College front offices are quickly becoming just as vital to the health of a program as the on-field coaching staff. USC is in the process of revamping its front office, and the latest significant move has reportedly been made Tuesday.

Several reports indicate that Wisconsin general manager Max Stienecker will take on a key personnel role with the Trojans following his stint with the Badgers. The 24-year-old staffer was promoted to the GM role in Madison under Luke Fickell ahead of the 2024 season after serving director of player personnel prior to that.

FootballScoop is reporting that Stienecker will take over the role of executive director of player personnel at USC under new general manager Chad Bowden, who has made several splash hires since being brought in by the Trojans to rejuvenate the program on the personnel side following a successful stint at Notre Dame.

In Stienecker, the Trojans will have another one of the top young personnel staff members in college football. The Cincinnati alum began his career as a student assistant and quickly worked his way up through the program under Fickell and eventually became the director of on-campus recruiting for the Bearcats before following the head coach to Wisconsin.

Bowden has overhauled the internal staff at USC since arriving by bringing in some of the top young front office personnel.

That includes the recent additions of Dre Brown, who spent last year as the director of player personnel at Illinois, and Zaire Turner, who was Notre Dame's director of player personnel. Brown will be the new executive director of scouting and personnel for the Trojans while Turner is the program's new assistant athletic director of recruiting operations.

The Trojans also recently announced new titles for three existing recruiting staffers as Weston Zernechel is now director of recruiting (previously director of player personnel), Drew Fox is NFL pro liaison/high school scouting (previously assistant director of player personnel/pro liaison and Skylar Phan is director of recruiting strategy (previously director of recruiting operations).

Turner and Brown both worked with Bowden at Notre Dame while he also has a connection to Stienecker from their time together at Cincinnati under Fickell.

Former USC football general manager Dave Emerick has shifted to a chief of staff role and will be involved in all facets of the program, while former executive director of recruiting Annie Hanson recently announced her decision to step away from that role to focus on raising her newborn son while stating she will remain involved and around the program.

USC hosted a big recruiting event over the weekend allowing top prospects from around the area to meet with some of the new staff members. The Trojans already have one of the top recruiting classes for 2026 that features four top-100 commits.