More than a year ago, at something like 3 in the morning London time, U.K.-based filmmaker Katharine English hopped on a conference call and tried to convince 20 or so dudes from across the pond to trust her. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know a lot about American football when I started,” English tells The Ringer, speaking about Untold: Swamp Kings, a new four-part Netflix miniseries about the late-aughts Florida Gators in all their infamously unholy—and wholly American—glory.
In the span of five seasons, beginning in 2005, the Gainesville football team hired a brash, bonkers new head coach in Urban Meyer, alighted on a blessed quarterback in Tim Tebow, and won two championships and missed out on a couldashouldawoulda third. And it also made—and sought to bury—headlines about players’ dalliances, iniquities, and straight-up arrests. Untold: Swamp Kings, which airs this Tuesday, indulges in the stories of this disparate group of talented once-youngsters who share the uncommon (and frequently uncomfortable) experience of being united (and torn asunder) by gridiron greatness (and greed) in a very particular place and time.
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