IMG Academy to have two varsity football teams this fall

When close to 100 football players showed up for fall practices at IMG Academy last year, it signaled the time had come for the Ascenders to do something unique among high school programs in the country.

As a result, IMG Academy will field two varsity football teams starting this year, the Herald has learned.

“With the rapid growth of the football program over the past several years, we needed to create more playing and development opportunities for our student-athletes,” IMG Academy (White) head football coach Ken Stills said in a statement released by IMG Academy. “Having multiple varsity teams is something IMG Academy has done with (other) team sports for years.”

IMG Academy’s teams, the Blue and the White, will play separate varsity schedules on Friday or Saturday nights this fall.

“Every kid gets that experience, that preparation experience, that Friday Night Lights experience,” IMG Academy (Blue) head coach Kevin Wright said in a phone interview. “And you can’t just get that in a JV game. So we understand this is a situation, where there will be games where we’ll be the underdog. We’re going to be the underdog early on. We’ll be the underdog in the first game, for sure. Probably the first couple of games.”

The Ascenders’ new varsity team will play nine regular-season games against Florida schools, including Saint Stephen’s in Week 2 (Sept. 1). It’s the first time an IMG varsity team will play a program in Manatee or Sarasota counties. One month later, the Ascenders’ Blue team will play a road game against Venice High School.

“They reached out to us and they reached out the (Sunshine State Athletic) Conference about possibly playing conference teams,” Saint Stephen’s head coach Tod Creneti said. “Because they felt like their kids would be a good fit there as well. We had a lot of conversations, even as a conference, about ... how we could work with them best. But I think for us, we’re at an interesting place in our history as a program and ... Saint Stephen’s and IMG have a long history of working together, particularly in the area of athletics. And we just saw it as a good opportunity to play a team that was going to be well-coached and deep and a good test for us starting the season.”

IMG Academy’s original varsity team compiled a 37-3 overall record since its inaugural 2013 season. It has boasted current college football players Bo Scarbrough (Alabama), Deondre Francois (Florida State), Shea Patterson (Mississippi) and Dylan Moses (Alabama) among the more than 60 athletes who went on to Division I Football Bowl Subdivision programs.

The Blue team is again scheduled to play a national schedule, including Alabama’s Hoover, Arizona’s Chandler, California’s Corona Centennial, Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy and Miami Central.

But the demand at the program reached the point where 120 players are expected to suit up this fall.

During last season, Wright and assistant athletic director J.T. Musso began discussing the prospect of two varsity teams that would play on Friday nights.

Then the administration at IMG Academy, including Senior Vice President and Co-Managing Director Chip McCarthy, Associate Athletic Director Scott Dean and Co-Managing Director Greg Phillips, got involved in the talks, before a decision was made this week to announce the two varsity teams.

Wright said IMG Academy needed to hire six new coaches to accommodate the expansion.

“We have to have two of everything ... so it’s an awesome setup from the standpoint that our player-coach ratio stays really low,” Wright said. “But you’re making an investment, and for me looking at it in a big picture was how to practice and how do you prepare? I think we’ve got a really good plan in place, where we’ll send one team out early for game prep ... while the other team is inside doing meetings and film analysis.”

Among the new coaches is Carnell Williams, who went by the affectionate nickname, ‘Cadillac,’ when he starred at running back for Auburn University and later played in the NFL for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Williams began his IMG Academy tenure on Thursday and is set to coach running backs for the new team.

Stills, an assistant on Wright’s staff, will become the White team’s head coach.

As far as players, Wright said players will be able to move from the new varsity team to the original one. He also added Bryson Lucero is likely to quarterback the new varsity squad.

“A lot of good teams have seniors that don’t get to play a lot,” Wright said. “Just because there’s depth. So it’s going to allow guys, who are seniors as well, an opportunity to play a full varsity schedule and play a lot more than they normally would.”

With the launch of a second varsity team, IMG Academy will have at least one home game in seven of the season’s 12 weeks (not counting the Aug. 18 classic week). In two weeks, both teams are scheduled to play home games: Sept. 22/23 and Nov. 11. Both teams will take a bye week on Oct. 13 although the Blue team has an additional off date scheduled Oct. 27.

This story was originally published June 8, 2017 at 11:15 PM with the headline "IMG Academy to have two varsity football teams this fall."