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The sun began to set on a special season Friday afternoon as football players bounded down a hill and onto a familiar field for the last time. Dudley will play for a state title again today, and that meant the players would be together in the mud one last time.

Steven Davis bundled up one more time and stood alongside his staff with their backs to the wind and watched over one more practice, one more time to work out the vagaries of a system the players know cold, one more time to witness just what has occurred at Dudley in the past six years. Now 15-0 with today's Class 3-AA title game against Kannapolis Brown left to play, the Panthers have won 21 straight games dating back to October of 2007. Since the 2002 championship game loss to Ashbrook, the school has gone on one of the most impressive runs in city-county history. And this senior class has to be considered one of the best we've ever seen. Davis stood on the edge of the practice field Friday and thought back to the first time he saw this group of seniors together.

"I've not seen a senior class quite like this one," he said. "But it's really not a surprise. We told this class when they were freshman that if they would stick together all four years they could do some special things here at Dudley."

Those freshmen made quite an impression on another senior class that helped build the foundation of what is now one of the most powerful football programs in the South. Davis said he knew what he had when he turned the freshmen loose on the varsity that year.

"They weren't afraid of the varsity," he said. "We let them practice together sometimes, and sometimes they held their own."

Friday, they ran the practice, their last together.

Football practice is one of those things the rest of the civilized world wants no part of. It's a cold, numbing routine of repetitive motion under the watchful eye of a crazed coach who's usually the only one on the field having a good time. Practice at Dudley runs generally from the day after Valentine's Day (Davis' wedding anniversary) until the Friday before the state championship game. That's a lot of time for a team to stay together. Davis said it's in part, probably in large part, to his seniors. The noise coming from the final walk-through Friday evening mostly came from the players. Occasionally, a voice would break through the cold, "Hurry Up! Run it again! That's more like it!" But for the most part, the noises came from seniors who'd heard it all and wanted nothing more than to play one more football game for another title.

Davis said the final practice was bittersweet. He'll miss it in the coming days, not just because he's a crazed football coach but because this really has been a special class of seniors, one that wants to distinguish itself even from last year's state title team.

"These guys really want to separate themselves from last year," he said. "And that's even with the defensive line and the quarterback and a few more starters from last year's team. This year they're seniors. Even though they were a big part of last year, being a senior and winning the title means a lot more."

Dudley has won 49 football games in four years, by far the most in school history, and a 50th win today would be fitting. It would also serve as a goal for the next class and the one after that, which is how Davis sees his program taking what would seem an improbable next step. Can the Panthers get even better?

That will be up to the players, he said. And judging from the way the younger players listen to the seniors, it's not out of the question that Dudley's just getting started. They ran down the hill one last time Friday, walked onto the soggy practice field without being told anything. Davis stood on the track nearby and talked to a fan who wished him well for today's game and suggested that what we're seeing here is a Greensboro dynasty. We've seen them before, old Greensboro High School (now Grimsley) and then Page and now Dudley have all had their time.

As quarterback Ricky Lewis ran off the field after last year's state championship win, he said this is Dudley's time and he said it was going to last a while. He might've been right.

As the team wrapped up its final practice together Friday, the last gathering before today's championship game in Winston-Salem, the seniors led the juniors and the juniors led the sophomores. The word is, that sophomore class is something special.

The sun began to set on a special season Friday just as a full moon rose over the horizon at Dudley High School.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com