Armuchee set the tone from the start with a blocked punt on Dade County’s first series and never looked back en route to a 34-7 win to improve the Indians to 3-0 on the young season.

Jake Schmidt broke through the line to smother the punt attempt, and Jordan Abney recovered it on the four to set the Indians up for their first of five touchdowns on the night in their home opener.

Armuchee had a perfect passing night with T.C. Boyd going 6-for-6 for 90 yards and two touchdowns and Zack Payne completing all three of his attempts for 31 yards and a score.

Davante Hudson led the Indians on the ground with 95 yards on five carries and a touchdown. Armuchee head coach John Mullinax said that even though the game was never in doubt, he wasn’t very happy with his team’s ball-handling, with the Indians losing five fumbles on the night.

“I’m happy, but I’m not happy,” head coach John Mullinax said. “In the triple-option, I want us to finish, I want us to execute the whole ballgame. I hate it for our defense because I thought our defense played great.

“If you’re going to be a good team, you can’t be satisfied. For the first time at Armuchee, I want us to finish what we’re doing. I want us to execute our plays, and not turn the ball over to put our defense in such a bind.”

The Armuchee defense had a solid night led by linebacker Jason Vasser, who appeared to be involved in almost every play for the Indians’ D.

“To get off the negative, we had some outstanding plays,” said Mullinax. “I thought we hammered them good on defense.

“We hit them, we were physical and we broke some big plays.”

The scoring opened on a one-yard TD run by Blake Poole after the blocked punt. Then the passing game went to work with Armuchee scoring three straight touchdowns on passes. Boyd had the first and the third, hooking up with Jake Nix on a 35-yard score in the first quarter and then hitting Jake Schmidt with a seven-yard pass in the second quarter.

Squeezed in between those two, was a 10-yard strike from Payne to Marcel Hudson in the first quarter.

Hudson closed the scoring out for the Indians scoring on a 66-yard reverse play in the third.

Dade County’s only score came on a five-yard plunge in the fourth from John Hampton. Hampton was one of the few bright spots of the night for the Wolverines finishing with 91 yards on 25 carries.

Armuchee will now prepare for one of their biggest games in recent memory next week when they host arch-rival Model. The Indians have not defeated the Blue Devils since 2002.

“It was a great win tonight, but the most important game is next week, Model,” said Mullinax. “We haven’t beaten them since I’ve been here. It’s big.

“They’ve made fun of us, they’ve laughed at us and they’ve beat us on the field. We’ll be ready to play.”

This is the second straight season the Tribe has started 3-0. They will look to finish stronger than they did in 2008 though when they went 3-4 in their last seven games.