Necessary Roughness (1991) is a comedy starring Scott Bakula and Sinbad. The film was directed by Stan Dragoti who has also directed the movies Mr. Mom, She's Out of Control, and The Man With One Red Shoe. In addition to Bakula and Sinbad, Necessary Roughness has an additional cast of Hector Elizondo, Robert Loggia, Larry Miller, and Harley Jane Kozak. Appearances are also made in the film by Kathy Ireland, Rob Schneider, and Fred Dalton Thompson.

The film touches on an up and coming season at the fictional higher learning institution of Texas State University and its football team nicknamed the Fightin' Armadillos. (At the time the film was made, there was no Texas State University, but in 2003, Southwest Texas State University changed its name to Texas State University-San Marcos, nicknamed the Bobcats, which coincidentally was one of the teams that played against the Armadillos.) They are starting the season with a host of new coaches and players after the previous staff and players were removed after a scandal in the program.

The film was released in September 1991 and went on to gross over $20 million at the box office. During one scene, when the team takes part in a scrimmage game with a team of convicts, cameos are made by several NFL players. These players included Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Earl Campbell, Dick Butkus, Ben Davidson, Tony Dorsett, Ed 'Too Tall' Jones, Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly, and Randy White. The film also has some cameo appearances from Chris Berman and Evander Holyfield.

The film was shot at various locations in Texas. Azle, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Denton were the primary locations used for filming. The University of North Texas in Denton was a major location for filming football and college scenes. Texas State's green and white uniforms in the movie are the exact same colors worn by North Texas.

Due to NCAA sanctions, the Texas State University Fightin' Armadillos must form a football team from their actual student body, with no scholarships to help, to play their football schedule. With fewer players than most teams, the makeshift team must overcome obstacles that the best teams in the country couldn't deal with. Using a 34 year old quarterback, a female placekicker and a gang of misfits, Ed "Straight Arrow" Genero must take his team to play the number one Texas Colts. Written by Kevin

Paul Blake is a 34-year-old farmer who was once a star high-school football player, one of the best quarterbacks in Texas. Paul was forced to drop out of sight when his father died, leaving Paul with the family farm to run. Now, after a 16-year absence, he's lured back to football by his former coach, Wally "Rig" Riggendorf. Rig has recently been hired as assistant coach to head coach Ed Gennero, who has been hired by Texas State University to turn around the Texas State Armadillos -- a team that was placed on probation for corruption, and university president Carver Purcell wants results as soon as possible. The team that Gennero and Rig assemble includes a military fanatic who admires General Schwarzkopf, a physics instructor, a swift martial-arts champ named Eric "Samorai" Hansen, Andre Krimm, and a female kicker named Lucy Draper. On the field, Paul does his best to get himself back into shape, while he has to overcome the awkwardness he feels about attending college classes at his age. And Paul finds himself attracted to journalism professor Suzanne Carter. Paul, Gennero, also have to deal with Dean Phillip Elias, who wants to scrap the university's football program, and the Armadillos are out to beat the almost impossible odds of winning at least one game this season. Written by Todd Baldridge