sequence where the coach brings in a group of convicts to scrimmage his team. The Convicts are made up of former NFL greats Dick Butkus, Ben Davidson, Tony Dorsett, Jim Kelly, Randy White, and Herschel Walker.

Rob Schneider has a bit part as the Amadillos radio and PA announcer and ESPN's Chris Berman has a cameo. This is actually one of the better movies of its type and a good diversion for a few laughs.

This movie is awesome!! I never get sick of it. If you've ever played sports or been on sports teams before, you'll really appreciate the humor in this movie.

Coach Riggendorf is hilarious! (especially his halftime speech). The interactions between Coach Riggendorf and Coach Geniero crack me up. They have the funniest bunch of characters on their team (the fictitious Texas State Armadillos) including Andre Krimm (Sinbad), Manu-Manu the Slender, Samurai, Sgt. Wilkerson, McKenzie, the Twins, Paul Blake, Jason Bateman, Featherstone (a.k.a. Stonehands), Popkey, Charlie Banks, Lucy (Kathy Ireland), etc. Rob Schneider is the announcer for the football games in this movie and he is hilarious!! Some of his lines are classic!

Paul Blake (Scott Bakula) plays a former high school football star quarterback who never got the chance to play college football because he had to run the family farm. Coach Riggendorf goes out and recruits Blake to come back from "retirement" and join the team. After some convincing, Blake decides to come back and play quarterback for the Armadillos. They end up having a rough season and lose pretty much every game. The final game of the season arrives and they have to take on the #1 team in the state of Texas. No one expects them to win, but they pull out the improbable victory at the end of the game. This is a hilarious movie that will keep you in stiches throughout!

I saw this movie on some random cable network one day when I was sick in bed. I couldn't stop laughing. The story is of course lame, but it's a comedy so that can be forgiven. Robert Loggia's halftime speech in the final game is halarious. The list of b-list actors will keep you laughing. Go 'dillos!

There are a number of films about the underdogs of the world. Most of them are comedies. Necessary Roughness is one of them. It's about how Texas State University lost its championship status due to cheating, steroids, pay-offs, etc. Therefore, the entire team was expelled from TSU. The new recruits had to be from the actual student-body. As coach Riggendorf (Robert Loggia) said, "Mass suicide!" The team is made up of a bunch of misfits and way-out individual characters. The president of TSU (Fred Dalton Thomson) wanted Ed "Straight-Arrow" Gennero (Hector Elindonzo) to lead the new team. But there's a catch. The dean (Larry Miller) will insist on applying strict rules; ie: "No pass, no play." (Referring to their grade-point-average) So a number of students try out for the team. A fair batch made it too. But since most of the players didn't make the grade, they were kicked of the team by the dean. That forced them to play what is called "ironman football"; where the team plays both offensive and defensive. Not an easy feat.
Also, they needed a really good quarterback. So Coach Rigg enlisted Paul Blake (Scott Bakula), who was the best in high-school. Sadly, he had to give it up when his father passed away, to take over the family farm.
The TSU Armadillos begin some serious football playing against the other universities/colleges of their area. But with some hilarious commentary from Chuck Niederman (Rob Schneider) in the pressbooth.
They even manage to get a football player/science professor to join (Sinbad); as well as Lucy to be the place-kicker (Kathy Ireland).
All they want to achieve in football life is to win at least one game. Blake wants his fellow teammates to feel what he did in high school - just even that once.
I find the movie amusing and even downright funny. The cast of characters are a hoot.

If you're a fan of football,whether it's high school,college, NFL,two of the three,or all three,this film is for you. Scott Bakula,at the time of production,the star of TV's Quantum Leap,stars as one of the players for the college football team seen in this film. Many other cast members aren't well-known,those being Hector Elizondo as one of the coaches,Robert Loggia as one of the other coaches,Kathy Ireland as the team's first and only female player and Harley Jane Kozak who's Bakula's love interest. Comedian Sinbad appears in the film also as another player. In the last scene of the film,the team,as usual defeats their opponent team. Cool film!