Vol legend speaks to state-bound Anderson Co. football team (WVLT)

Posted Date: 12/02/2022

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Our previews of area teams playing for a state football championship continues with Davey Gillum’s Anderson Co. Mavericks.

Gillum played on the AC team that made it to the state semi’s 26 years ago. Now the same program he coaches, is one win away from its first ever state championship and his players couldn’t be more thrilled about the opportunity.

To help the Mavs in advance of the Class-4A title game with Pearl Cohn, the head coach brought in Vol legend Heath Shuler to speak to the squad.

”Dig deep down in your soul the next couple of days you know think through the process that first opening kickoff hit somebody extra hard right? Because when they go back to that sideline they need to know that these guys are for real. I played in three state championships, there was nothing like that first one.”

AC is trying to win it’s first ever title and they’ll go into battle with a pretty good quarterback of their own in Mr. Football finalist Walker Martinez who told WVLT Sports, ”We don’t want to end up 6-6 like we were last season, it’s a bad feeling when you personally know your team is better than 6-6 and that’s how you end up your season so we really took that personal and used it as fuel every week of the off season.”

Martinez and the 14-0 Mavericks face 12-2 Pearl Cohn for the Class-4A title Saturday morning at 11am in Chattanooga. You can watch the game on MyVLT.

Copyright 2022 WVLT. All rights reserved.