Chants’ Henderson on brink of significant FCS record

De’Angelo Henderson really doesn’t want to talk about it, but he knows it’s inescapable this week.

Bruce Mapp, his teammate and neighbor, has already reminded him plenty. His family has brought it up with him. And so he knew right where the conversation was going in an interview after practice Wednesday, letting out a smile before sticking to the script.

Henderson, Coastal Carolina’s star junior running back, will be going for a significant record Saturday when the No. 1/2-ranked Chanticleers visit Monmouth as he looks to score a touchdown in 21 consecutive games to break the all-time NCAA FCS mark.

But, he has reiterated, it’s not a spotlight he craves as the Chants try to build on a 6-0 start to the season.

“I’m very excited just to get it over with if it happens, God willing,” he said. “It’s just being mentioned too much. I just want to focus on executing plays and winning games, not some record. I don’t know, it’s there too much. We need to focus on what we’re doing as a team. The guys, they keep bringing it up, I feel like it’s a big distraction.”

It has to be brought up, though.

Already Coastal Carolina’s all-time leader with 2,891 career rushing yards, Henderson doesn’t have anything left to prove individually. But to achieve a feat no other player has reached at the FCS level is undoubtedly a big deal, and only further underscores what has made him such a fan favorite during his time in teal.

“He’s just been so good for us and has been so consistent that you almost kind of take it for granted that he’s going to get a touchdown,” Chants offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude said. “Anytime you can set a record that no one else has ever done in the history of anything, obviously, it’s a special deal.”

And the timing is especially fitting.

With touchdowns in 20 straight games, Henderson tied the FCS record set by Monmouth’s David Sinisi. The Coastal Carolina running back can now surpass the mark on the same field where the former Hawks running back did most of his work while establishing the mark over the 2006-07 seasons.

Sinisi, now a police officer for the Township of Mahwah in Bergen County, N.J., will actually be at the game Saturday as well, rooting on his old program – and especially the Hawks’ defense.

“The competitive nature in me has never gone away. I’ll definitely be rooting for Monmouth to win and to keep him out of the end zone,” Sinisi said in a phone interview Thursday. “But at the same time, as cliche as it sounds, records are made to be broken. It’s cool that it’s stood for this long, and if he eclipses it he eclipses it and hopefully he sets the mark [high] for someone else [to chase].”

Truth be told, Sinisi admits, he didn’t know his record was still active until Monmouth sports information director Greg Viscomi let him know what could happen this week.

“I’ll be completely honest, I wasn’t even sure if that record was still standing. When I talked to Greg and he said it was, it was a pretty good feeling that it has stood for approximately seven years now,” he said. “But I think it’s a cool thing that De’Angelo has tied it already, and it’s pretty ironic that he has an opportunity to break it against my former team. ...

“It’s definitely something for me to look back on and just how hard it is to score a touchdown in a game, let alone do it consecutively for over a year. It’s a pretty great feeling, and I think it’s something you look back on and it’s pretty remarkable.”

Overall, Sinisi rushed for 3,612 yards and 52 touchdowns over three seasons for Monmouth, and the similarities between his and Henderson’s accomplishments are rather striking.

First, identical to what the Coastal Carolina roster has for Henderson, Sinisi was listed at 5-foot-8, 205 pounds during his collegiate career. And both players totaled exactly 28 rushing touchdowns and three receiving touchdowns for 31 total scores during their respective 20-game streaks.

“I was asking Greg about De’Angelo and he said he’s a great kid, he was able to talk to him at [Big South] media day, and that he’s a real stand-up kid, real humble,” Sinisi said. “So it seems like he’s in a good place to be able to eclipse the bar I set.”

For what it’s worth, the overall Division I record for consecutive games scoring a touchdown is 27 set at the FBS level by Virginia Tech’s Lee Suggs from 2000-02. And the record for all NCAA divisions is 38, set by NFL running back Danny Woodhead while at Division II Chadron State from 2004-07.

But one mark at a time.

“I’ll have a little relief that it’s over with, yeah,” Henderson said of the FCS record. “I mean it’s exciting. It’s an exciting thing that’s happening. It’s big for the school, for myself, for my hometown, for the guys on this team. It’s big for all of us, but I’ll just be happy when it’s over with.”

Patenaude said the Chants won’t force the issue Saturday to keep the streak going, but then again, they probably won’t need to do anything out of the ordinary.

“‘Hop’ is going to get 25 carries, he’s going to have a lot of opportunities,” Patenaude said. “We always want to run the ball in the red zone so it’s nothing that we ever go in saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get Hop a touchdown.’ It’s been organic in everything that we do. He’s such a central part of what we do. ...

“So I hope he takes the first one on a swing pass for 70 and breaks it then so we don’t have to worry about it.”

Until he does, though, he can expect his teammates to keep reminding him.

“He tries not to think about it, but I’m going to remind him every time – ‘Hop, one more,’” said Mapp, Coastal Carolina’s standout junior receiver. “... What better way to break it than at the person’s home field.”

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Chants’ Henderson on brink of significant FCS record."