USC’s new GM convinced Trojans are ‘sleeping giant’ of college football

When he lived in Los Angeles before, Chad Bowden worked at one point as a telemarketer. He was 18 at the time, making calls for a Google ad services company based out of the Flynt Building in Beverly Hills. Every day, hundreds of times per day, people on the other line would find colorful ways to share how unhappy they were to hear from him.

It was a thankless job. For a while, it wore him down emotionally. But “it was the greatest experience,” he says.

Turns out, as Bowden learned later, it was perfect training for a career in major college football.

“Because I’m so used to people telling me no,” Bowden says, “and trying to get them to say yes.”

That conviction is part of the reason why Bowden has risen so quickly through the front-office ranks and why USC made him one of the highest-paid personnel directors in the nation in late January, plucking him for Notre Dame with a seven-figure salary.

But at USC, he hasn’t had to do much convincing in his first six weeks. Since his first conversations with coach Lincoln Riley and athletic director Jennifer Cohen, it was made clear to Bowden that they believed in his vision for what USC could become — and would provide the resources to make it happen.

Those factors weren’t always in his full control at Notre Dame.

“I knew I was coming to USC when, in an hour’s time span, I spoke to Jen and Lincoln and had voiced my aspirations and what I believe college football is going to be and how aggressive I’d like to be in that new era,” Bowden said. “They shared a lot of the same thoughts as I did.”

“That’s a huge reason as to why I chose to leave a great situation. Because I felt like this was better.”

His arrival at USC has since been heralded as one of the biggest moves of the college football offseason to date. But while Cohen and Riley have raved about their new general manager, no one seems happier about these new circumstances than Bowden.

Every morning, he says, he looks into his closet stocked with cardinal and gold apparel and has to pinch himself.

“I always felt like USC was the sleeping giant of college football,” Bowden said, “and I remember thinking if I ever got that opportunity, deep down, I’d want to take it because I know what this place can do.”

He’s been thrilled with Cohen, whom he called both “a friggin’ animal” and the “best [athletic director] in the country.” He’s overjoyed with Riley, whom he says “can do it all,” including grilling up a mean balsamic steak, one Bowden was still thinking about weeks later.

Where there were concerns in the past about USC having enough resources to compete with other blue bloods, Bowden says he has no such worry.

USC “won’t be slowed down” by the new era of revenue sharing, he assured. And its NIL approach would be among “the most aggressive” in the country.

“USC has everything,” he says. “There’s not one thing that this place doesn’t have.”

What it lacked was a vision — and the necessary infrastructure — to keep up in the incoming era of revenue-sharing in college football. But since Bowden’s arrival, USC has put a tremendous amount of trust in its new general manager to fill in those blanks.

That’s led naturally to questions about the dynamics around the new general manager role. Bowden technically reports to both Riley and Cohen. But he shrugged off any suggestion of a potential “power struggle”.

“We’re all in this together,” Bowden said. “I’ve always viewed it that way.”

Already, the plans Bowden laid out in those calls with Cohen and Riley are starting to come to fruition. Bowden has stocked the front office with rising star personnel staffers that he worked with at both Notre Dame and Cincinnati, three of which — Dre Brown, Max Stienecker and Weston Zernechel — Bowden said were general managers in their own right.

The focus since has almost entirely been on the recruiting trail, where in recent years, Riley has spent a lot of time chasing big-time prospects outside of the state, many of whom ended up flipping to local schools late in the process. But that approach has been scrapped since Bowden’s arrival, as USC now plans to focus most of its effort on recruiting Southern California.

“Back when national championships were won here, when Rose Bowls were won here, you know, you look back at Pete Carroll’s classes — ‘02, ‘03, ‘04 — over 80% of the recruiting classes were from the state of California,” Bowden said. “History repeats itself. It always does. And if you look into the fine details of how programs are built and how the place was built and when success had happened, that was a key part of USC being on top. My plans and my vision is to bring that back and take care of the state.”

It’s an important time to start seriously recruiting the state, considering the wealth of talent in the 2026 class. Bowden said he believes it’s “the best class that California has had in two decades.”

With that in mind, he has spent the better part of the past 30 days dropping by local high schools and meeting with the sport’s local powerbrokers. He prefers to say he’s “enhancing” those local ties, rather than “restoring” them; though, it’s clear in recent years that they’d faded.

“We’re going to take care of those people and they’re going to know that we’re here,” Bowden said. “That’s not done over one call. That’s not a text message every day. It’s done through consistent communication and action.”

A new general manager and new vision won’t change a program overnight on their own either. But as Bowden sees it, USC is “a lot closer than people think.”

As for the remaining distance? Bowden seems content to carry USC himself.

“I’m gonna give every ounce of me to whatever is necessary for USC to win,” Bowden said. “Whatever this place needs, I’m gonna do it.”