The critically acclaimed football-based show “Friday Night Lights” will kick off its third season tonight on NBC.

Although the third season already came to an end after exclusively airing on DirecTV’s channel 101 over the past few months, the show will also open its third season tonight on NBC due to a cost-sharing deal between NBC and the subscription satellite TV service.

”This was an arrangement made in the eleventh hour for one season,” said show runner Jason Katims, whose program averaged a lowly 6.2 million viewers in its second season on NBC. “This was an experiment. There really hasn't been any specific discussions about going further . . . But if our numbers are solid, and stay somewhere within the range of where we were with previous seasons, then I think we'll be fine.”

While the show, which centers on a community that lives through football, seen through the team’s coach and his wife’s perspective, has been earning respectable numbers for the satellite provider, with an average of 650,000 total viewers per episode, those numbers pale in comparison with the 6.2 million NBC earned each week for season two, which was low enough for the network to nearly pull the plug on the show.

Written by Jason Katims, the series executive producer and head writer, tonight's opener finds guidance counselor Tami Taylor (Connie Britton) frustrated by her school's sudden lack of funds for education programs, even though its football program seems awash in cash. Bad-girl-turned-good Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) is told that, despite her efforts to catch up, she's not bright enough and doesn't have the grades to apply for college. And football star "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles) is plagued by self-doubts about his comeback from a blown knee, as his friends, coaches and fellow players pile on the pressure.