Friday Night Lights stars, clockwise from left, Scott Porter as Jason Street, Minka Kelly as Lyla Garrity, Gaius Charles as Brian "Smash" Williams, Zach Gilford as Matt Saracen, Jesse Plemons as Landry Clarke, Aimee Teegarden as Julie Taylor, Adrianne Palicki as Tyra Collette, and Taylor Kitsch as Tim Riggins.

NBC . / Michael Muller

Repeat after me: It’s not just about football, it’s not just about football, it’s not just . . .

Well, you get the idea.

In a conference call with TV reporters last week, stars and producers of NBC’s new drama Friday Night Lights, which debuts tomorrow at 8 p.m. (Ch. 7 and 10), took pains to emphasize that the show goes beyond tackles and touchdowns.

Yes, the show centers around the high school football team in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas, where football is an obsession. Yes, the first episode includes some bone-jarring football action.

“We’re not going to have a football game every week,” said executive producer Peter Berg. “Although you will see football, this is a character-driven show, not a football-driven show.

Brian Grazer, another of the show’s producers, said, “This is a show about boys and girls, about Texas culture, and thirdly a show about football . . . the stakes are so high. The whole identity of the town is wrapped up in the football team, so we see how if affects multiple lives — townspeople, athletes, the coaches.”

Friday Night Lights began as a book by H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger about the 1988 season of a real high school football team in Odessa, Texas. In 2004, it was turned into a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton and directed by Berg. And now it’s back as a TV show, with the action moved from the ’80s to the present.

“After the movie came out, there was still a lot left on the table,” Berg said. “There were issues we just didn’t get a chance to deal with in a two-hour movie — race, grade manipulation. A TV show will give us a chance to do what we couldn’t do in the movie, in a very fair way.”

Berg pointed out that sports is an area of American life where people of different races, classes and religions are brought together. Combine that with the enormous expectations that the townspeople of Dillon, Texas, place on their football team, and there is plenty of material for drama.

Filmed in and around Austin, Texas, Friday Night Lights stars Kyle Chandler as the new coach of the Dillon Panthers. Connie Britton, reprising her role from the movie, plays his independent-minded wife.

“The relationship between Kyle and Connie provides the emotional engine of the show,” said Grazer.

For the football players, Friday Night Lights cast a group of appealing unknowns. Scott Porter plays Jason Street, the hero quarterback ready to lead the team to a coveted state championship, Tim Riggins is Taylor Kitsch, the rebellious running back, and Zach Gilford is Matt Saracen, the quiet second-stringer unexpectedly thrust into a leadership role.

Berg said he wanted to cast fresh faces in the show — and there may be more to come.

“I don’t want 35-year-old actors playing high school juniors in their twelfth season,” he said. “But we’ll cross that bridge if we’re lucky enough to get that far.”

While Friday Night Lights producers want the show to appeal to more than just football fans, they are also aware that the football itself has to look right.

“Several [real] football coaches have cameos in the pilot,” said Berg. “It was pretty obvious to us that if we don’t do it right, we will find out about it very quickly.” One of the coaches in the pilot is Mack Brown, head coach of the University of Texas Longhorns, who plays an over-zealous booster — someone he’s undoubtedly run into in the real world.

“We’re not out to solicit players or coaches to do cameos, but this was too good to pass up,” Berg said. “It was a joy to watch.”

To film the football action, Friday Night Lights has created “teams” comprised of former high school and collegiate players, and the action is fast and furious. For the pilot, the high school field in Pflugerville, Texas, served as the show’s home field. Now that football season has begun, Friday Night Lights has refurbished an old stadium near Austin’s airport.

“Coaches who watch us practice immediately announce that we could win a state championship,” Berg said. “I thought about trying to sneak into the system, but it wouldn’t be fair.”

Chandler said he talked to a number of high school coaches in preparing for his role, and tried to absorb their mixture of toughness and tenderness with their teams.

“One of the things I got was that their love for the kids is pretty much boundless,” he said.