Tennessee
How Derrick Henry, now 30, with Tennessee Titans deal expiring, is punching to next phase
Another 1,000-yard season. Another Pro Bowl nod. Another year in the life of Derrick Henry.
Well . . . not exactly.
“I’m not too proud of it this year,” Henry said Thursday of the Pro Bowl nod on his 30th birthday, one day after being voted in for the fourth time in five seasons. ” . . . Sometimes you need a year like this to be able to grow, to be able to learn, to be able to reflect.
“I definitely want to do that once the season’s over. If I wasn’t fueled before, I’m definitely more fueled now, definitely more motivated, definitely more hungry and going into this offseason attacking it as hard as I can.”
Henry and the Tennessee Titans (5-11) finish their season against Henry’s hometown Jacksonville Jaguars (9-7) at Nissan Stadium on Sunday (noon, CBS). It will be his last guaranteed game in a Titans uniform, as the star running back becomes a free agent in March.
Now at the dreaded age for running backs and trying to put a bow on one of his least effective and most frustrating seasons as a pro, Henry has to add “ponder my future” to his fueled, motivated, hungry, attacking plans for the offseason.
“Any player would love to play for an organization and finish out their career as long as they can,” he said. “But there’s a business side and all those type of things that go on. I understand that. We’ll just see how it shakes out in the offseason.”
Derrick Henry at 30 years old
Age matters more at running back than any other position. In the past five seasons, there are only 16 players who’ve started even one game at running back after turning 30. By comparison, there have been 38 quarterbacks, 45 tight ends, 55 receivers and 146 offensive linemen who continued to start into their 30s.
Henry knows the stigma. He said he sought advice on the topic from Barry Sanders at the Super Bowl last year. He said he has looked to the examples of LaDainian Tomlinson and Fred Taylor, two of his childhood heroes, about how to age well in the league. He says that sometimes when he needs motivation, he goes online and looks up how various backs played in their 30s.
But Sanders famously retired after his age-30 season. Tomlinson never rushed for 1,000 yards again after his age-29 season. Since 2000, more players have rushed for 1,000 yards at age 29 than all players in their 30s combined. Only eight of the 21 running backs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame who played after 1970 had a 1,000-yard season in their 30s.
Even the best of the best struggle to do what Henry’s trying to do.
“He’s turning 30. At that position, that’s considered really old in the NFL,” Titans running backs coach Justin Outten told The Tennessean. “It’s just pushing past that age. Age is just a number at that point. The older you get, the more technical and the more detailed you have to be. That way you can still play at a high level. He’s done that throughout the season. He’s going to continue to do that.”
Derrick Henry at the end of an era
Henry also is trying to forge his second act in an era when fewer players are afforded a chance to have a first act, at least in the way Henry did. He is the only player who has debuted since 2010 with five 1,000-yard rushing seasons. There are only two other players within 500 rushing attempts of Henry’s total since he entered the league. He is one of just four players in the past decade to touch the ball 350 or more times in multiple seasons; in the decade before, there were 14 such players.
And then there’s the matter of how much players like Henry can be counted on to lead teams where they want to go. Only three of the past 15 Super Bowl champions featured a 1,000-yard rusher on their roster. The most recent team to win a Super Bowl behind a player who finished in the top three in the NFL in rushing yards was the 2004 New England Patriots.
That running back was Corey Dillon, and for whatever it’s worth, he was 30 years old. So was LeGarrette Blount, the last 1,000-yard rusher to win a Super Bowl, when he was with the Patriots in 2017.
Outliers exist. Henry wants to be one.
Derrick Henry’s legacy at the end
No one stat can encapsulate Henry’s greatness. This one might come close, though.
Pro Football Focus has data on yards gained after contact dating to 2006. Henry owns three of the six best seasons by yards after contact, including the two best, in that span. Henry and Adrian Peterson are the only players with multiple seasons exceeding 1,200 yards after contact.
Henry has multiple seasons where he exceeded 1,500 yards after contact.
Even this year, with a career-low 3.9 yards per carry and having more than 100 yards a game just three times, he’s second in the NFL in yards after contact. He gets hit. He keeps going.
No one has been more of an engine for any team the past eight years than Henry has been for the Titans. And this weekend could be the last chance for Titans fans to show their appreciation.
“It’s the last game of the season. I’m a free agent after this year. I’ve been here eight years,” he said. “I’ll just be grateful to whoever shows up. I know the fans will come out and hopefully we put on a show and are able to finish strong.”
Henry said he isn’t asked about free agency often. He doesn’t go out in public much. He keeps a close circle. It can’t be a surprise that the guy with the impulse control to avoid eating gluten, dairy, artificial sugar and fried food can also keep his mind on the task at hand.
He says he wants to treat Sunday’s game like any other game. And what comes after that, what Henry does in his 30s and whose uniform he wears while doing it, all of that comes later.
“We’ll see,” Henry said with a wry smile when asked about beating the reputation 30-year-old running backs carry. “We’ll see.”
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – Tennessee is seeking its seventh regional championship in program history, taking on No. 2 seed Southern Miss in the regional championship round of the Knoxville regional.
The Volunteers will have two opportunities to defeat the Golden Eagles once to advance to a fourth straight Super Regional.
It’s the first time the two programs have met since the 2023 Hattiesburg Super Regional.
Southern Miss battled back from the loser’s bracket, defeating Northern Kentucky 6-0 on Saturday and Indiana 15-3 earlier on Saturday to punch its ticket to the regional finals.
It’s the first time the two teams have met in Knoxville since 1991.
Southern Miss is the home team for today’s game.
Follow along with updates below. Scoring plays are listed in italics.
TOP FIRST INNING
A Blake Burke walk was erased by a Billy Amick double play as the Vols were unable to score in the first inning for the tenth straight game.
BOTTOM FIRST INNING
A leaping grab from Christian Moore helped Zander Sechrist retire Southern Miss in order to close the first.
TOP SECOND INNING
Dylan Dreiling led off the inning with a double down the left field line.
Hunter Ensley drove in Tennessee’s first run of the game with an RBI single | Tennessee 1, Southern Miss
Ensley was thrown out on an attempted steal of second.
BOTTOM SECOND INNING
A second scoreless frame from Sechrist kept the Vols up 1-0 after two innings.
TOP THIRD INNING
Cal Stark drew a leadoff walk but was unable to advance further.
BOTTOM THIRD INNING
Copyright 2024 WVLT. All rights reserved.
Tennessee baseball is sitting in the driver’s seat of the Knoxville Regional after its 12-6 win over Indiana. The win set up the Vols to be one win away from earning a spot in the Super Regionals. Tennessee would host the winner out of the Greenville bracket for a spot in Omaha.
The Hoosiers struggled to slow down the Vols at the plate. They didn’t sit the Vols down 1-2-3 until the seventh inning. Tennessee’s bats totaled 12 runs on 13 hits, with five home runs throughout the game.
Drew Beam and the pitching staff struggled to keep Indiana at bay for moments throughout the game. A Devin Taylor three-run home run in the third inning gave the Hoosiers some life, followed by a run scored off a base hit in the fourth inning and two runs scored in the eighth.
Andrew Behnke took over for Beam in the fourth and carried the Vols throughout the heart of the game, getting the Vols to the eighth inning with an eight-run lead. The bullpen struggled to finish off Indiana in the game’s final two innings.
In the eighth inning, Marcus Phillips came in relief but didn’t last long. Dylan Loy became the second Tennessee pitcher to take the mound in the eighth inning after Phillips gave up an earned run and only recorded one out.
Loy couldn’t slow down the Hoosiers either, giving up another run on nine pitches without recording an out before being pulled. The third pitcher of the eighth inning was Tennessee’s leverage pitcher, Aaron Combs, who came into the eighth with one out and runners on first and second base.
Combs wasted no time retiring the next two Indiana batters, getting the Vols out of the jam, and putting them three outs away from advancing through the winner’s bracket. Combs remained in the game for the ninth inning but faced trouble shutting down the fighting Hoosiers.
He ultimately got the job done after allowing two hits, saving another arm for the Vols ahead of Championship Sunday and sending the Vols to the final round of regionals. Tennessee’s pitching staff totaled ten strikeouts while allowing six runs on 11 hits throughout the night.
After a stressful final two innings, the Combs and the Vols shut the door on Indiana. The offense carried the Vols to the win, posting double-digit runs and 21 total runs over the first two games of the NCAA Tournament.
With Indiana’s loss, they will face Southern Miss on Sunday at 12:00 PM ET. The winner of that game will face Tennessee in a win-or-go-home game at 6:00 PM ET. Tennessee will have some wiggle room on Sunday and would need to lose twice to be eliminated, with the second game taking place on Monday if necessary.
Tennessee
What Tennessee Baseball's Pitching Staff Looks Like After Aaron Combs' Outing Against Indiana | Rocky Top Insider
Despite leading by six runs with one-out in the eighth inning, Tennessee inserted star reliever Aaron Combs to record the final five outs of the Vols’ 12-6 victory over Indiana in the pivotal fourth game of the Knoxville Regional.
Indiana was threatening with two on and had already scored two runs in the inning. After a dominant relief outing from Andrew Behnke, both Marcus Phillips and Dylan Loy combined for just the one out while allowing three hits and a walk. That’s when Vitello made the move to Combs instead of having him go into Sunday’s Knoxville Regional completely fresh.
But according to the Vols’ seventh-year head coach, Tennessee always planned on using Combs at some point.
“There’s nothing to save and today was a big day for anyone that was in the winner’s bracket because you want to get into a position where you can watch the game tomorrow,” Vitello said. “He was down there in the fourth inning, so it was a matter of kind of measuring it the way we wanted to and Behnke kind of flipped the script on us.”
Behnke entered with two outs in the fourth inning after a short Drew Beam outing. But he pitched a career-high 3.1 innings which pushed back Tennessee’s timeline on when it would use Combs.
More From RTI: Everything Tony Vitello Said After Tennessee Defeated Indiana In Knoxville Regional
“Aaron (Combs) always wants the ball,” Vitello said. “The fact he was out there to close it, I think made it a cleaner ending than it could have been and I think he’ll still be available for, again, whatever lies ahead.”
Combs did what he’s done the last two months, shutting down Indiana to end the game. He threw 28 pitches in the final two innings. Its unclear whether Combs could throw tomorrow but if the regional extends to Monday than the right-handed pitcher could eat more innings.
What does Tennessee’s pitching staff have left entering the regional final against either Indiana or Southern Miss?
Zander Sechrist will almost certainly start and is coming off back-to-back appearances where he’s combined to allow two runs in 12 innings pitched. Star reliever Nate Snead hasn’t thrown yet this weekend and has thrown up to 75 pitches in a number of outings in the last month.
Kirby Connell (34 pitches) and Chris Stamos (16 pitches) will both be available after pitching in Tennessee’s Friday night win over Northern Kentucky. Vitello also said that both Phillips and Loy will be available again on Sunday night.
First pitch for the Vols’ matchup against either Indiana or Southern Miss is at 6 p.m. ET at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
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