Central preparing for matchup with Triple A, Deion Sanders
Central football coach Jamey DuBose said he was hoping his team could get “primed” up over the final few weeks as it prepares for another potential playoff run.
And who better to prime a team up than Prime Time himself?
On Friday at 8 p.m., the Red Devils will host Triple A Academy out of Dallas, Texas, at Garrett-Harrison Stadium.
Triple A Academy merged with Prime Prep earlier this year. Prime Prep was a charter school that Deion Sanders, a pro football hall of famer who played for Atlanta and Dallas in the NFL, founded.
Four players and head coach Andre Hart moved over from Prime Prep to Triple A Academy when the former went under in January of this year. So, too, did Sanders, who is serving as offensive coordinator.
Sanders played in the NFL from 1989-2000 and again in 2004-05, serving as a defensive stalwart for five different football teams. He won two Super Bowls, one with the San Francisco 49ers in 1994-95 and one with the Dallas Cowboys in 1995-96. He was the league’s defensive player of the year in 1994, recorded 53 career interceptions and nine total kick and punt returns for touchdowns. He also spent parts of nine seasons playing Major League Baseball with the New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants.
DuBose said he doesn’t know 100 percent whether Sanders will be on the sideline — Sanders works as an analyst for NFL Network’s Thursday Night Football pre- and post-game shows — but that he has seen him on the sidelines in film, and he expects to see him on Friday night.
“I don’t know 100 percent, but their coach told me he’s their offensive coordinator,” DuBose said on Wednesday. “He didn’t tell me yes or no, but it just has to work out with his schedule.”
DuBose said once the game begins on Friday, no one, including the players, will be thinking about who is coaching on the other sideline, but that having a player of Sanders’ stature is nice to have.
“If you’re a player and you show out and do well, he may get your number and, yeah, he might could help you out,” DuBose said. “It could be an advantage.”
The game against Triple A Academy came about late in the summer when neither team could find a 10th game for its schedule. DuBose took a call from a Louisiana company that is setting up a number of inter-state contests for next season, and mentioned that he was still looking for a game in 2015. DuBose was put in contact with Hart, who also needed one more game to fill out his schedule. Both had open dates on Oct. 9.
“We contacted our administration and had to petition each association to make sure the other was in good standing with their association so that we could play them,” DuBose said. “We were granted the game, which got us to the final area which is home or away. We needed a home game, and they were a brand new program at Triple A, which has never had football, so they had no football facility. We asked what they needed in return, and he said all they needed were showers after the game. I told him we could do that.”
Triple A is 4-2 through its first six games. DuBose said he doesn’t know much about the team, but that it looks to have size and speed, but a smaller roster similar to the one that American Heritage (Delray Beach, Fla.) brought last year.
“I think this will be a similar team,” DuBose said.
David Mitchell, follow David on Twitter @leprepsports
This story was originally published October 8, 2015 at 3:36 PM with the headline "Central preparing for matchup with Triple A, Deion Sanders."