Tyjae Spears was a 3-star prospects according to 247 sports, and he received 0-stars from ESPN coming out of high school. Spears had 5 offers, McNeese State, Southeastern Louisiana, Southern Miss, Texas State, and Tulane. During his first two seasons at Tulane, Spears played in just 7 games, where he totaled 76 touches out of the backfield. During the 2020 campaign, Spears was on the verge of breaking out as he finished with 119 yards against Navy the week before, and while scoring his second touchdown against Southern Miss, Spears went down with a torn ACL. After an offseason of recovery, Spears made it back for his year 3 campaign that saw a bounce back to 6.7 yards per carry and 1,008 total yards from scrimmage.
In 2022, Spears was a year removed from the knee injury and he had the Green Wave backfield to himself. After a slow September, Tyjae popped onto the stat sheet with a monster 18-151-2 game against South Florida, at the time he had just over 300 rushing yards through 6 games. There was no looking back after South Florida, as Spears finished 8 consecutive 100-yard rushing games, on his way to an 1,837 total yards from scrimmage result and a Cotton Bowl win over USC.
Upon entering the 2023 NFL draft Spears was selected by the Tennessee Titans in the 3rd round. Despite beginning his career behind Derrick Henry, he was able to find success right away. Spears accumulated over 800 all-purpose yards as a rookie and was No.13 among running backs in fantasy points per opportunity.
With the departure of Henry in free agency, Spears was the presumed starter before Tony Pollard signed a free agent deal with the Titans. Pollard signed a substantial contract and will be a large part of the offensive gameplan for the foreseeable future. However, Pollard showed last season that he is best when paired with another running back so Spears figures to be in line for a large role as well. While both running backs could be fantasy relevant, they will be reliant on Will Levis to take a step forward in his development for the offense to have success.
