USA Academy announces first-ever schedule

The new USA Academy announced its first-ever schedule via Twitter on Thursday. (CONTRIBUTED)

By GRAHAM DUNN

Ultimate Student Academy has announced its schedule for its initial year of prep football.

The new school founded by Dusty DeVaughn is scheduled to open this fall.

The schedule was announced on Twitter, game-by-game.

Coach Rush Propst stated that the team would use other facilities in the River Region and arranged to work around other high school games for various reasons, the main one being the school will not have a home stadium for the first season.

“It would be nice to play Cramton Bowl,” Propst said regarding the season opener against Riverside Academy from Canada. “I think there are games there the night before, to be honest with you, on the 21st. That would be a perfect time to play it there if we could.

“If not, at Faulkner or wherever, but we’ve got several options. The key to this thing, guys, is to go forward, walk very softly, spread some goodwill and make people understand we’re not here to disrupt their program.”

USA Academy will play six “home games” and three on the road including a trip to New Jersey to face St. Peter’s Prep. The season finale is scheduled to be against IMG Academy.

Several of the games are scheduled for Saturday.

“We’re not here to disrupt the high school Friday night deal,” Propst said. “Dusty and I both talked about this, we’re not going to play on Friday night. I’m not going to disrupt fan bases and pull away from those schools. I’m just not. I’ve got too much of the public school in me to do that. We’ll play on Saturdays when Alabama and Auburn are either away or we’ll dodge their times and we’ll play a lot of Thursday games.

“That way, people can come and watch us and maybe catch us on an 11 a.m. Saturday morning or 12 o’clock Saturday when Alabama is kicking off at 2:30 or later and Auburn is playing later. We’ll dodge that kind of stuff and we’ll be conscience of Troy and really, to be honest, conscience of UAB and South Alabama, but that’s hard to juggle.”

USA Academy 2020 schedule

Aug. 22: Riverside Academy (Canada)

Aug. 29: Clearwater Academy (Fla.)

Sept. 4: Our Lady of Good Counsel (Md.)

Sept. 11: @ St. Peter’s Prep (NJ)

Sept. 19: Deerfield Beach (Fla.)

Sept. 25: Open

Oct. 3: @St. John’s (D.C.)

Oct. 10 Life Christian (Va.) 

Oct. 16: @ St. Frances (Md.)

Oct. 23: Trinity Christian (Fla.)

Nov. 6: IMG Academy (Fla.)

Home game times and locations have yet to be determined