How do the fans in Odessa impact the players of the Permian football team?

Football serves as a metaphor for the way people live their lives and for what they value. Consequently, they put immense pressure, adoration, and wrath upon these young boys, depending on how they perform. The players feel this pressure. They are only teenagers so the attention is cause for much identity confusion and anxiety. They must live up to an illusion that validates the lives of the townspeople. Eventually this just leads to suffering and tragedy.