The Polk County High School football team comes into tonights home opener with a gaudy No. 2 ranking in NCPreps.coms Bakers Dozen Class 2A state poll, a season-opening victory at Tuscola under its belt and a familiar opponent in Brevard.

At least the name is familiar, but the Blue Devils looked far from the team that has won four conference crowns since 1999 in last weeks 48-0 loss to Owen,&bsp; the worst in team history.

But PCHS head coach Bruce Ollis is choosing not to believe in a lack of hype for Brevard.

Brevard has a very proud football tradition, Ollis said. Im sure that Coach Bailey will have them ready to play. We always take the Knute Rockne approach respect your opponent.

We played two very close games with them a year ago, and they have a good number back from that team.

PCHS defeated the Blue Devils 14-0 during the regular season and later topped Brevard 31-10 in the Class 2A state playoffs. In the playoff game, PCHS quarterback Andre Overholt went for 245 yards from scrimmage – 145 rushing and 100 passing.

Overholt has since returned from a broken arm suffered last football season and a fractured ankle suffered this past summer. He shook off the rust to lead the Wolverines (1-0) to a 20-14 win at Tuscola last week.

In your first outing, youre going to see some kinks that will have to be worked out, and we have addressed those this week during practice, said Ollis. One of our goals offensively is to rush the ball better. Defensively, we have to get off the field and play better in the secondary.

The Wolverines third-down defense proved to be suspect this past week as Tuscola converted on several third-and-long plays to sustain drives, including one that tied the game at 14-14 late in the fourth quarter.

Overall, our execution needs to improve, but I was very pleased with our effort and the fact that we did not panic when we fell behind (7-0 in the first half), said Ollis.