Polk County's far from flashy style showed Friday night how effective smashmouth football can be.
Behind 256 yards on the ground on 61 carries by six ball carriers, the Wildcats bruised East Ridge in a 20-0 shutout win at Raymond James Stadium.
"If you go back 19 years you'd see us trying to win games the same way," Polk County coach Derrick Davis said. "Our style is not for everybody. If you like big plays and the ball being thrown around, you won't like watching us play, but that's just our style and it works for us."
After the Pioneers went three-and-out on their first possession, Polk County quarterback Nate Waters put the game's first points on the board with a 10-yard touchdown run on the Wildcats' 12th play.
East Ridge ran only 10 offensive plays the rest of the first half as the Polk defense stifled any chance of gaining momentum. Then after the Wildcats forced a 4-yard loss on the first play of the second half, Austin Watson picked off Pioneers quarterback Alonzo Russell.
With the ball deep in East Ridge territory, the Polk County offense gave the Pioneers their first break of the game, but after another quickly stalled drive, a bad snap on a punt was recovered by the Wildcats. Hunter Morgan scored from 2 yards out a handful of plays later to make it 13-0 late in the third quarter.
"To shut these guys out is a hat's-off job to our defense. They played really well," Davis said. "We played a nickel defense that's new to us to take away their big plays and force them to run up the middle, and it worked well for us. That's a big step up from last year when they hung 35 points on us."
Early in the fourth quarter, Polk County's Watson made his mark offensively with a 2-yard score to complete the shutout.
"We couldn't get them off the field and couldn't get any rhythm going offensively," East Ridge coach Tim James said. "We had many consecutive three-and-out drives. I take all the responsibility for not having the team ready to play the past couple weeks, but we're going to come in and work hard on Monday to turn some things around."
Polk County (2-0) will face a similar style next week when it hosts Tyner, while East Ridge (0-2) will host East Hamilton.
Contact John Mitchell at sports@timesfreepress.com.