Vanderbilt officially has a new cornerbacks coach. The school formally announced that Aaron Henry, who coached nickels at North Carolina State, has joined the Commodores coaching staff.

Henry is one of many new faces on Derek Mason’s staff. Henry has prior experience working alongside Ted Roof, Vanderbilt’s new defensive coordinator hired earlier this offseason.

“Aaron comes highly recommended to West End. He’s one of the bright young defensive back coaches in America, a proven recruiter and talented technician,” Mason said via the team website. “Coach Roof and Aaron enjoyed success together on the NC State defensive staff. Ted can’t say enough about Aaron’s knowledge, enthusiasm, work ethic and ability to get his position players to produce at a very high level. He makes our program better.”

Henry has some prior SEC experience, having served as a defensive graduate assistant at Arkansas under head coach Bret Bielema in 2014 and 2015. Henry’s first full-time coaching position came at Rutgers in 2016 as defensive backs coach. He joined the NC State staff ahead of the 2017 season.

During Henry’s tenure, the Wolfpack secondary registered 28 interceptions, including 14 picks in 2017, the most by an NC State defensive unit since 2011. In 2018, with Henry and Roof on staff, NC State’s defense ranked 17th nationally in third-down defense (33.3%), 19th in red-zone defense (76.7%) and 45th in scoring defense (24.9 points/game).