JACKSONVILLE, Texas (KTRE) \u2014 Monty Stevenson earned his first win as head coach of the Jacksonville Indians more than 18 months after he was hired.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville beat Dallas Pinkston 49-6 on Friday, marking the team\u2019s first win since Sept. 5, 2024 when the Indians beat Brownsboro. Stevenson said his focus was on his players rather than himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know my name is on this program and I do have my first win but at the end of the day it\u2019s all about those kids and their faces to get them all excited about games moving forward,\u201d Stevenson said.<\/p>\n
The win, paired with a shift in culture ongoing in Jacksonville, earned the Indians the Red Zone Game Ball for Week 2.<\/p>\n
Players credit Stevenson\u2019s approach<\/p>\n
Junior safety Alex Polk described Stevenson\u2019s role with the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not just a coach, he\u2019s like a father. You know? He, he takes steps to be more involved in your life than just football,\u201d Polk said.<\/p>\n
Senior wide receiver and defensive back Kenyon Tilley said the win carried added meaning because of Stevenson\u2019s impact on the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatching coach smile, I don\u2019t know it just brought me to show that he really cares about us. And just like what Alex said he\u2019s more of like a father figure to a lot of us and so it means a lot to me to get a win for him,\u201d Tilley said.<\/p>\n
Preparation focus ahead of the game<\/p>\n
Stevenson said his message to the team leading up to the Pinkston game centered on a full week of preparation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a week to beat somebody. It\u2019s all about preparation. It\u2019s all about communication. Doing all those small things well and if you can do that well throughout the week you should come out the other side of it when it comes to a win on Friday night,\u201d Stevenson said.<\/p>\n
Secret weapon?<\/p>\n
Stevenson said pickles and pickle juice played a role in the team\u2019s improvement from Week 1 to Week 2, after players dealt with cramping in the season opener.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen I\u2019m not trying to be funny but week one every kid on the roster I think had a cramp. So I\u2019ve been talking about pickles and pickle juice for about a week now. So funny enough we had pickles in the locker room and nobody cramped and they end up playing well and I tell them, \u2018Hey look, if you want to win a game around here there\u2019s a bunch of pickles. Let\u2019s knock this thing out so we can win a football game,\u2019\u201d Stevenson said.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville hosts Bryan Rudder Friday at the Tomato Bowl at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KTRE. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Texas (KTRE) \u2014 Monty Stevenson earned his first win as head coach of the Jacksonville Indians more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-396623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}