12/02 - 7:00 PM Football Final Complete Box Score »

Ramsay put a ring on it.

The Rams on Friday night sprinted through a Beyonce-inspired pre-game banner at the Super 7, then led by quarterback Opelika on their way to prep football immortality, a first in more than a generation for Birmingham City Schools.

Ramsay earned a 21-16 win in the Class 6A state championship game at Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium, an afterschool special-inspired season finale for a high school football program which 40 years ago, disbanded.

The Rams returned to football in 2012, suffering through a one-win season and two wins the following season.

Many of the same players that experienced painful perseverance in 2013 are now seniors, which explained their jubilation as the game clock expired Friday and Ramsay had earned the school’s first AHSAA football championship.

No more forgettable Fridays.

Nope. Get ready to order state championship rings, thanks to late-game heroics.

Harley, the game's MVP, finished with his latest game for the ages: 21 carries for 158 yards and 132 passing yards with three touchdowns. He danced and dodged through Opelika's defense, buying himself time to throw or in other cases, find a lane. Teammate Jamarcus Ellison added 49 yards on 19 carries. Ellison also caught a 48-yard pass.

That proved to be enough to slow down Opelika's top offensive option. Weldrin Ford rushed for 101 yards on 23 carries. Ford scored on a 1-yard run early in the first quarter, the one and only time Ramsay trailed.

Opelika challenged late, trimming Ramsay's lead to five late in the fourth quarter. But Ramsay, like it has all season, found a way to make game-changing plays.

With 5:13 to go, Ramsay lined up to punt, as Harley mishandled the catch, and the football bounced through the end zone for a safety. But on the free kick Opelika's Connor Smith mishandled the football, and Ramsay recovered.

The parents of Ramsay players were barely in elementary school the last time a Birmingham school won a football state title in Alabama. Banks accomplished that feat years ago, winning back-to-back championships (1972-73).

And now, Ramsay – a program without football lockers, a football stadium and many of the amenities that often lead to success in Alabama – is reviving football inside the city limits, a task it shared this season with Wenonah, a southwest Birmingham high school which on Thursday night reached the Class 5A state title game.

Wenonah, with just 37 players, overcame its share of adversity before falling 33-12 to Beauregard.

Previously, West End – also closed – was the last Birmingham high school to play for a state title (1993).

Consider this the Ramsay Renaissance.

Trailing 7-0 early in the first quarter, Harley threw two touchdown passes to Joshua Horn add a 25-yard field goal with one second left in the first half.

Harley gave Ramsay a 21-7 lead when he threw a 6-yard score to Kordell Jackson with 9:30 left in the third quarter.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, Opelika converted a special play on special teams, reaching the end zone on a fake punt. Talik Jackson, lined up to the left, in the backfield as a blocker, took a hidden hand-off and ran 40 yards on the fourth and 9 gamble, trimming Ramsay's lead to 21-14.

On Ramsay's ensuing series, the Rams lined up to punt on fourth and 27, only to follow Opelika's lead. Harley, lined up as a punter, instead threw to Deshaun Oliver, who eluded Jamias Presley and reached the first-down marker just as he was tackled from behind by Keyshawn Dowdell.