Poland is off to a 3-0 start as it seeks a playoff berth for the eighth straight season.

Coach Mark Brungard is in his ninth season at the Bulldogs’ helm.

Q. Your team has just 47 players this season, the lowest in your tenure. Has it been a problem yet or will it be a problem or do you expect your younger players to develop and provide depth?

A. We are starting to feel it a little more than we’d like. The kids have been taking turns with sickness and we were down a starting defensive tackle against Boardman and we are down our starting center and a free safety this week. It has taken its toll, I’ve got to admit. We are asking a lot of kids to play both ways. Its the first year we’ve played so many both ways as we are forced to now.

Some of the younger kids are being forced to learn, they’re being thrown in there. But we are facing a brutal stretch in our schedule and we don’t have time for the younger kids to grow up and learn. That being said, we don’t have a ton of younger kids so we’ve got to play both ways and try to get a few breaks for the kids here and there. We are going to ask a lot of our kids the next few weeks.

Q. How do you keep the kids from looking ahead to the Hubbard game (Week 5) considering Hubbard is the only team to beat you last year in the regular season?

A. Certainly we are thinking about them but we try our best to get the kids to focus on the opponent at hand. We struggled against Boardman last week — and they played a heck of a game — but we can’t afford to look ahead this week against Watterson.

Q. Is the progress of the team after three weeks about where you expected, ahead or behind?

A. The kids that haven’t played before experienced the first couple game and learned some things. We make mistakes and have a chance to learn from them and fix them. I think we’ve grown and improved from the standpoint of finding out what our kids can do. Boardman played an outstanding game against us, especially on defense. They shut us down for the whole game. We learned some lessons there and hope we can improve from that.

Q. What are the strengths of your team?

A. We have smart football players and they are adaptable to whatever we ask them to do each week. The other thins is I think at Poland we have tough kids, they have some grit. This group especially is mentally tough and physical. They showed they are physical getting to the ball and being violent when they get there. They seem to like each other, they are a tight group which is real important when you face adversity.

Q. Do you have any pleasant surprises thus far?

A. Our starting wideouts are both new. Anthony Calcagni and Tate Duarte both came from other sports. Anthony is a great baseball player and Tate was a one-sport athlete and he decided to become a three-sport athlete. One month he decided he was going to go out for football and then he took up track and field last spring and went six-feet in the high jump. That’s the position that has made the most strides because both guys are new. We thought we were going to have to play some other guys both ways, but now we don’t have to as much.

Another pleasant surprise is Marlon Ramirez at running back. It’s not that we didn’t expect him to produce but it is his first year as a starter and he’s doing an outstanding job.

Q. What about your opponent this week, Columbus Bishop Watterson?

A. Anyone who knows high school football in Ohio knows their program, they’ve won state championships several times. This happens to be the 15th anniversary of our 1999 state championship game when we beat them at Paul Brown Stadium. They’ve been there three or four times and have won two or three titles. They are very sound, you’re not going to get them making mistakes and beating themselves. Their strength is their size up front, both lines are big and physical. They lost to Walsh Jesuit last week but Walsh had to throw the ball. It will be a challenge for us to get the ball outside.