For nearly three decades, Shane Laws coached football at AC Reynolds in Asheville. He took over as head coach in 2007, winning 173 games and a state championship.

And in that time, Laws has only seen a few players as special as Rico Dowdle, who played quarterback for Laws as a senior at Reynolds and is now the Carolina Panthers’ leading rusher as the franchise chases its first playoff berth since 2017.

“I used to tell people all the time: God only made a handful of Ricos,” said Laws, who retired last month. He also called Dowdle the best athlete he’s ever coached.

The Panthers (8-7) lead the NFC South and can clinch the division title with a win against Seattle and a Tampa Bay (7-8) loss to Miami. If the Panthers don’t secure the division this weekend, it will set up a winner-take-all game with the Buccaneers in Week 18 in Tampa.

“It feels great to be in this position,” Dowdle said Sunday. “Everything that we set out to do since coming in through OTAs, training camp. You play to be in those playoffs and push for that main thing at the end of the season. It definitely feels good to have our hopes still alive to get to where we want to be.”

Dowdle, in his first season with the home state Panthers, has rushed for 1,007 yards, his second consecutive 1,000-yard season after eclipsing the mark with the Cowboys last year and signing a one-year deal with the Panthers in the offseason.

And his emergence as the team’s top back in early October may have saved the Panthers season.

Dowdle rushed for 206 yards in a win over the Dolphins on Oct. 5 and followed it up with 183 yards against the Cowboys the next week, helping the Panthers earn two critical victories after a 1-3 start to the season.

Dowdle has had at least 16 carries in six of the Panthers’ nine games since the outburst. In the first four games, Dowdle had just 28 total rushes.

Before Dowdle’s senior season at Reynolds, Laws had a similar epiphany about his star’s usage.

“He’s the best player on our team,” he said. “He’s the best player in the mountains, maybe the best player in the state, so why don’t we just move him to quarterback and snap the ball directly to him? That way we’re guaranteed he’s going to touch it every play.”

Laws said he is happiest for Dowdle’s mother, Leslie Ellis Dowdle, who worked multiple jobs to provide for her children.

“I’ve always worked because I never wanted them to be able to not want anything,” she told WRAL.

Now she – and Carolina Panthers fans everywhere – are enjoying this ride.

“We’re in the backseat right now, and we are just letting him do the driving,” she said.

Good things happen when Dowdle is leading the way, as his old high school coach and now the Panthers can attest.

“He’s a guy that is willing to do whatever he has to do to help the team win,” Laws said. “Obviously, I mean, he’s a competitor. He wants to ball and he wants a chance to do what he can do, but as long as the team’s winning, I think Rico is one of those guys that he’s going to do whatever he can and be a real positive influence in that locker room.”