LOS ANGELES — The public search for USC’s new offensive line coach lasted less than 24 hours.
It would’ve been easy for Josh Henson’s departure for Purdue – news breaking Wednesday, with Henson telling the team the same day – to throw USC’s future on the offensive line into flux. Henson’s 2024 unit was already losing three starters to the NFL draft or transfer portal; the remaining pieces in the room, from Elijah Paige to Alani Noa to Justin Tauanuu and beyond, were kids Henson had put in years recruiting and developing. If there were ever a time for Lincoln Riley to turn in-house for a coaching promotion, it was here.
And on Wednesday, USC and Riley officially announced the elevation of tight ends coach Zach Hanson to Henson’s vacated role as offensive line coach, a young name who Riley pointed had “extensive experience” in working with groups in the trenches.
“We’re excited to have Zach lead this unit and develop our offensive line,” Riley wrote in a statement Wednesday.
Hanson is deeply entrenched in USC’s program, first crossing paths with Riley as an offensive analyst at Oklahoma in 2019, then hired to coach the tight ends as part of the Trojans’ new regime in 2022. His wife Annie is USC’s executive director of recruiting; Hanson now steps into a new role exactly two weeks after the couple welcomed their first child, Rockford Martin Hanson.
He’s a former offensive lineman himself, playing tackle at Kansas State from 2008 to 2011. Before Hanson was hired at USC, he spent two years coaching the offensive line at Tulsa. Riley pointed he’d been “instrumental” in working with USC’s offensive line, and Hanson’s tight ends have been used for years as key blockers in Riley’s offensive system.
Hanson will take the reins in a pivotal moment for USC’s front, as the Trojans need to replace those aforementioned three starters without any obvious options on the roster to fill their place. His first test will come in the Las Vegas Bowl against Texas A&M, where a host of youngsters – Tauanuu, Tobias Raymond, Kaylon Miller – will likely see an audition for expanded roles in 2025.
Hanson will be tasked, too, with a serious workload in this transfer portal window, with USC all but certainly needed to add a starter or two and depth on its offensive front.
More to come on this story.