Brandon Sosna leaving USC's athletic department for the Detroit Lions

After playing a pivotal role in USC's football coaching search and the hiring of Lincoln Riley that has rejuvenated a forlorn fan base over the last six months, executive senior associate athletic director/chief of staff Brandon Sosna is leaving for a job with the Detroit Lions.

Sosna will become the Lions' senior director of football administration. ESPN's Pete Thamel first reported the news and TrojanSports.com has been able to independently confirm it through a source.

Sosna came to USC soon after athletic director Mike Bohn was hired in late 2019. The two had worked together closely in two stints at Cincinnati, as Bohn elevated Sosna in the Bearcats athletic department at a young age and then brought him back as chief revenue offer after Sosna spent the 2017-18 seasons with the Cleveland Browns, where he was eventually promoted to the role of salary cap and contract analyst.

Sosna was naturally Bohn's first hire after taking the job at USC, and in two and a half years with the Trojans he has been Bohn's right-hand man while directly overseeing the football program.

Bohn called Sosna "the architect of a brilliant search process" that landed Riley in late November -- a move that stunned the college football world and put USC on what seems to be a fast track to a significant turnaround.

Beyond the splash hire, though, Sosna was seemingly involved in every facet of USC athletics, helping Bohn address long overdue upgrades needed within the department, whether it was overhauling and expanding the Trojans football recruiting department or making sure the football program had a dedicated groundskeeper rather than relying on the same crew that took care of the entire campus.

If there was a problem that needed solving within USC athletics at large, it most likely eventually found its way to Sosna's attention. From staffing matters to even being called in to offer his perspective to football recruits USC was hoping to land, Sosna did a little bit of everything for the program.

As TrojanSports.com has told in detail previously, the day after USC's humbling loss to Iowa in the 2019 Holiday Bowl, Sosna met with USC director of player personnel Spencer Harris and Joseph Wood, then in the role of executive director of football operations, for several hours learning and compiling a list of everything the program needed to be competitive. He and Bohn then went about addressing everything they could, effectively doubling the size of the recruiting staff, adding more support staff positions within the football program, addressing the aforementioned groundskeeping matter, etc.

"I have two Post-it notes on my desk from the first couple meetings that we had with Clay [Helton] and his staff, things that we needed to address, and we're really excited. I think we've checked off almost every single one of those boxes and continue to look at it every single day," Sosna said last August.

But not until the decision was made to part ways with Helton two games into an eventual 4-8 season last fall and shoot for the moon in hiring Riley away from Oklahoma, where he was 55-10 as a head coach with three College Football Playoff appearances in five seasons, did Sosna and Bohn truly check the biggest box on the wish list of USC fans.

Asked about his future last August, Sosna's response is interesting to look back on now.

"Mike and USC have given me an extraordinary opportunity, and it would take something pretty significant for me to want to leave here," he said then. "We have a lot of work left to do. I’m excited to continue to do my part. ... It's a personal mission for us to deliver the championship program that Trojan fans have come to expect."

It remains to be seen where Riley will take the Trojans, but Sosna and Bohn certainly put the program a trajectory of far greater optimism than what they inherited.

Named to Forbes' "30 Under 30" sports list, Sosna is considered by many to be a rising star in the business. At the press conference to announce the Riley hiring, Rick Caruso, then chairman of the USC Board of Trustees and now Los Angeles mayoral candidate, joked about being so impressed by Sosna's role in that process that he wanted to hire him away for his businesses.

It always seemed a matter of when -- not if -- Sosna would move on from the Trojans.

"Brandon is a unique talent," Bohn has said.

Thamel also reported last August that Sosna had interviewed with the Detroit Lions. The connection is Lions senior personnel executive John Dorsey, who was general manager of the Cleveland Browns when Sosna was there. The two have remained close ever since.

Sosna never publicly commented on that first reported Lions interview, even when asked directly about it last August.

"I wouldn’t comment on any reports like that, especially ones that are really of a personal or private nature. I think what I would say is that one sign of a healthy and well-respected program is when people are trying to hire your people. Whether that’s administrative staff, our coaches in football, our coaches in other sports, if we’re not being talked about, if our staff aren't being recruited then we’re doing it wrong," Sosna said then.

Most fans would agree USC got it right in hiring Bohn, and in turn landing Sosna.

USC will now have a hard time replacing Sosna, first and foremost for the trust and synchronicity he and Bohn had developed together from their time at Cincinnati, as well as the confidence Sosna had earned within the USC power structure in just two and a half years in Los Angeles.

He now leaves to be part of a similarly daunting rebuilding job in Detroit, which seems most appropriate given the task he managed with the Trojans.

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