JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – The ETSU football team has started 3-0 for the first time since 1999, which also happened to be the redshirt-freshman year of current athletic director Scott Carter.

Just like that season, the Buccaneers are playing some old school, smash mouth football while leaning on a hard nosed defense and dominating ground game.

The defense has given up just 23 points through their first three games, which also happens to be the same exact total from the 1969 ETSU squad that took down Terry Bradshaw and Louisiana Tech in the Rice Bowl. Head coach Randy Sanders wants this years squad to reach that level of success.

“I’m trying to get the guys to understand you want to win them all, you try to win them all, you play to win them all,” Sanders said. “So if you’re doing that whether it’s a conference game or non-conference game, what’s the difference, they all still count.”

“Obviously this one does count towards the conference championship, but I’m trying to set goals beyond just the conference championship and when you do that, they all count the same.”

The Buccaneers kickoff the conference with a showdown on the road against Samford, who the Johnson City squad beat 24-17 in the season-opener last spring.