BEHOLD THAT HANDSOME REFEREE
The football scene in M*A*S*H is the greatest football scene in any movie: total chaos, cheating, profanity, lots of mashy line play, and confused and excited spectators. There is an angry coach on one side, a blasé one on the other, and a ringer brought in to seal the game under shady circumstances. No one is really sure what is happening at all, but everyone is deeply invested in whatever that thing is-- both financially and emotionally.
So of course the referee is Howard Schenellenberger. Like, the real, gun-toting Howard Schnellenberger, who presumably brought his own pistol to the set without anyone asking him to bring it. He was probably a consultant, too, right down to the part where they asked him how to sneak a hypodermic into the game to inject the opposition's best player with powerful hallucinogens. The ol' Lexington Lasso, they called it. Might not have helped Kentucky win many football games, but it certainly made them entertaining for a young defensive end who one day would be the handsomest man in a Robert Altman film.
(THANK YOU PETE VOLK FOR THIS. And for pointing out that Nick Saban has 30 IMDB credits, and lost to Auburn in excruciating fashion last year. He didn't point that last part out, it's just fun to repeat over and over again until someone cries.)