It’s the start of another NFL season.

Dungy, like most of the Colts’ organization, will spend part of Sunday morning or afternoon driving from Indianapolis to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. The Colts are scheduled to report to Terre Haute Sunday afternoon, and they open 2007 Training Camp on Monday morning.

Defending Super Bowl champions or not, Dungy said Sunday’s drive is the same each year.

Part of it is about looking back.

Part of it is about savoring the last few moments before camp.

And part is about looking forward.

“It’s fun,” Dungy said this week as he prepared for his sixth training camp with the Colts, his 12th as an NFL head coach and his 30th overall.

“You think about other training camps. You do think back to your first one, and you think back to other special years. More than anything, as I’m driving, I think how lucky and fortunate I am to be doing a job I really enjoy, and starting another year.”

Dungy’s first NFL training camp was in 1977, when he made the Pittsburgh Steelers roster as an undrafted rookie from the University of Minnesota. As far as special seasons, few matched last season, when the Colts won the Super Bowl for the first time in 36 years.

This season, his sixth with the Colts, will mean he has been a head coach in Indianapolis as long as he was a head coach in Tampa Bay, where he coached the Buccaneers from 1996-2001.

No matter the position, Dungy said the thoughts on the first day of camp for a head coach are the same.

“You think about what are the challenges ahead, and you think about the message you want to get across to the team,” Dungy said.

This year, Dungy said, that message is as simple as it is important:

That last season is over, and that when this season begins, it won’t be about repeating, but about focusing on the current season.

Dungy said he already has discussed that with the team, but it will be reiterated Sunday, and throughout camp.

“It will be, ‘Here’s what the 2007 team has to do to be good, and here are our challenges,’ ” Dungy said. “We’ll discuss areas we need to improve. My speech will also be how I don’t think we played really close to what we were capable of. We do have a lot of room for improvement and we can make that improvement.

“Everybody is going to say how tough it is to repeat, but really, every year is tough. Winning in the National Football League is tough no matter where you are and no matter what team you are, no matter what year it is.

“The challenge shouldn’t be any different. We’ve got to approach it the same way.”