Report: Lincoln Riley, USC set to hire Texas A&M assistant

On3 imageby:Griffin McVeigh12/19/21

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New USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley is still in the process of filling out his staff ever since making the move from Oklahoma. Late on Sunday night, it seems as if another piece of the puzzle could be inserted.

According to Pete Thamel of Yahoo, USC is set to hire Texas A&M offensive line coach Josh Henson. He had been with the Aggies for three seasons. Before his time in College Station, Henson spent time at Oklahoma State and Missouri State in the same position.

Henson has no experience along the west coast but was once the recruiting coordinator for both LSU and Oklahoma State. He will join Riley’s staff, who will be looking to once again shut down the state of California for the Trojans.

Before locking in Henson as the offensive line coach, Riley was expected to bring along Bill Bedenbaugh to Los Angeles. Instead, Bedenbaugh opted to stay in Norman and serve on Brent Venables staff for the Oklahoma Sooners.

USC Trojans add another SEC name to coaching staff

According to Matt Zenitz of On3, Mississippi State’s inside wide receiver coach Dave Nichol will be making the move to Los Angeles. Steve Robertson of Gene’s Page was the first to report.

Riley and Nichol have worked together in the past, being on staff together at East Carolina and Texas Tech. Nichol comes from the Mike Leach coaching tree, working with the current Mississippi State head coach for the past six seasons.

Nichol served as the East Carolina offensive coordinator during the 2015 season before moving onto Washington State as the outside receivers coach. His experience within the Pac-12 will certainly help Riley who will be brand new to the conference with USC.

Riley speaks on recruiting California

Riley took over the USC job last month and got right to work on the recruiting trail. Since he knows the area, he has an idea of how to get those recruits to stay home. In fact, that was part of the allure to the job.

“I recruited this state for a long time,” Riley told reporters on National Signing Day. “We’ve been able to have a little bit of success recruiting it at some of the previous stops. But I always remember a sense in … this part of the country that when SC was good, it was going to be tough to beat. When SC wasn’t good, you were maybe going to have a chance to sign kids that maybe deep down wanted to go to SC and maybe the program just wasn’t where it needed to be or maybe where they felt like it was good enough to go.

“I always had that sense through all the years, and certainly that was a factor in ultimately taking this job, feeling like you can build one of the elite rosters in the country here. I would say now having been here for a few weeks, it’s still very early, you feel that sense. I feel like players in this part of the country … I still feel that. That deep down, the majority of players around here, they want to play at USC.”