NSAC 2026 | Team NFL

Story

For the National Student Advertising Competition, our whole class spent two semesters on one campaign: Team NFL, about bringing kids back together when it’s easy for them to feel alone. We needed teenagers from all kinds of backgrounds on camera and had no budget to pay them. A contact at one high school got us to its theater teacher, who knew teachers at a couple of other schools, and each of them asked their acting class who wanted to be in a BYU project. I led the charge from there, calling in favors, getting releases signed and getting parents to drive their kids over. Some of them missed class to be there. They only told us after.

I workshopped all of the original scripts, picked the copywriter I wanted on the manifesto and worked with two other people to make the TV spots. I had a big say in the vibe of the manifesto, and I oversaw every revision going back and forth, talking with each of the creatives about what I felt fit the brief.

Team NFL was about showing that the NFL and Play 60 are built for everybody. They want to say that, and we wanted to show it, so I wanted the cast to show it too. We could have put out a generic casting call and taken whoever came. Instead we spent weeks finding the right kids, because if you think of football, you probably picture white people tailgating in Milwaukee, and the next generation of fans is more than that. Most of the kids who came out were girls, which was awesome.

Then I ran the final production for all the TV spots, from figuring out who would shoot which piece to making sure everyone was taken care of. The kids showed up with a ton of energy.

After the shoot I helped oversee the edits and the redos, as the liaison between the strategy team and the creative team.

On set we had kids from different schools play a mock game of NFL Flag together. One of them told us afterward, “I’ve never gotten to be part of a team, but today I got to lead one and make new friends along the way.”