Although Kyle Chandler plays a high school football coach, he insists his series "Friday Night Lights" is more than a gridiron drama.

"Football is the backdrop, and sports is a perfect ground for storytelling, but it is not just a show about football," he says of the program, which follows the fate of a big-time high school football team in small-town Texas.

Chandler, who portrays coach Eric Taylor, says the show's appeal is "in the storytelling, the moments between the lines of the material" that are reflective of real life.

"People tell me they've lived those moments," Chandler says.

Connie Britton, who plays Eric's wife, Tami, agrees.

Britton, who also appeared in the theatrical film that inspired the series, says she has no interest in football.

"When we shot the (movie) football sequences, I said, 'Tell me where to look, and am I happy or sad?' " she says. "I am not a person who loves football. But I like our show, and I look forward to the football scenes, when I do get emotional."

She cites the drama's portrayal of "the high level of impact that such a strong passion has on a community. It has more to do with people coming together for a common goal. With small-town life, if you can paint a good picture of it, you reach a broad spectrum of people."

For the fictitious town of Dillon, the Panthers' weekly games are bright spots, with residents freely second-guessing the young head coach and longing for the glory of a state championship.

But off the football field, bittersweet slices of life reveal the everyday events, secrets and personalities of the players, their families and friends. The coach and his wife, a guidance counselor at the school, display the lively give and take of a comfortably married couple, sometimes clashing over petty issues or major choices. The team's paralyzed former quarterback, his cheerleader girlfriend and a player who experiments with steroids are among the other characters who come into focus via interwoven plot lines.

The series, which has garnered critical praise and awards while barely cracking the prime-time Top 100 last season, moves from Wednesdays to Fridays — more appropriate, perhaps, given that the center of the show's action takes place on Friday nights. But Chandler says he has mixed feelings about the show's new time slot.

"I know it's finally on on Friday nights, but that's also when a lot of the audience might be out at their own high school football games," he says.

Still, Chandler says, he hopes the new time slot will generate more attention for the program. The series wrapped last season with several story lines dangling, including the coach's decision to join a university team in another city and the unexpected pregnancy of his wife, who has decided she'll stay in Dillon with the baby and their teenage daughter, enduring a commuter marriage.

Britton and Chandler say they enjoy the show's production style, which is an unusual form for a TV series. Filmed in Austin, the program is shot like a documentary, with multiple cameras simultaneously recording different angles of the same scenes.

"It's a very intimate way of shooting, making the audience feel you are right there," Britton says. "We don't rehearse. We may do a bunch of takes, but it saves time. We don't have a sound stage or a studio. We go into a real neighborhood, an actual house" that was purchased for the show.

Chandler says the style of shooting allows the actors to be more creative, "but you also know there is the responsibility to take it almost anywhere. You have to be open for the director to say, 'Do a backflip,' and you do it."