After tearing up the Cotton Bowl, Tyjae Spears officially became a Tennessee Titan on Thursday. The Titans and the dynamic Spears, who starred at Tulane, agreed to a rookie deal for the third-round pick in this year’s NFL Draft.
“Tyjae is a Titan,” the team announced in a tweet Thursday afternoon. Spears already could be seen rocking the signature blue that the Titans have sported since the team’s inception in the late 1990s.
Tyjae is a Titan ⚔️
✍️ @tyjae22 pic.twitter.com/Nz1VUyiH4S
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) May 25, 2023
Spears is on the heels of an electric final season at Tulane. The Green Wave made significant waves in the 2022 college football season. They won a program-best 12 games and capped their season off with a come-from-behind win over the vaunted USC Trojans. Despite the Trojans wielding Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, Spears helped push Tulane ahead in a memorable Cotton Bowl. He won MVP for his efforts, rushing for 205 yards and scoring four touchdowns.
Spears ran for 1,581 yards in his final season and averaged an astonishing 6.9 yards per attempt. He scored 19 touchdowns and recorded six multi-touchdown games, including two of 3+. He also finished the season rushing for at least 121 yards in each of his final eight games.
The Titans drafted Spears to hopefully spell two-time NFL rushing champ Derrick Henry. Henry is on the heels of la league-high 349 carries and has rushed over 300 times in three of the last four seasons. While it’s probably not a huge cause for concern, Henry averaged less than 100 yards per game for the first time since 2018 this past season. So for Spears, now that he’s agreed to his deal, he can get in the mix and hopefully take some pressure off King Henry.
