George Clooney claimed that he had rewritten all but two scenes and had asked the WGA for credit. When they denied his request, he removed himself as a voting member and changed his status to "Financial Core Member."
Carter Rutherford is loosely based on the real life football star Harold 'Red' Grange. His agent in the movie, C.C. Frazier, is based on his real life agent C.C. Pyle.
The building that Dodge arrives at on his motorcycle just before meeting Lexi for the first time is the Poinsett Hotel located in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. The Poinsett Hotel was built in 1924, but it didn't actually open until June of 1925.
Early in the film as the actors are walking across a street, a 1928-29 Ford Model A drives by. The film takes place in 1925, therefore it should have been a Model T like the rest of the cars used.
Lexie reports that Duluth has beaten a woeful Pottsville team. However, the 1925 Pottsville Maroons only lost two games that season, to Frankford and Providence, on their way to beating Chicago in the League Championship. Nonetheless, the movie is a fictional story, as this movie is a fiction and need not adhere to historical match records.