Multiple reports have emerged Friday morning that USC is set to hire Cincinnati's Mike Bohn as its next athletic director.
The Athletic's Bruce Feldman first reported the news. The Cincinnati Enquirer and others have confirmed the news.
Bohn has previously served as the athletic director at Idaho (1998-2003), San Diego State (2003-05), Colorado (2005-13) and has been at Cincinnati since 2014. His time at Colorado gives him experience in the Pac-12 conference.
USC parted ways with former athletic director Lynn Swann on Sept. 9, at which point new university president Carol Folt had a search committee in place to find the new AD. Nearly two monts later, the search is over.
Bohn will be the first USC athletic director since Mike McGee -- coincidentally also hired away from Cincinnati -- who is not a former Trojans football player, following Mike Garrett, Pat Haden and Swann.
USC interim AD Dave Roberts, who was not part of the search committee, had made clear that the school needed to find an experienced athletic director who had the skills and background the job requires.
In his latest stop at Cincinnati, Bohn hired football coach Luke Fickell, who went 4-8 in his first season with the Bearcats but has led the program to an 11-2 mark last year and a 6-1 record so far this season. Bohn also hired John Brannen, previously at Northern Kentucky, as Cincinnati's new men's basketball coach in April.
At USC, Bohn will be initially tasked with deciding the future of USC's football program and head coach Clay Helton, who has been on the hot seat since a 5-7 season last fall. The Trojans are 5-3 so far this season and still in control of their path to a Pac-12 South title leading into a pivotal clash with No. 7/8 Oregon this weekend, but USC's recruiting class is ranked No. 64 in the Rivals rankings -- an all-time low for the program.
The buzz is only growing louder that USC will pursue Urban Meyer, who won national championships at Ohio State and Florida, as its next head coach. Stadium's Brett McMurphy reinforced that buzz with a report Friday morning.
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