The Friday Night Lights flip back on

There are no multicamera national television broadcasts. The field will be used by a soccer team in the winter, and the track that wraps around it will be walked by freshman in their first year of physical education. It will keep local newspapers afloat and will be a topic of conversation among high school classmates until the end of their lives.

High school football doesn’t come with the dazzle of the pros or the raucous crows of the college game, but it leaves a lasting impact on communities across the country. There are more than 1 million high school football players in a given year, and both universities and the NFL typically avoid Friday night games, when regular viewers are sitting in the bleachers instead of at their TV sets.