USC officially announced two additions to its recruiting staff Monday, and that department is almost complete pending one additional hire to be announced soon.
The Trojans formally announced the hiring of Jeff Martin as director of scouting and player relations, which we reported 10 days ago.
Martin is a LSU alum and had spent the last year as the Tigers' assistant director of player personnel and development and serving as a player personnel assistant for two seasons prior to his appointment as a full-time staff member, per his LSU bio.
At USC, he'll take on a larger role as one of the Trojans' primary talent evaluators.
The way USC has structured its recruiting department under director of player personnel Spencer Harris, who oversees the operation and plays a lead role in scouting/prospect evaluation, is Martin will be the defensive scouting coordinator working closely with the defensive staff and Drew Fox will be the offensive scouting coordinator working closely with the offensive staff in identifying prospects the Trojans want to pursue.
Harris spoke to TrojanSports.com for a larger story we're working on and discussed what Martin brings to the operation more in-depth and that his connection with USC director of player development Gavin Morris played into it all.
"Jeff Martin has a prior relationship with Gavin, and I had the opportunity to go through the interview process with Jeff and I came away blown away. He is an extremely impressive individual with very lofty goals and has his hand in a lot of aspects of the LSU football program, and I knew that if we brought him to 'SC and brought him to Los Angeles in a personnel role, that he would make a really positive impact on our program," Harris said. "Not only from a personnel side, player evaluation side, which he'll have a major part in, but his way of thinking and the type of impact he wants to make on recruits and student-athletes' lives from a development standpoint will be really beneficial for us. And then obviously he's got some ties to an area of the country that we would like to grow our footprint."
USC also announced Monday the hiring of Megan Mueller as director of recruiting operations. Mueller spent the last year as a recruiting assistant at Kansas after coming up as a student manager in the football equipment department at her alma mater Colorado.
Mueller fills the role previously staffed by Kelsea Winkle. USC thought it had hired Angelia Brummett from UCF for the position, but then she followed head coach Josh Heupel to Tennessee when he got the job there.
USC has one creative/graphic design hire to add, which should come this week, and then the recruiting department will be full at 11 members -- up from 5 full-time staffers just 14 months ago.
Here's the breakdown:
Spencer Harris -- Director of Player Personnel
Gavin Morris -- Assistant AD/Director of Player Development
Drew Fox -- Assistant Director of Player Personnel
Jeff Martin -- Director of Scouting and Player Relations
Marshall Cherrington -- Director of Recruiting Strategy
Armond Hawkins Jr. -- Director of High School Relations
Megan Mueller -- Director of Recruiting Operations
Alex Verdugo -- Director of Graphic Design
Nick Mitchell -- Director of Video Production
Will Stout -- Assistant Director of Football Video Production
**Graphic designer still to be hired.
**USC also hired Texas' former director of recruiting Bryan Carrington as an offensive analyst. While he's officially part of the football staff, not the recruiting department, he is expected to make an impact in recruiting.
"What we've built over just the last 12 months here going from five full-time to now it's 11 in our recruiting personnel department, the administration has been extremely supportive of what we are trying to accomplish," Harris said. "It's been a challenge. We created some of these positions over a year ago and then trying to hire through COVID was really tough, trying to get people to move to Los Angeles ... so to make some hires and get through the season and be able to hit the restart button and finish out this staff, I'm extremely excited about where it's going and what our potential is once everybody's in the building working and they understand what we're trying to do, the goals we're trying to accomplish.
"I think that's the most exciting part -- it's not that we made these hires, it's what we're trying to accomplish once everybody is here."
