A phenomenal season in Mavland

Looking back at the 2020 football season

November 25, 2020

Anderson County’s football season is done, putting the team at 9-3 for the season after three hard losses to Powell, South Doyle and Greeneville.

Still, the Mavs have had a phenomenal season, both as a team, and individually.

In total, the Mavs scored 493 points this season to their opponents’ 122, finishing with 227 first downs.

Anderson County finishes the season with 4,712 total offensive yards (2,017 rushing, and 2,695 passing) to their opponents’ 2,047. Across 87 kickoffs, the Mavs kicked it for 5,118 yards, averaging 59 yards a kick.

Remember those 2,017 rushing yards? Gavin Noe finished with 1,419 of them, far outpacing his closest rival for the season, Josh Miller, who finished with 244 yards, and Nick Moog with 129.

Miller more than made up for it, though, by leading the team on receptions with 38, totaling 865 yards, beating Bryson Vowell’s 37 receptions for 532 yards. Miller and Noe even competed on touchdowns, with Miller finishing with 22 touchdowns under his belt to Noe’s 14. Zach Shannon and Garrison Terry tied with 15 receptions each, but Shannon finished with 259 yards to Terry’s 235.

In other scattered stats: Terry finished on top in another way, though, with 116 yards on punt returns for the Mavs, leading the team. Thor Williams was the only person on the team to get more than one interception, finishing the season with four. Josh Miller led on kick returns with seven for 61 yards, but lost to Cam Thomas on yardage, with Thomas pulling 102 yards across four returns.



Walker Martinez had a big season this year as well, throwing only two interceptions all season across 130 passsing attempts. Martinez completed 86 of those attempts, finishing with an average completion rate of 66-percent and 1567 total yards. Behind him, Stone Hatmaker got a ton of minutes for the Mavs with 1034 yards across 109 passing attempts. Of those attempts, 62 were completed, giving him an average of 57-percent.



On the defensive end of the ball, Stone Cummins led the Mavericks with 43 solo tackles and five sacks totaling 34 yards. With his assists, Cummins finished with a whopping 127 tackles for the season. Behind Cummins, Zach Shannon finished with 84 total tackles (25 solo), and four sacks for 17 yards. Tanner Goins finished with 60 tackles (eight solo), Maxx Oglesby finished with 45 (seven solo), and Russ Lindsey finished with 53 (9 solo). Goins and Oglesby both finished with two sacks apiece.



David Gillum, head coach for the Mavericks, said he thought it was a “wonderful season.”



“With the different obstacles with Covid and all the hoops we had to jump through from Spring to Summer to pre-season, including not letting the kids travel on the bus and everything we had to do in addition to what we normally have to do – even with all that, it was a wonderful year.



The boys worked extremely hard jumping through those hoops, whether that meant going to zoom meetings, practicing on their own, never missing practice if they could help it. They were real professionals in how they handled it. The coaches were administrators were professionals too. I couldn’t be more proud of our program, from our success on the field with another region championship, to everything they went through.”



Plenty of players are returning next year, and Gillum said he’s excited to see those players develop further.



“Gavin Noe is going to be a household name. Bryson Vowell is going to be, and already is, one of the best receivers in Tennessee. Zach Shannon is one of the best football players in the state. Eli Davis had a great year. Sully Sexton started twelve games this year as a center and we’re expecting big things from all of them. Walker Martinez came in and played at a very high level as a sophomore. We’re expecting him to turn into an all-state level quarterback in the coming years.”



Gillum finished by thanking the community and opening up about how thankful he is for the community’s support throughout the season.



“The community came out and supported us. I’m extremely proud of our kids and our community, and extremely blessed to be where we are, trying to create something special here in our community.”