Henry, a proven developer of elite defensive backs and a former Illinois defensive coordinator, joins the Fighting Irish to bolster their pass defense.
Notre Dame has made the addition of Aaron Henry to the coaching staff official, as the former Illinois coach was announced as the new Pat and Jana Eilers Defensive Backs Coach. Henry was also named as the new Co-Defensive Coordinator for the Fighting Irish defense.
Henry assumes the role that was held by Mike Mickens, who departed for the Baltimore Ravens this offseason. Mickens had established himself as arguably the best secondary recruiter and developer, especially at the cornerback position. Henry is being brought in to continue that tradition, and hopefully even build on it.
Henry spent the last three seasons as the Defensive Coordinator and Secondary Coach at Illinois. The Fighting Illini went 10-3 this season, earning their first double digit wins season since 2001. The 19 wins over the last two seasons is also the most in back-to-back seasons in program history.
Prior to taking over the defensive coordinator, Henry served as the Illinois secondary coach in 2020-21. During those two seasons the Illini secondary was elite. Illinois ranked 97th in scoring defense and 67th in passing defense. With Henry leading the secondary, the Illinois jumped up to 29th in scoring 44th in passing during his first season, and then they led the nation in scoring defense and ranked 8th in pass defense in his second season running the secondary (2022). Illinois ranked 1st in pass efficiency defense, 1st in completion percentage and 2nd in yards allowed per pass attempt that season. Illinois also led the nation in interceptions that season (2022).
During his five seasons in Champaign, Illinois had five different defensive backs earn first or second team All Big Ten honors. That includes Xavier Scott (2024), Devon Witherspoon (2022), Sydney Brown (2022) and Kerby Joseph (2021) earning first team honors. Witherspoon was a consensus All-American during the 2022 season and was drafted No. 5 overall in the 2023 NFL Draft. Witherspoon has earned three Pro Bowl bids and was on the NFL All-Rookie team in 2023.
During his five seasons, Henry also had a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award (Witherspoon, 2022) and a semifinalist (Scott, 2024).
Henry played at Wisconsin from 2007-11, and was coached by current Notre Dame defensive coordinator Chris Ash in his final two seasons in Madison. He got his coaching career started as a graduate assistant at Arkansas (2014-15) before being hired by Ash to coach the secondary at Rutgers in 2016. He coached at NC State from 2017-19 and was the corners coach at Vanderbilt in 2020 before being hired at Illinois.
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