If the USC fan base wasn't already fired up for the Trojans' investment in overhauling their football recruiting operation, new football general manager Chad Bowden sprinkled more catnip into the bowl Wednesday in his introductory press conference when he was asked what compelled him to leave the same position at rival Notre Dame to come to Los Angeles.

(Well, aside from USC's surely substantial financial investment in enticing him to switch sides, that is ...)

"Notre Dame did everything they could to keep me there. USC, for me, it meant more to me," Bowden said. "When I was a kid, I watched Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, that was my team, LenDale White, [Dwayne] Jarrett, all those guys. USC kind of held something in my heart.

"I think it's the greatest city in the United States of America, Los Angeles. I think it's a city of opportunity. ... And I thought that coming here I could have the type of success that I want to have and I could be able to sustain it, and it's a big reason why I chose USC."

In adjusting to the ever-changing nature of college football recruiting in the NIL, transfer portal and now revenue-sharing era, USC athletic director Jen Cohen and head football coach Lincoln Riley acknowledged in hiring Bowden and the rest of the staff he's since assembled that the Trojans had fallen behind the times in the way business is done now in the sport.

"I think it's something that we've all been aware of for a long time, and I think there's been, I think, a lot of opportunities along the line where we've started to have those conversations," Riley said. "... I think we always believed this transition was coming."

USC grabbed the attention of the college football world two weeks ago in hiring Bowden -- who had built quite a reputation for himself the last few years while running Notre Dame's recruiting operations, recently being named FootballScoop.com's Player Personnel Director of the Year -- but it's equally noteworthy what the Trojans have put around him, essentially created an entire new department.

Following Bowden to USC are new assistant AD of recruiting operations Zaire Turner and executive director of scouting and personnel Dre Brown, who both worked for Bowden in the past at Notre Dame, as well as the reported (but not yet officially announced) addition of Wisconsin football GM Max Stienecker and more to come, as Riley teased Wednesday.

(The new USC football "front office" also includes three holdovers with new titles in director of recruiting Weston Zernechel, NFL pro liaison/high school relations Drew Fox and director of recruiting strategy Skylar Phan, while former general manager Dave Emerick has transitioned to the role of senior associate AD for football administration.)

"We've got a couple others that will be announced here in the coming days and be here to Los Angeles that will continue to round out that staff, but I fully believe when it's all said and done -- and I don't say this lightly -- I think it's going to be the best personnel, off-the-field staff in the country, and that was the goal to build that from the beginning," Riley said.

"You see where these people have come from, their experience, the quality of jobs that they're leaving, they're not just doing this out of the kindness of their hearts -- they see the opportunity here. They see the momentum here, and that's why we've been able to assemble that staff along with, again, just tremendous support from Jen and everybody on the administrative side. And it's made a big difference."

While some wondered how much of this pronounced pivot was Riley's impetus and how much came from above from Cohen and the athletic department (including deputy athletic director/chief of staff Jay Hilbrands), there seems no question at all that Riley is fully onboard with the new vision for USC recruiting operations.

When Bowden was asked how his relationship with Riley has developed, he needed only to remind the reporter that he's been living in Riley's guest house since relocating to Los Angeles.

"Me and Lincoln have a great relationship. We really hit it off right off the bat," Bowden said. "... Again, any time you have balsamic steaks that are phenomenal and you're at Coach Riley's house staying in his guest house, you have a pretty good relationship."

Riley, meanwhile, extolled the benefits of having a more expansive department to take on the bulk of the burden that college football recruiting now entails -- no longer just scouting, building relationships with prospects/families and coordinating recruiting visits but now all of that plus dealing with agents, player compensation, "salary cap" management for lack of a better term, etc.

"One of [Bowden's] biggest goals and our biggest goals with this was to allow our coaches to coach more. I know as crazy as that sounds, but a lot of our coaches get pulled in so many different directions that you want to be able to, within your organization, whatever strengths people bring to the table, you want to be able to accentuate those as much as you possibly can," Riley said. "So our coaches are still certainly going to have a big role in evaluating, certainly going to still have a big role in recruiting, but [Bowden's] department is going to spearhead scouting, it's going to have a heavy role in recruiting, it's going to have a heavy role in how we construct our roster, it's going to have a heavy role in our salary cap and how we manage that, how we strategize.

"I don't know if it's fair to say it's completely to an NFL model because different NFL teams do it in different ways, but it's certainly trending much closer to that where there's a lot of synergy but there's also separate responsibilities and it really is going to be kind of its own department within our program. And we wanted to build a team of people that allow that to operate at a higher level where we can evaluate more people, we can recruit more people efficiently and we can manage the roster, take a few things off of the coaches so the coaches can really dive heavily into coaching and developing our team and allow our people in personnel, scouting and recruiting to do their jobs at a high level."

All the while, there was another key point that Bowden and Riley found they agreed upon in their talks throughout this process -- that the potential for USC football moving forward is far greater than what the last decade and a half-plus has delivered for the program.

"A lot of the things that [Riley] talked about with me as to why he chose to come to USC, they aligned with how I felt," Bowden said. "All we want to do is win this thing. We want to win that moment -- and we know what moment that is."

Riley noted a couple times Wednesday how the process of identifying and hiring Bowden was unlike any staff hiring he'd ever been part of in his career.

He reiterated that the process began "before the season started" with first just trying to figure out what USC was even looking for in the first place to best position itself in this "ever-evolving world of college football."

"There were a lot of different people that we talked to in a lot of different areas from the NFL, college, business -- I mean, we talked to people with all types of backgrounds. It was the most, honestly, extensive search, hiring and interview process that I've ever been a part of," Riley said. "But I believe our patience and how thorough we were, how committed we all were, our administration was to getting this right was absolutely rewarded. ...

"I look back on it now, we could have rushed into different people and different structures at different times, and I don't know that we would be feeling as good as do sitting here today, to be completely honest with you. ... I think we all recognized this was very important to get this right, and obviously Chad was the first part of it and is a huge part of it, but it's more than just one person -- it's a system, it's a way of doing things, you restructure other jobs, you bring other people around them, there's a lot to it. This was probably the most difficult hire I've been a part of in all my years of being a head coach."

Ultimately, Riley said he, Cohen, Hilbrands and Emerick, who were all involved in every step of the process, decided they wanted somebody intimately familiar with college athletics already but also someone with experience with "salary caps, rosters, contracts, negotiations" as well as someone suited to "building the roster with a big-picture vision, the ability to manage people, the ability to personally be involved in the recruiting process, to be able to build a staff and operate a staff."

"There was a lot to it, so it starts to narrow it down. And again, it's a new enough kind of phenomenon in college football right now, it's not like there's just a 100 of these and you just start go interviewing them," Riley said. "So do you go the NFL route? Again, do you look in the business world? Each area kind of brought some strengths and weaknesses. There were some great people that we interviewed. It was thorough. I don't even want to begin to guess how many people we talked to, but it was a lot, but once we had the initial conversation with Chad it was very clear to me that all the things aligned and he was going to be our next GM."

While the role of "general manager" in college football is a very new concoction, as Riley noted, Bowden, as much as anyone could be, was seemingly born into the job in a way.

His father Jim Bowden was a Major League Baseball general manager with the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals, with Chad watching from the inside of that world from a young age.

"I grew up in it. I watched him every day do it, interact with coaches, interact with players, interact with ownership and everything that kind of came with it, so it was natural to me. It was something I really wanted to do," the younger Bowden said. "... It was always what I wanted to do. I didn't know college football was going to come to this. I didn't know it was going to be this title, I never asked for the title -- I just wanted to help a team win.

"If you've ever been around me, all I want to do is win and have it be a team -- not just me, but have it be a team effort and everyone reaching their full potential. That's all I've ever wanted to do in my life."

Bowden's rise in college football started when he took on the role of director of recruiting at Cincinnati and then followed coach Marcus Freeman (then the defensive coordinator) to Notre Dame in 2021, where he started as defensive recruiting coordinator in an analyst role before Freeman promoted Bowden to director of recruiting for the entire program once he became head coach. Bowden held this role during the 2022 and 2023 seasons before earning the promotion to general manager in March 2024.

He had been pursued a year ago by Michigan but opted to stay at Notre Dame, ultimately watching the roster he helped assemble reach the national championship game last month. During Bowden's time there, Notre Dame's recruiting classes ranked No. 6 in 2022, No. 11 in 2023, No. 9 in 2024 and No. 11 in 2025.

"I think Chad and obviously his track record speaks for itself and that was something that made sense pretty quickly when we were able to engage in some conversations with him in terms of our vision for USC, his vision," Riley said. "And there was just a genuine and shared excitement about where this place is going that I think really neither side could ignore."

To build out his recruiting team, Bowden reeled in two of his former Notre Dame staffers in Turner and Brown.

Turner was the second-ever woman to hold a director of player personnel role in college football. Prior to her three seasons at Notre Dame (2022-24), she was a part of the Virginia Tech football recruiting staff from 2018-20.

Brown was a running back for Illinois for 2015-19 before landing a job as a football recruiting coordinator at Tennessee and then moving on to Notre Dame, where he was hired as an offensive recruiting coordinator in 2021. Brown was a defensive analyst in 2022 and recruiting analyst focusing on high school relations in 2023, before being promoted to director of recruiting in March 2024. He returned to his alma mater Illinois this past year.

Stienecker, meanwhile, is a fast-rising 24-year-old who served as the director of on-campus recruiting for Cincinnati (where Bowden got his start) before following coach Luke Fickell to Wisconsin, where he was the director of player personnel before being promoted to the GM role ahead of the 2024 season. FootballScoop.com reported that Stienecker will be USC's executive director of player personnel.

And again, Riley intimated that there would be further additions to the department.

"You are who you surround yourself with, I'm a big believer in that," Bowden said. "That's my mom's biggest motto -- who you're around every single day that's who you become. We're hiring the very best across the country, and we want to be around the very best. I want to be around the very best, and also I want to make sure this program's being pushed in every avenue. There is not a day, there's not a moment where you can be lax. I want to make sure we're pushing this program in every avenue, and that's why we're going to continue to hire the very best in the country."

Bowden's first big moment as USC's general manager came last weekend during the Trojans' big junior day event on campus, as the program hosted an impressive lineup of top recruits from the 2026, 2027 and 2028 recruiting classes.

As for the overarching message from the staff to those prospects -- the bulk of whom were local standouts?

"The main thing what they were telling me, keeping the Cali kids home," said four-star tight end Caleb Tafua, from Lakewood. "They want all the Cali kids in Cali. Texas kids, Florida kids, they stay in their own area and build it up. That was the main thing."

That sentiment was echoed by recruit after recruit coming off the junior day event ...

"[Riley] was heavy on recruiting SoCal and California big-time and building the program through Cali kids and getting it back to national championship status," added four-star defensive back Madden Riordan, an early USC commit from Sierra Canyon HS.

Added four-star defensive end Simote Katoanga: "The main message was they need me. They want to keep the best talents in California to stay in LA. I think what stood out was just the energy of the whole staff and program in general. The whole visit was refreshing and great."

And three-star cornerback commit Josh Holland, from St. John Bosco HS: "It actually means a lot to me, because over the couple years I kind of feel that I’ve been overlooked. A lot of Cali dudes have been overlooked by USC."

It's a message Bowden himself reiterated with intention during his press conference Wednesday.

"We're going to major in high school [recruiting] and we're going to minor in the [transfer] portal," he said. "We're going to be aggressive and we're going to attack. Our business is change -- every single day something could change. We're going to be on offense every single day and we're going to attack it. We're going to attack it through high school. We're going to attack it through the state of California. It's the best high school football in America is playing in California, and we're going to do everything we can to get the very best players that are in California to stay here and play for USC."

Bowden sure knew his audience in speaking not only to the media in the room Wednesday but the USC fan base at large -- a group that has consistently vented its frustrations that Riley and his staff have so lightly (or ineffectively, depending on one's perspective) recruited their own backyard in Southern California while putting so much time and emphasis and resources into Texas, the Southeast and the broader East Coast.

In the recently completed 2025 recruiting class, USC signed just two of the top-25 ranked prospects in California (5 of the top 100, for that matter) -- QB Husan Longstreet (No. 3 in the state) and LB Matai Tagoa'i (No. 8) -- while Alabama and Oregon each signed four and Texas A&M and UCLA signed three each from that list. The Trojans also signed just two of the top 25 California prospects in 2024 (and just 4 of the top 70).

Among the top prospects in attendance at junior day last week were 5 of the top-10 ranked players in the state in five-star WR Chris Henry (No. 3, committed to Ohio State), four-star WR Vance Spafford (No. 6, committed to Georgia), four-star WR Kayden Dixon-Wyatt (No. 7), Lockhart (No. 8) and four-star LB Talanoa Ili (No. 9) among other notable local standouts.

"The message from Coach Riley and the staff was to keep me home. The visit made a lasting impression on me," Ili said afterward. "The way they welcomed my family and I, they really made me feel important."

Meanwhile, the emphasis on prioritizing building the roster through high school recruiting over relying on plugging holes through the transfer portal is one Riley has vocalized for a while now.

It's a vision Bowden shares.

"It's just a culture. It's all about culture," Bowden said. "I think things that you can do within a recruiting process, the earlier you get them and have them committed, you're already building your culture. When you have that and can acquire that in high school and then have years with the player, with the family -- because you're not just recruiting a kid anymore, you're recruiting a family. And once you have them in your class and they sign here and you've got four or five years, sometimes three -- three, four, five years with them -- that's how you build a culture of a program and that's why that's going to be our emphasis."

After finishing 15th and 18th in the Rivals recruiting rankings the last two years (after a high ranking of 7th under Riley in the 2023 class), USC is already off to a strong start in the 2026 cycle, ranking 3rd presently with a foundation of eight early commitments.

That group includes four Rivals100 prospects in Lockhart, four-star linebacker Xavier Griffin (Gainesville, Georgia), four-star DE Braeden Jones (Chicago) and four star DB RJ Sermons (Rancho Cucamonga), along with Riordan, four-star WR Tron Baker (Chatsworth), four-star RB Shahn Alston (Painesville, Ohio) and Holland.

USC fans know all too well by this point, though, that early commitments can be fickle and that the process of building this 2026 class is really only just beginning.

When asked if he felt USC had the NIL/financial resources needed to recruit the kind of roster he envisioned, Bowden simply responded "Yes."

As for what the recruiting pitch will be to recruits, he said that's simple as well.

"It's USC, it's the place to be. It really is, and we're going to recruit that way," Bowden said. "Everything that USC stands for and offers young people from an education standpoint, the degree, the connections, the network, the marketability of the greatest city in the country, this is the place to be. That's going to be our message to every recruit, because there's not one thing that LA and what USC -- it covers every base that a young person could want and that's going to be our big pitch."

Bowden's reputation is as an energetic presence who makes an impression upon and connects well with recruits and their families. He notably once tried to compel Freeman, Notre Dame's head coach, to jump out of a helicopter to impress recruits.

That naturally came up in Bowden's press conference Wednesday, in regard to what outside-the-box ideas he may have pitched to Riley already ...

"Yeah, we've talked about him jumping out of a helicopter. I don't know if he's going to do it yet. No, just kidding. Look, we'll do whatever it takes when it comes to recruiting. Whatever it takes, if it makes sense, we're going to do it," Bowden said. "And Coach Riley is up for anything. All the coaches are up for anything. Rob Ryan, we might have him hopping out in a parachute, I don't know -- we're going to come up with some really creative ideas for recruiting. And whatever it takes for us to get the very best players in the country, we're going to do it."

Another new wrinkle could be in the works, meanwhile, in regard to how the Trojans strategize recruiting.

While the NCAA lifted the limited on full-time coaches a program can have, it does still limit programs to having 11 off-campus recruiters. That's traditionally been the head coach and 10 assistant coaches.

USC now has 11 full-fledged assistant coaches with the addition of cornerbacks coach Trovon Reed, so already the Trojans had some decisions to make about who would or would not be on the road. But Riley said there may be even more to consider.

"You can do the math pretty quickly, not every full-time coach for us will be on the road. And we may look at it, which has become a little more popular in college football right now, of having even somebody on the off-the-field staff that's on the road as well. And that's becoming, again it's just a little more popular now," Riley said. "The rules have changed and the mindset around that has changed. So we've got some good options and some decisions that we've got to make before the spring recruiting period hits."

As for Riley's role in this new structure of USC recruiting ...

"No. 1, it's a partnership together. We're going to work together. Chad is going to lead the charge certainly on that side of it. I think my role will settle a little bit more into certainly the day-to-day recruiting of our top priorities and the people that we feel very strongly we want to bring into USC," Riley said. "I'll probably have a little bit less day-to-day, oversight's not the right word -- I'll still be involved in that -- but knowing you have somebody there day-to-day whether I'm on the field coaching the guys or I'm on the road recruiting, that is running the show from that side of it. That's what we wanted, that's what I wanted.

"I mean, one of Chad's first things when we talked was, 'I want to make it where you can just coach the team, run the team, run the organization and you know that these things are handled. And we're going to handle it, we're going to build a team that's going to take care of it for USC.' And everything he's done up to this point -- honestly for the amount of time he's been here, how much we've already got implemented and done up to this point is pretty remarkable. .... It's a good feeling to have those guys on our team, I can tell you that much."

Riley reiterated again that this change was always coming eventually, even if he (or anyone in college football, for that matter) couldn't have forecasted how swiftly and significantly the sport and recruiting would change in recent years.

He said that when he hired Emerick, his longtime friend from their shared Mike Leach connection, from Mississippi State in July of 2022 to be "general manager" it was with the expectation that his role would entail more of what it will now as someone with a hand in all facets of the organization rather than this new definition of the GM role with Bowden.

Riley also noted that the change in administration when former athletic director Mike Bohn was forced out in May of 2023, leading to the hiring of Cohen and her team, also impacted the timeline of getting to this point.

Meanwhile, Riley further doubled-down on an observation he's made before when he turned over his defensive coaching staff last year -- that he doesn't believe he could have attracted the same people to the program when he started three-plus years ago with the state of USC football at that time.

"There's big picture visions of what you want to do, but you can't always do every single thing right away. It doesn't always fit or work that way, so I think it shows that we're not content with any part of this program being average or even being good. That's not our mentality," Riley said. "Any part of this program, we're evaluating on, is it at a national championship level? If it's not, is it trending that way quickly? And if it's not we need to fix it. I mean, that's just been the mentality from second one, and I think Jen and her team coming in have certainly given us the support and share in that same mentality. ...

"That's how it gets better is you go bring in elite people, you go continue to raise the level of all parts of the program -- and we're doing that. And my experience tells me if you continue to do that, you continue to bring in elite people, elite players, then the results on the field will take care of themselves. And that's what will happen."

Again, on that note, he and Bowden are aligned as they commence this new era of USC football recruiting ...

"The future for USC is so incredibly bright. We're going to make sure this place reaches its full potential," Bowden said. "It's going to take every day, it's going to take being around the right people, and that's what we're doing."