Corrected entry: In the scene before the last play of the Burbon Bowl, Bobby Boucher is the victim of an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and is injured, requiring medical attention. As a football rule, he would be required to sit out the next play, but he was in to throw the winning touchdown.
Corrected entry: When Bobby rings up Captian Insano, the man with the host in the black suit says, "It's our (old) friend from Jackson's Bayou." When he says that, he's obviously saying that Bobby rings more often. Then how come they start laughing at him if they know him? And Captian Insano must have heard him already on the show, so why did he say he was 11 or 12?
Correction: He may have been a constant caller, but they may have never asked his age before. They only laugh at him when they realize that he is not a child.
Corrected entry: In the short scene where Bobby is standing in front of his class holding a large molecule, the diagram of the molecule can be seen on the blackboard. In part of this diagram a carbon atom 'C' can be seen bonded to five other atoms. As all good chemists know however, carbon can only form four bonds and so this molecule could not possibly exist.
Correction: The carbon/four bonds statement is wrong. CH5 is methanium. That's five hydrogen atoms bonded to one carbon.
This isn't quite accurate. In Methanium, 2 of the hydrogen molecules share 1 electron which means 2 hydrogens share 1 bond so that there's still just 4 bonds. Methanium is CH5+ or CH3 (H2) + not CH5. What is on the board doesn't indicate any shared electrons and couldn't exist. That being said, there could be a number of suggestion as to why this wouldn't be classified as a mistake, but this correction isn't one of them.
Corrected entry: When it shows all the girls around the table, the mascot picks up a bottle of alcohol and drinks from it, even though the bottle cap is obviously still on. (00:25:30)
Correction: Not only is the bottle cap not on, we can see the bottle cap actually on the table. And when the mascot takes a drink, we can see the amount of alcohol in the bottle goes down.
Corrected entry: When the coach goes to Bobby's house to talk about the team with his mom, Bobby's mom goes up to bed and the coach shows the tattoo on his butt. In the top left corner of the doorway you can see a boom mike.
Correction: That's not a boom mike, it's the lanterns on the porch.
Corrected entry: When the Muddogs are playing the Iowa Hawkeyes, just before Bobby blocks the field goal, the offensive lineman on the left doesn't move at all when the center snaps the ball.
Correction: Linemen especially that close to the center are basically pass blocking, meaning they don't necessarily move back, they stand still and whoever comes at them are stopped in place.
Corrected entry: Throughout every game and practice in the movie, Bobby Bouchet is not wearing a mouthpiece. You're suppose to have a mouthpiece in while practicing or playing, for many reasons, such as: teeth protection, concussion prevention, etc. Bobby plays linebacker, if anybody should be wearing a mouthpiece, it's him.
Correction: This is a team that is so under-funded, they are sharing jock-straps and helmets. Since this has been explained and shown on camera, his decision to not wear a mouthpiece would be a character mistake at best.
Corrected entry: When coach Klein is watching the game footage before bobby's interview for waterboy, the opposition intercepts in the game film, runs it and drops it, but then simply picks it up and runs for a touchdown. Klein jokes about how much time he had to pick it up and keep going, but that would be a fumble and the play would be at that moment be dead.
Correction: A play is not over when someone fumbles the ball, unless the ball is fumbled out of bounds. If someone fumbled the ball and nobody ever picked it up, but the ball remained in bounds, the play would never end.
Corrected entry: The kid who plays the water boy in flashbacks changes. In the flashback to when he was a kid getting ready to hit the player with the spoon, it is a long brown haired kid with bushy eyebrows. But when he has the flashback about girls and how momma thinks they are the devil, it is a shorter haired kid with larger eyes. They seem to be about the same age.
Correction: He could have had a haircut for his hair and when he has the spoon in his hand his eyes are screwed up in anger, so the eyes cannot be compared. No time was explained during the flashbacks.
Corrected entry: When Bobby tells Mama he needs to read these books to play football, she automatically finds out the books are for a big exam. How did she know it was a big exam?
Corrected entry: In the final game, the opposing team's coach sends in his best defensive player, "Meanie", to try and pound the ball at the Waterboy. However when Meanie runs out onto the field, the offense has already broken the huddle and lined up. This would be a penalty for an illegal substitution in college football. However no penalty is called and Meanie runs out way after the huddle is broken making this penalty entirely too obvious to miss.
Correction: Nothing in a football game is too obvious to miss. Remember the referee who made the wrong call on an overtime coin toss?
Corrected entry: Bobby's shoulder-pads alternate between being very high in close-ups and normal when he is on the field.
Corrected entry: After Coach Klein hires Bobby to be the waterboy for the Muddogs, he never tells Bobby what time practice is, but Bobby shows up on time anyway.
Corrected entry: When Henry Winkler is describing the play to Bobby when they first meet, he says that he makes the players move left. However, when he draws this on the chalk board, he moves the O's(O's represent offense, X's represent defense) to his left, which would be their right.
Correction: As the ongoing description of the play illustrates, Henry Winkler's character was on the verge of insanity. It's perfectly understandable that he would forget left from right.
Corrected entry: When Bobby is asking coach Klein for a job, if you look at the board you will see the game play. There are 12 players on the board for offense, when only 11 can be on the field. (00:13:10 - 00:16:15)
Correction: Coach Klein is obviously in serious mental decline. A mistake like this does not seem out of the ordinary for him.
Corrected entry: After Bobby passes his equivalency exam, he says to Vicky "we better get going, I told Coach Klein I would drive to the game with them". The game however, doesn't take place until the next day, as we can see Bobby spends the night in the hospital with his mom then plays the next morning.
Correction: 1) Bobby doesn't find out about his momma until after he leaves the school, so at that point this was the plan. 2) He is most likely referring to riding with the coach to the town where the game takes place, as many teams arrive the night before for big games such as a championship. 3) Bobby "drives" a riding lawnmower, perhaps an inside joke as to how long it will take him to "drive" there.
Corrected entry: When Bobby, Vicky, and Mama are at the barbeque, Mama takes a drink of her juice or whatever it is. But when you see her put the drink back down on the table it is at the same level as it was, when she picked it up.
Corrected entry: When Bobby is studying for his exam, his mom finds out he is playing football and going to school. She says he will fail the exam but Bobby never told her about the exam.
Corrected entry: During the Bourbon Bowl, "Meaney" carries the ball on offense but he is wearing 72. It is illegal for 50-79 to touch the ball on offense. Those numbers are reserved for lineman only.
Correction: It is legal if the player checks in as a legal receiver before the play. Mike Vrable, NE Patriots 50, has 8 offensive touchdowns in the NFL.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Adam Sandler's getting fired by Jerry Reed, the football players dump the orange water container on him, and he falls to the ground with it. The shot cuts to Jerry Reed, then back to Adam, but the bright orange water container is gone.
Correction: We see a quick shot of Adam taking off the container when Jerry is talking to him.
Correction: The sit out rule wasn't enacted in college football until around 2013. The Waterboy was released in 1998.