There are shows that make you wonder who approved the premise, and then there is Chad Powers. The entire idea sounds like a joke that should have lasted ten minutes: disgraced quarterback Russ Holliday puts on ridiculous prosthetics, changes his voice, invents a new identity, and sneaks back into college football as a completely different person.
Somehow, it works.
And after watching the Chad Powers Season 2 trailer, I’m even more convinced that the series understands exactly what makes its central gag entertaining. It isn’t simply Glen Powell running around in terrible hair and fake facial prosthetics. The fun comes from watching Russ desperately maintain a lie that gets harder to control every time he wins a football game.
Season 2 appears ready to push that problem much further.
The new trailer gives us bigger football sequences, a much more complicated relationship between Russ and Ricky, suspicious teammates and coaches, and plenty of opportunities for Chad’s disguise to become the worst special effect on television.
The six-episode season is scheduled to arrive on Hulu and Disney+ on September 3, 2026, making this one of those releases that practically begs for a late-night binge.
And honestly, I can’t think of a better way to watch it.
Where Season 1 Left Russ Holliday
Before getting into the new trailer, it helps to remember just how ridiculous Russ’s situation has become.
Russ Holliday used to be a major college football star. His talent wasn’t the problem. His personality was.
A combination of arrogance, reckless behavior, and a spectacular public collapse effectively destroyed his football career. Years later, he decides that the only way back is to become somebody else.
Enter Chad Powers.
Russ disguises himself with heavy prosthetics, a wig, facial hair, a fake backstory, and an exaggerated Southern accent. He then walks onto the struggling South Georgia Catfish roster and somehow becomes exactly what the team needs.
The funniest part is that Chad isn’t simply Russ with a costume on.
Russ starts discovering that people actually like Chad.
That becomes a surprisingly interesting part of the show’s first season. Russ spent years believing that his natural personality was inseparable from his success. Chad gives him the chance to experience attention without being the same obnoxious quarterback everyone remembers.
But the secret couldn’t stay buried forever.
Ricky, the team’s sharp and increasingly important assistant coach, eventually figures out who Chad really is. She also happens to be Coach Jake Hudson’s daughter, which makes the situation considerably more dangerous.
Season 1 ends with neither side willing to expose the other.
Season 2 picks up that mess and makes it even worse.
Ricky Isn’t Exposing Chad — She’s Protecting Him
This is easily my favorite development in the new trailer.
I expected Ricky to spend the second season holding Russ’s secret over his head. Instead, the trailer suggests something much more interesting: Ricky has become his reluctant partner in the deception.
That doesn’t mean she suddenly approves of everything Russ has done.
Quite the opposite.
She understands exactly how disastrous the truth would be.
If Russ’s identity becomes public, the scandal wouldn’t stop with Chad. The South Georgia Catfish could be dragged into the mess, Coach Hudson’s reputation could collapse, and Ricky’s own coaching ambitions could be damaged before they even get started.
That’s why one of the trailer’s key ideas revolves around avoiding what Ricky calls the “worst scandal in sports history.”
It’s an absurdly dramatic description, which is precisely why it fits this show.
What makes the relationship more compelling is that Ricky now has something to lose personally. She’s not just protecting Russ because she cares about him. She’s protecting her family, her career, and the football program.
That gives their relationship actual tension underneath the comedy.
Russ Is Starting to Lose Track of Who He Is
There’s one line from the trailer that immediately stuck with me:
“I am a man living inside the big skin of another man. It is a weird situation.”
That might be the dumbest sentence in the trailer.
It might also be one of the most revealing.
Russ has spent so long pretending to be Chad that the distinction between the two personalities is becoming increasingly unstable. Season 1 established the idea that Russ could be a better person through Chad. Season 2 seems ready to ask a slightly nastier question:
What happens when Russ starts enjoying the Chad identity too much?
That’s where Glen Powell should have plenty of fun.
He gets to play Russ, Chad, and the increasingly bizarre space between them. The trailer already shows Chad behaving like a completely different human being depending on which part of his double life he’s dealing with.
And the physical comedy is back in full force.
We get:
- Chad taking some brutal hits on the football field.
- Fraternity-house chaos and fistfights.
- His prosthetics causing problems during sweaty scenes.
- Danny scrambling to repair the disguise.
- Russ looking increasingly exhausted by the effort required to keep Chad alive.
The makeup gag could easily become repetitive, but the trailer seems to understand that the disguise itself should become a source of genuine tension.
Every close-up of Chad’s face now carries a tiny bit of suspense.
Is the fake face going to survive this scene?
That is not a question I expected a football comedy to make me ask.
Coach Hudson Is Finally Getting Suspicious
Steve Zahn’s Coach Jake Hudson remains one of the biggest reasons the show works.
He’s not an idiot. He’s just constantly surrounded by situations so ridiculous that his brain seems unable to process them quickly enough.
The Season 2 trailer suggests his suspicions are finally catching up with him.
Chad keeps performing like an elite quarterback on Saturdays, but during the rest of the week, his behavior becomes increasingly difficult to explain.
He’s weird around basic questions. His stories don’t always make sense. His social behavior is completely unpredictable. And Hudson is starting to notice.
The interesting part is that Coach Hudson doesn’t necessarily seem ready to believe that Chad is actually Russ Holliday.
He just knows something isn’t right.
That could create one of the season’s best running storylines.
The Problem With Chad’s Fake Identity
| Problem | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Chad’s football success | More attention means more scrutiny |
| His fake background | Basic questions could expose contradictions |
| Ricky knows the truth | She has to protect both Russ and herself |
| Coach Hudson is suspicious | His investigation could reach Russ |
| The prosthetics are unreliable | One bad moment could expose everything |
| National attention | A bigger football stage means fewer places to hide |
The irony is fantastic. Russ needed to become a superstar again.
Now becoming a superstar might be exactly what destroys him.
The Russ and Ricky Romance Gets More Interesting
I’m not going to pretend the romance was the main reason I watched Chad Powers. It wasn’t.
But I also can’t deny that Russ and Ricky have become one of the more interesting relationships in the series.
Their situation is inherently messy. Ricky knows the real man underneath the Chad disguise, while almost everyone else is falling for the fake version of him.
That creates an intimacy that Russ can’t really find anywhere else.
The trailer pushes that idea with a quieter moment where Russ essentially tells Ricky that she has protected him repeatedly and that he’s ready to return the favor.
That matters because Russ’s biggest weakness has always been his selfishness.
He wants to win. He wants attention. He wants his old career back.
But Season 2 appears to be giving him something else to fight for.
Ricky and Danny now have something to lose because of him.
That’s a much better motivation than simply wanting another shot at football.
If the writers handle it properly, the romance doesn’t need to become a full-blown melodrama. The awkwardness of two people maintaining an enormous secret together is already enough.
Danny Could Be the Secret Weapon
Frankie A. Rodriguez’s Danny Cruz remains one of the most useful characters in the whole setup.
Russ needs somebody who understands how ridiculous the Chad situation is, and Danny is that person.
He’s also the guy who gets stuck dealing with the practical disasters.
Prosthetic coming loose?
Danny.
Chad doing something stupid?
Danny.
Russ spiraling over his identity?
Probably Danny.
The trailer suggests that Danny remains heavily involved in keeping the disguise functioning, which could make him even more important as Russ’s double life becomes harder to maintain.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Danny ends up knowing more than almost anyone else by the middle of the season.
Season 2 Looks Bigger Without Losing the Stupidity
This is probably where the trailer impressed me most.
The football scenes look noticeably more ambitious.
The series has benefited from the involvement of Eli and Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, and the new footage leans harder into authentic college football presentation. Large stadium crowds, physical tackles, sideline drama and recognizable football environments make the comedy work better because the surrounding world feels legitimate.
That contrast is the secret sauce.
The show can spend one minute selling a serious football moment and then cut to a man with a ridiculous mustache desperately trying to keep his fake face attached.
That’s the tone Chad Powers needs.
The football shouldn’t feel like a parody every second. The more seriously the game itself is treated, the funnier Chad becomes.
Where to Watch Chad Powers Season 2: Stream Full Episodes Online (US Guide)
What I Think the Trailer Is Really Setting Up
The biggest question isn’t whether somebody will discover Chad’s identity.
Eventually, somebody probably will.
The real question is how many people will know before Russ realizes that the secret is already out of control.
There are too many pressure points now.
Ricky knows.
Danny knows.
Coach Hudson is becoming suspicious.
The team is getting more attention.
Chad is becoming a bigger star.
And Russ is increasingly comfortable being Chad.
That last part could be the most dangerous.
If Russ genuinely prefers being Chad, then exposing the truth doesn’t just mean losing a football career. It could mean losing the identity in which he finally feels accepted.
That’s a much more interesting conflict than I expected from a show that started with a fake quarterback disguise.
My Season 2 Expectations
I’m cautiously optimistic.
The first season worked because it never took its ridiculous premise too seriously while still giving Russ an actual character arc. The danger with Season 2 is that the show could simply repeat the same jokes: Chad almost gets exposed, Chad does something stupid, Russ escapes, repeat.
The trailer gives me enough reason to think the writers are aiming for something more complicated.
The Ricky alliance changes the structure. Coach Hudson’s growing suspicion adds another ticking clock. And the fact that Chad is becoming increasingly successful creates a problem that Russ can’t simply run away from.
Personally, I’m most interested in seeing what happens when Russ starts realizing that being Chad might be easier than being Russ.
That could give Glen Powell some surprisingly emotional material beneath all the prosthetic jokes and football chaos.
For now, the setup looks exactly as ridiculous as it should.
The South Georgia Catfish are chasing a College Football Playoff dream. Russ Holliday is pretending to be a fictional person. Ricky is helping him keep the secret alive. Coach Hudson is starting to smell something strange. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, Chad Powers is becoming one of the most recognizable quarterbacks in college football.
Which is, obviously, the worst possible outcome for a man who is supposed to be anonymous.
Chad Powers Season 2 premieres September 3, 2026, with all six episodes releasing at once on Hulu and Disney+.
If the trailer is any indication, Chad’s biggest season might also be the season when his entire fake life finally starts falling apart.
And honestly, that’s exactly what I want to see.
