The USC Trojans knocked it out of the park when they were able to lure Chad Bowden from rival Notre Dame and make him their new GM. Just over a month on the job, and he is already making waves, and the program has the most momentum that it has had in recent years.
Bowden sat down with the media on Monday and discussed a myriad of topics, but most of them involved NIL and recruiting.
He will be tasked with aiding Lincoln Riley in restoring the recruiting power that USC once held. Some of that will need to be done with a clear NIL strategy. Some of that will need to be done with winning on the field. But a lot of it, as Bowden alluded to, can be done simply by looking at history.
“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. 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.”
USC Trojans GM Chad Bowden
Chad Bowden Wants USC Trojans To Lockdown California
Whether Lincoln Riley decided this was the way after last season or this was Bowden’s pitch in getting hired here, owning the State of California gives USC not only the best shot of national relevance but also the easiest.
Kids in California grow up wanting to go to USC. Why try to sell kids who grew up wanting to go elsewhere? That is not to say that USC will not have to recruit other areas of the country; it is a national brand, after all, but locking down California is what made USC a blue blood.
Everyone loves to bring up the Carroll years. Those years are the standard, as they should be. Lincoln Riley has not been able to replicate that success in his three years in SoCal. But now, with Bowden and the rest of the staff in place, he will have his best opportunity to do so.
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The Trojans currently hold the No. 1 2026 recruiting class, according to 247 Sports and Rivals, and seven of their 11 commitments are from California. Many more prospects are trending the way of the Trojans, and they are pushing to flip others.
USC may not be all the way back just yet, but people like Chad Bowden are already doing everything that they can to make it a reality.