The article below originally appeared in the San Mateo Daily Journal and is being reprinted with permission.

College of San Mateo football coach Bret Pollack and defensive coordinator Tim Tulloch look at their team’s 2-0 start and realize it’s been far from perfect.

“There’s still a lot of room for improvement,” Tulloch said.

“We can get better,” Pollack said.

That’s a scary thought for the rest of the community college football teams in the state. CSM (2-0) enters Saturday night’s game against West Valley (0-2) coming off a record-setting performance in a 51-10 thrashing of Reedley last weekend. The Bulldogs rushed for a program-record 459 yards, breaking the previous mark of 431 that came against Solano in 2006.

It was a remarkable performance, especially when you consider it came against Reedley, an A-level program that played and lost to CSM last year in the Northern California championship game. Everything was humming for the CSM machine, as 11 different players carried the ball a total of 59 times.

Calculate it all out and CSM averaged a whopping 7.8 yards per carry.

Pollack was particularly pleased with the play of his offensive linemen, who recorded 47 knockdowns — plays in which they hit Reedley defensive linemen so hard they tumbled to the ground.

“That’s a physical performance,” Pollack said. “There was a (Reedley) guy on the ground on almost every play. When (defensive) players are on the ground, they don’t usually do a good job of tackling.”

How dominant was the Bulldogs’ ground and pound attack? They ran their base formation 42 times, not needing to mix things up because they gashed Reedley’s defense time and again for huge chunks of yardage.

“We just came out with a mission and purpose,” Pollack said.

CSM’s second game was a complete turnaround from its season-opening contest with Fresno City, a ragged and sloppy 32-24 win. Against Fresno City, the Bulldogs committed a whopping 15 penalties, made some key mistakes on both sides of the ball and didn’t execute to the coaching staff’s liking. Pollack attributed a couple of factors to the team’s rapid improvement.

“We canceled our second scrimmage (this season), so basically our second scrimmage was the Fresno game,” he said. “And to be honest with you, it looked like a scrimmage. Teams grow by leaps and bounds from a scrimmage to the next week, and we improved (tremendously) from Week 1 to Week 2, no doubt about that. We realize the quality of the performance (that our players produced versus Reedley).”

While CSM’s offense had a record-breaking performance, the defense delivered a tour de force, too. It limited Reedley to just 281 yards of total offense, including a less than stellar 4-for-16 effort on third-down conversion attempts. Third-down plays are one of the most important — if not the most important — stat for defenses.

Basically, any time a defense holds a team to under 30 percent on third downs — like the Bulldogs have done their first two games — it’s doing an incredible job of getting its offense back on the field and at the same time frustrating the opponent’s offense.

Tulloch said the players are coming together as a unit. It all starts with the linemen getting penetration, freeing up the linebackers to fly all over the field to make plays, which in turn allows the secondary to challenge receivers and make big hits.

Tulloch noted the play of lineman Nick Pula, cornerbacks Dwaine Simpson and Ronald Fields, and the linebacking core of Brandon Francesconi, Justin Sagote and James McCollough. There were plenty of positives on special teams as well, starting with Tim Celestine’s 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half against Reedley.

“That was the knockout blow,” Pollack said.

Another encouraging development was the play of backup quarterback Miles Freeman, who rebounded from a tough opener. The freshman rushed for a team-high 146 yards on 13 carries, coming a week after he botched snaps under center on two separate drives.

“(Miles’ play) makes our team a heck of a lot better,” Pollack said. “To have two quarterbacks that can play in the NorCal Conference (is a good thing).”

Coming off an impressive victory, conventional wisdom says the Bulldogs are susceptible to a mental letdown against their next opponent, winless West Valley. The Vikings lost their opener 65-13 to Chabot before dropping a 28-7 decision to Yuba last weekend.

When the teams played last year, CSM won in a laugher, 72-10. But Pollack has learned over the years what works and what doesn’t, and he knows the only way to prevent overconfidence from building in is sticking with the same routine, over and over again.

“We don’t even talk about it (who we’re playing),” he said. “There was a comment (coming from the Reedley game) that when our players took the field, it’s like the other team didn’t exist. Our focus is on ourselves and continued improvement. It doesn’t matter who we play, you treat everyone the same. Even though our guys played well last week, there’s always room for monumental improvement. We’re trying to seek perfection.”