Ex-UGA WR now head of UK-based NFL Academy, which opens season vs. Marietta

Marietta will travel more than 4,000 miles to open its 2026 high school football season, but one of the first faces it will meet comes from a town right up Interstate 75.

Calhoun native Kris Durham’s football career has taken him from the University of Georgia to the NFL and abroad. Now, Durham works as head of the NFL Academy in Loughborough, England.

That’s where Marietta will kick off its season Aug. 21 against the NFL Academy’s diverse roster, featuring football players from three continents hoping to earn American college football scholarships. The academy, which opened in 2019 and started playing competitive football in 2022, has beaten and competed with several notable American high schools.

In 2024, the school beat one of IMG Academy’s developmental teams, lost to California powerhouse De La Salle 31-9 and lost a 51-45 shootout to Florida power Edgewater. Last year, the NFL Academy nearly upset High School Football America national champion St. Thomas Aquinas in a 41-38 loss.

That team had 68 players from 20 countries. The NFL Academy has sent 40 alumni to play American college football, 27 of which are playing at the Division I level. Temple tight end Peter Clarke and Colorado offensive lineman Yahya Attia have earned starting positions.

It’s an unbelievable sight to many, but Durham saw the potential when he was playing for the Italian Football League’s Parma Panthers in 2017.

“It was a really special time in my life,” he said. “I saw a lot of talented players that I was like, ‘If you grew up where I did, you might have a shot to play at a certain level. Maybe NCAA, maybe FCS, maybe somewhere.’

“So, I really wanted to have an impact on growing the game.”

Durham started doing so with the NFL’s International Player Pathway program, which helps international football players earn roster spots on NFL practice squads. There is a second NFL Academy location for Asia-Pacific players on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia.

“It’s honestly pretty cool when you see them because you’ll see a kid from Finland being best friends with a kid from Senegal,” Durham said. “So obviously, there’s a culture and language difference there, but they’ve kind of met a common ground because of this sport that brought them to the same location.”

Durham started working for the NFL Academy roughly four years ago. In September 2025, he was promoted to the head position.

In Durham’s first season as the academy chief, the school sent 12 guys to play college football. That included Boston College offensive lineman Burno Werner (Germany), Tennessee tight end Luca Wolf (Austria/Philippines), Florida State defensive lineman Luke Francis (United Kingdom) and Florida State offensive lineman Nikau Hepi (New Zealand).

“That’s massive when you’re talking about (the fact that) none of our kids are American,” Durham said. “None of them grew up with the same opportunity that you and I had, so that’s a success in itself.”

The academy functions as a true high school. Student-athletes live, practice and study at Loughborough College in Loughborough, England. The facilities are advanced enough for several Olympic swimmers, boxers and even the U.S. women’s rugby team to train there.

“As far as when it comes to sport in the UK, you know, this is a top-notch university,” Durham said. “They have pretty much everything you could possibly imagine in terms of research and development. They have partnerships from around the world with great universities, including the University of Oregon, so they know what they’re looking at.”

Everyday life at the NFL Academy mimics the American high school football schedule in several ways. Players practice after school every day and eat team meals together.

But Durham and the school’s coaches do face several challenges that most high schools don’t. Communication is more difficult because of the many languages spoken on the team.

Much like the academy tries to physically prepare its athletes for American college football, it also has to prepare them culturally.

“Everything is taught in English because we know that the University of Georgia is not going to hire a German coach to translate for you,” Durham said. “So you’ve got to be able to process this game and speak the game of football in English to be able to be successful in this, so that’s something we preach.”

The academy also sees double the roster turnover as the average high school, as student-athletes typically only come for two years. Every offseason, the NFL Academy replaces roughly half its players.

Financial hurdles are real for student-athletes, too, as the NFL Academy does not offer full-ride scholarships for all of its players like a Division I football team would.

“While we do have the NFL name, we do not have the NFL budget,” Durham said. “A lot of these kids, they’re investing in their future. They’re investing in opportunity, and we’re trying to provide that.”

Another unique part of coaching for the academy is assigning positions. Durham figures roughly 90% of the academy’s players have experience with some form of American football, typically a 5-on-5 or 9-on-9 game.

But Durham and his staff have their own method of evaluating athletes, sometimes considering how the sport they grew up playing would translate best to a specific football position’s skillset.

“I think it’s very individualized because you’re going to find rugby players, and sometimes they’re offensive linemen or defensive linemen,” Durham said. “Sometimes, they’re linebackers, right? It just depends on their body composition, their body type. So that’s one thing we do pay attention to is genetics. We want to see how big you are, how fast you are, certain things like that, and then look at the crossover sports, whether it’s basketball, rugby, soccer.

“Things like that right there, where you can take traits from those sports and apply it to the sport.”

Durham, who played for the Seahawks, Lions, Titans and Raiders, also uses his NFL contacts to help with player development. The former fourth-round draft pick has brought in NFL greats like Maurice Jones-Drew and Charles “Peanut” Tillman as guest speakers.

And yes, Tillman did teach the “Peanut Punch.”