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There are no wasted moments for USC athletic director Mike Bohn as he greets a visitor on a recent Friday afternoon.

He's sitting in the lobby of his office with his administrative assistant running down a to-do list of who needs to be contacted, what must be ordered, what letters should be written, etc. As he leads his guest back into the office on the second floor of Heritage Hall, the conversation with his assistant continues as they discuss where certain pictures will be hung on the walls.

Bohn finds a good spot for a framed photo from his trip to the White House with Colorado's national champion ski team when he was the AD there, and he comments how he wants his Trojans teams to get that same opportunity. He shows his visitor a picture from his days as a young football player, along with mementos he's collected over his career. Meanwhile, on another wall, he instructs his assistant that he wants to take down some other items that came with the office -- he's here to make new memories for the Trojans.

After a little more than four months on the job, Bohn is starting to leave his mark on the place, but there is still work to be done, improvements to be made.

That applies whether discussing his immediate office space or, in a more general and important context, the USC athletic program he oversees.

"People are encouraged, and that's what we want," he says of the feedback he receives in his interactions with fans, boosters and the campus at large. "Like I said, we are not asking for blind loyalty. We want them to see the new adjustments and changes and impacts and improvements that we're making on a daily basis, and we're not finished."

Bohn, whose first weeks and months on the job … well ... incited many strong opinions from the fan base, is told he looks more relaxed now. He counters that he doesn't want that to be the impression, that he's taking it easy. The point was more that he looks like he's shed some of the stress and strain that he wore back in early December after he announced that embattled head football coach Clay Helton would remain, while pledging to give him additional resources to help take the program to the next level.

The decision was unpopular in the moment and only grew more so as the Trojans got blown out in the Holiday Bowl by Iowa, with Bohn watching the end of the game stoically from the sideline, and as they subsequently closed out the 2020 recruiting cycle ranked 65th nationally in the Rivals rankings (where the program's previous low had been a No. 18 finish last year).

He maintains that the backlash to that decision was not tougher on him than he anticipated.

"I don't think so," he says. "I think the hardest parts were the inaccuracies that were talked about and reported, but I respect that and I get it. That's just me as a human being … but I understand. I signed up for this."

He took special exception to the notion that he ever had second thoughts about the job.

"Clearly the one that was most damning was that I was resigning or even thinking about resigning. I took that very personally," he says.

Bohn also still seems frustrated that so much was made about the 11-day gap from USC's last regular-season game to the time he announced that Helton would return. He actually brings it up unprompted, as he knows it's still a talking point whenever the decision is referenced. The first week, he reiterates, was to let the Pac-12 standings shake out and see if the Trojans would get some help and back into the conference title game.

As for the four days that followed, he says simply, "There [was] lots of good work going on at that time."

Not only was he evaluating a head coach (and a complicated financial decision if he were to make a change), but he was assessing the department he took over and working to build trust and equity with USC President Carol Folt and university officials that he felt was essential to all future significant decisions or changes that might come down the road. (Bohn would later dismiss three upper level athletic department officials in January, including CFO/COO Steve Lopes, the long-time No. 2 in the department.)

"I think in fairness to all the parties associated with the decision, when you're so new, alignment and communication and that process takes time. And the terrific alignment that was built through that process in collaboration with leaders on this campus and members of the board of trustees is going to serve us well down the road," he says. "I salute the president for her courage and plan and thoroughness associated with that."

A frustrated fan base won't accept that rationale for the Helton decision if the Trojans underachieve again in 2020, but Bohn does hope the fans accept a clarification on another matter.

Some of his comments after the Helton announcement struck a nerve with fans, as he stated that recruiting was going better than people realized but that the negativity around the program wasn't helping in the process. His point was to encourage fans to rally around the Trojans, not to pass off culpability for the recruiting struggles, but that got lost in translation for an already agitated audience.

"I'm disappointed in myself and I apologize to our fans if they took the comments that I made [as] insinuating they were a direct result of our progress in the recruiting area," he says. "However, I believe that as the athletic director during the recruiting process, we still had numerous top-level recruits that were considering us, and I believed it was important to be positive and encouraging and support all the men that are coming to be here. So I was simply doing that. It was never designed to offend our fans in any way, shape or form.

"That's why I was disappointed in myself because we've been listening to our fans, and I think the San Jose State move and not playing [FSC opponent UC] Davis is indicative of that. That came from the fans and we delivered for them."

But the point of the discussion on this afternoon is not to rehash everything that transpired in November and December, but to gain perspective and insight on what has followed since and the overall plan of building up the football program subsequent to the Helton decision.

Bohn and Helton both spoke to TrojanSports.com about the process of adding resources and personnel to the recruiting office and support staff, as well as the overhaul of the defensive staff this offseason.

"I think he has faith in knowing that we're as committed to winning as he is," Bohn says of Helton.

The hope, of course, is that the fan base comes to see that as well.

Bohn has shared that when he asked what was needed for the program to take a step forward, Helton -- now four-plus seasons into his tenure as head coach -- was surprised that his new boss would ask in such an open-ended way.

"His first response was, 'Well, no one's ever asked me that before,'" Bohn recalls. "But his immediate response, we started talking about recruiting, so obviously that was a hot-button for both of us and we had to address that. And obviously along the recruiting lines, looking at the recruiting of his staff."

Helton, reflecting back on those conversations this past weekend, crafted his thoughts in a way to be respectful to former athletic director Lynn Swann while still acknowledging a different way of business had indeed been introduced.

"We've had great leadership here and support, but to have somebody like Mike to come and say, 'Hey coach, what do you need here?' You have support and people that you lean on, but he was willing and Dr. Folt was willing to say, 'We see.' They were outsiders coming in to the USC program and they said, you know what, the statement of well, it's always been done that way -- you can only lean on tradition for so long and then you have to marry up with what everyone else is [doing] in the country," Helton said.

"And they stepped up to create additional recruiting support, technical support when it comes to brand marketing, video production, social media production, graphic designs, the availability to not only keep staff but to garner new staff that I think is elite."

USC went through the 2020 recruiting cycle with five full-time recruiting staffers -- assistant AD/director of player development Gavin Morris, director of scouting/recruiting strategy Trey Johnson, director of player personnel Spencer Harris, director of on-campus recruiting Kelsea Winkle and director of creative media Ryan Miller. (Plus grad assistants, interns and the occasional overlapping help from other football support staff.)

Harris and Winkle were hired last spring, after the department had lost two of its more established driving forces when director of recruiting Alex Rios left in September of 2018 and assistant AD/recruiting and player personnel Eric Ziskin departed last March.

Both men had decided that the endless hours -- amplified even more while leading an understaffed department -- weren't in their long-term plan.

Ziskin was not only at the forefront of evaluating countless hours of prospects' highlights and helping to decide which recruits USC should pursue, but he was often the lead communicator between the program and high schools. Speaking to TrojanSports.com upon his exit last year, he shed light on the gap between USC's recruiting department and that of the schools the Trojans competed against for top prospects.