Talking Football with Coach Steven Davis, head coach of the Dudley Panthers

Got in touch with the Dudley Panthers head football coach Steven Davis today, and Coach Davis was kind enough to take some time out from his busy schedule, to answer our football questions and here we go with our 7 on 7 Football Session, from Tuesday afternoon, with Coach Steven Davis, James B. Dudley High School, “Home of the Panthers”…

**********Our Seven-on-Seven Series of questions for Coach Davis:**********

1)For your program to reach the playoffs, what will your record need to be this season?
Coach Davis: To reach the playoffs, we need to be at least at second place in the Piedmont Triad 3-A Conference and around (9-2) overall…We have been first and third over the last two seasons and when we finished third, we were tied for first going in, and we fell to third, by the un-luck of the draw…

2)Who will be your team leaders on Offense, Defense, and Special Teams?
Coach Davis: Offense it will be WR Michael Wyman, our four-year starter on the OL, Jalen Williams, plus RB Myles Smith and RB Marlon Darby…On Defense, we have a strong front four in Milan Summers, Payton Page, Christian Lane, and Myles Murphy…Summers can also drop back and play LB…We also have our DB’s in Xavion Rush and Dra Latta….On Special Teams, we look to Mehki Wall(KR) and Milan Summers, our Punter….

3)What do remember about about your football practice days, back when you were playing high school football?
Coach Davis: Putting the work in, and then getting to ‘The Friday Night Lights’ in a small town in South Carolina…”Nothing Like It”, you got to hang out with all your friends after the games and celebrate with brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, it was great and as the QB/DB back in those days, I will never forget it…

4)Why do you love coaching football?
Coach Davis: You get to stay close to the game, and you get to watch the kids grow up and go from being teenagers, to young men…You get to prepare them to go out into the real world, and even beyond the football field…

5)If you weren’t coaching football, what would you be doing?
Coach Davis: No answer for that one right now…I do not have a clue…Will have to cross that road/bridge if and when, I ever come to it…

6)Best team in the county other than your Dudley Panthers?
Coach Davis: I would have to say Page, Grimsley and Southeast Guilford….

7)What’s the first thing you do in practice each day?
Coach Davis: We start practice with our pre-practice work on Kicking, Punting, Receiving kicks, Long Snapping and this is like our Skills Session…We then go into a 15 minute period of Total Special Teams work with the Varsity kicking off and the JV’s working on their receiving of the kicks….We then rotate it and work it so we can get it right, for Friday night……

++++++++++Again, we thank Coach Steven Davis for his time today and we look forward to getting over by Dudley to grab some video interview time with Coach Davis, later on in the week….++++++++++