LOS ANGELES — It was hard to picture USC’s offensive line room getting any thinner in the winter months, the Trojans’ front looking thoroughly depleted by veteran departures and transfer portal movement heading into a 2025 season.
Now, in addition to replacing three starters, Lincoln Riley will have to settle on a new position coach.
Josh Henson, who has coached the Trojans’ offensive line for three years under Riley, is departing USC for the offensive coordinator role at Purdue, multiple sources familiar with the situation confirmed to the Southern California News Group on Tuesday. FootballScoop.com first reported Purdue had targeted Henson for the job as part of new head coach Barry Odom’s regime; the two had overlapped multiple times in Henson’s stint at Missouri from 2009-2015, where he served in later years as the Tigers’ offensive line coach and OC.
Henson informed USC’s team on Tuesday that he was leaving, according to a source familiar with the situation.
It’s a chance for the coach to return to a role as a play-caller, after spending a mixed three years developing USC’s front in Riley’s offense. Henson’s first year with the Trojans in 2022 was a resounding success, cobbling together an offensive line of holdovers and transfer portal pieces in front of Caleb Williams and turning them into a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award, given annually to the best offensive line in the nation. In 2023, though, Henson’s starters struggled to consistently protect Williams, a transfer-heavy unit often lacking cohesion in pass protection.
“Last year, I felt like, at some spots, there was just disconnect where we couldn’t energize each other,” Henson said last spring. “And I’m not talking about me – I’m talking about the guys in the room.”
He, and Riley, both made clear that USC intended to prioritize the youth on its front in coming years rather than rely on portal imports. And Henson’s development, in 2024, was tested: young left tackle Elijah Paige and right guard Alani Noa endured their fair share of early-season struggles in pass protection, before the line largely rounded into form down the stretch of a 6-6 regular season.
“The leadership from Coach Henson, from Jonah (Monheim), from Emmanuel (Pregnon), seeing some of these young guys grow up and get better and kind of take some of these challenges and really rise up to them, I think it’s a combination of all that,” Riley said in late November, speaking on the improvements of USC’s offensive line.
Now, though, the program will have to target a new name to stitch together USC’s 2025 line, in the midst of a concurrent search for a new linebackers coach. USC will need to retain the young OL pieces it still has, too, with Paige, Noa and freshman Justin Tauanuu; Henson’s signed 2025 recruits, though, don’t appear in imminent danger of backing out of their pledges.
“He still is committed – and hopeful, and confident, that Coach Riley will bring in a great O-line coach,” said Matt Dunn, father of USC four-star 2025 tackle Aaron Dunn.
USC faces Texas A&M in the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 27.