Yeah, I've read the book too (twice, actually) and they mostly stick to what's in the book, but they do change a few things up, too, throughout the movie from how everything really went down in real life. The one that bothers me the most is that in the game against Dallas Carter, in addition to 1. the location change, 2. weather, and 3. making it the championship game instead of the semi, they also TOTALLY changed the way that the game played out.
In the movie, Permian is portrayed as basically being very intimidated by the Carter team and they get manhandled for almost the whole first half. In reality, Permian was definitely on the same level as Carter--and Permian actually scored first in the game, so they were competitive from the get-go, they weren't getting physically dominated like you see in the movie. They were not out there just hoping to somehow keep it close, which is how the movie basically makes it seem.
I did not like the way they handled that aspect at all. I don't think there was any need for that change. I guess they thought it would be more dramatic or captivating to have them mount a comeback after getting off to an embarrassing start, but they could have made it just as compelling by making it a competitive, back-and-forth type game, which would be more reflective of what actually happened. They could add in more scoring than there was in the real-life game to keep audiences interested, but actually make it an evenly matched game from the start. This would achieve their goal of a compelling, intense final game, but also be more true to the type of game that it actually was in actuality.
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