LOS ANGELES — Before heading down to Orange County on business Monday, the USC football program’s enthusiastic and innovative new general manager Chad Bowden sat down at Heritage Hall for almost an hour to talk to reporters – but, really, to talk to you, Trojans fan.
And you would have loved it.
Bowden’s job, as recruiter in chief, is to say all the right things, of course. So let’s just say the 31-year-old understands the assignment, because he spent the time hitting all the right notes as he spoke broadly about getting the Trojans back to the mountaintop and doing it, in large part, with homegrown talent.
“Back when national championships were won here, when Rose Bowls were won here, when you look back at Pete Carroll’s classes – ’02, ’03, ’04 – over 80% of the recruiting classes were from the state of California,” he said at the outset. “History repeats itself. It always does. And if you look into the fine details of how programs are built and how the place was built and when success had happened, that was a key part of USC being on top.
“My plans and my vision is to bring that back and take care of the state. … It will mean so much more to the kids. It will mean so much more to our fan base.”
Heard that? The GM – hired Jan. 24 after being lured away from College Football Playoff finalist Notre Dame with a multiyear deal reportedly worth $1 million annually – was talking to you guys, all the while expressing what you would consider an appropriate reverence for the storied program he also grew up rooting for.
“I pinch myself in the mornings,” he said.
“I’m gonna give every ounce of me to whatever is necessary for USC to win,” he said.
“This is the place to be,” he said. “There’s not one thing that this place doesn’t have. There’s nothing. I keep hearing about, it’s hard or it’s tough or whatever. I’ve been to some different places. I walk around (here) every day and I’m like, ‘Man, this is incredible.’”
He didn’t give away many – or any – specifics about what USC has to offer that Notre Dame didn’t, or how large a roster the Trojans will field next season, or what they’ve got up their proverbial sleeve as far as their approach to revenue sharing, into which Athletic Director Jen Cohen has indicated her department will invest the $20.5 million permitted by the House v. NCAA settlement to help construct USC’s roster, with additional contributions from the third-party NIL collective House of Victory.
About that: “Our aspirations for what we’re going to do in NIL is gonna be as high as anybody in the country,” Bowden said. “And I hope people know it.”
You couldn’t like the sound of that more even if the Trojan Marching Band was playing it.
But if you’re wondering whom Bowden, in this newfangled lead negotiator role, will report to?
For the record, big picture, I’d suggest it’s you, the fan. But less abstractly, it’s still sort of abstract, to hear Bowden tell it: “There’s no power struggle,” he said. “We’re all in this thing together … it’s going to be Jen, Lincoln, myself, Coach Lynn, Dogg (aka Aaron Amaama).”
That response reminded me of when Les Snead helped the Rams bring aboard then-30-year-old Sean McVay as the team’s head coach in 2017, describing what would prove to be a successful hiring as the partnership it’s become: “It’s about we, and this is a very collaborative organization.”
Except in this instance, it’s the GM who is the prodigious newcomer with lineage in the business – Bowden grew up with a front-row seat to watching his dad, Jim Bowden, work as the GM for baseball’s Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals – who is set to burst on the scene at USC.
Chad Bowden brought along some key staffers, including Zaire Turner, who worked with Bowden as Notre Dame’s director of player personnel, in an operations role. Also, former Illinois player personnel director Dre Brown, in the role of executive director of personnel and scouting.
And Bowden is “fired up” about all of it, including the opportunity to work with USC’s A.D., Cohen: “Animal! Animal! Animal!” he said, most complimentarily. “Best in the country. Not even close.”
He said she basically landed him with her initial video call, “the best two-hour conversation,” he said. “She’s a phenomenal recruiter, but she’s been even better since I’ve been here. She’s the best I’ve ever been around. The best!”
And how about Riley, the Trojans’ coach who has overhauled and beefed up his staff since arriving at USC three seasons ago, going 11-3 in 2022 and then 8-5 and 7-6 the past two seasons? Are you wondering how those two are getting on?
“His ability to make a steak, to this day, has me baffled,” Bowden reiterated, though Riley’s isn’t the best he’s tasted, he said – it lands behind only BOA Steakhouse on his personal ranking.
“This is a guy that holistically can do it all,” Bowden said of his new partner in climb, crediting Riley’s coaching and his evaluating and recruiting chops.
“This place is a lot closer than people think,” Bowden added. “… it’s the smallest details and this place is incredibly close. Coach Riley and the staff has done a really good job of building a roster. All I’m trying to do is enhance it.”
And they’re going to be aggressive about it, promised Bowden, whose presence leading USC’s modernized front office feels like sufficient proof of concept. At least until we can see the Trojans back on the field, where they can prove it for real.