Former Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel likes to say the 2015 season didn't come with a survival manual. Coming off back-to-back appearances in the Southeastern Conference championship game, the Tigers won their first three games -- and then disaster unfolded.
* Starting quarterback Maty Mauk was suspended not once but twice and later kicked off the team.
* Team members got involved with a campus protest over the university's handling of several racially charged incidents, leading to a brief player-led boycott of team activities.
* In November, Pinkel announced his retirement plans and revealed that he'd been diagnosed with lymphoma earlier in the year.
By season's end, nothing tethered to the foundation Pinkel had established for more than a decade seemed stable or certain.
"I've never been through another season like that in 20 years of coaching college football," former Mizzou offensive coordinator Josh Henson recalled recently.
Just two years earlier, Henson's offense set a school record for yards per game (490.7) during a 12-win season, but when Barry Odom was promoted to replace Pinkel, the new head coach fired most of Pinkel's longtime staff, including Henson, who had been at Mizzou since 2009.
They'll cross paths again on New Year's Eve when Odom's Tigers (8-4) play Oklahoma State (6-6) in the Liberty Bowl. After the 2015 season, Henson, 43, returned to OSU, his alma mater, and now serves as the Cowboys' offensive line coach.
In a phone interview earlier this month, Henson steered along the high road when it came to his time at Mizzou, even though his run ended sooner and unlike anyone could have imagined.
Henson came to Mizzou, raised his family in Columbia over the next seven years, climbed into the coordinator role in 2013 and seemed poised for bigger and brighter things. Some wondered if he might one day succeed Pinkel.
Then 2015 happened -- and the new head coach, the person Henson had known longest on the staff, fired him, a conversation Odom later said was one of the toughest of his life.
On Henson's watch, Mizzou's offense endured a historically bad 2015 season. The Tigers averaged just 13.6 points a game.
"I've never been around that high to that low in one season," Henson said. "But my name was on it. I own it. I learned a lot from it."
"If I learned anything from that year, I probably should have kept it simpler," he added.
Off the field and away from the games, Henson was saddened to see Mizzou absorb so much criticism during that turbulent season.
"I remember some things that were said about Missouri's program or the university right after that, that it's going to take 10 years to recover," he said. "Well, it hasn't (taken 10 years). It's recovered.
As Odom rebuilt Missouri's staff, Henson interviewed for other jobs around the country. When he didn't get any bites, he called Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, whom he coached with earlier in his career. Gundy didn't have any vacant position coach openings but could take on Henson as an offensive analyst.
"I said to my wife, 'Let's take the kids home for a year,'" Henson said. "'There's no telling where we'll be in a year.
An offer arrived after the 2016 season. Henson agreed to become Arizona State's offensive line coach -- a job he kept for all of a month. In February, Gundy needed an O-line coach and brought Henson back to campus. He's now Gundy's assistant head coach, offensive line coach and running game coordinator. (In a case of coaching serendipity, Arizona State's O-line coach is now Dave Christensen, the assistant Henson first replaced at Mizzou in 2009.)
"Josh is a really good teacher and technician on offensive line play," Gundy said. "He's a terrific recruiter. He (and Shauna) love being here. They bring a lot of loyalty and hard work and commitment to our program."
When it comes to his time at Mizzou, Henson insists there's no bitterness, even with the Tigers next on the schedule.