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Perpetually red-hot on the recruiting trail these days, USC also is again signaling its unprecedented commitment to all facets of the football program.
Sources tell FootballScoop that USC head coach Lincoln Riley and general manager Chad Bowden are tabbing Conor McQuiston as the Trojans' director of analytics.
It's believed to be the first time USC has had a full-time, dedicated staff member for analytics in the personnel space.
Moreover, McQuiston carries with him considerable bonafides: He's worked for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals, data powerhouse PFF, NextGen Stats and, most recently, Prize Picks.
Under athletics director Jennifer Cohen and with Riley at the helm for his fourth season atop the Trojans football program, USC has spared no resource in this offseason.
It plucked away Bowden from Notre Dame, where he had been the principal figure in assembling the Irish roster that competed for the College Football Playoff Championship in the sport's first-ever 12-team format. Bowden had just been named by his peers as FootballScoop's top personnel executive in the days before Cohen & Co. acquired him for the USC program.
Since that time, Bowden assembled a star-studded core of personnel executives and enhanced the already present staff; notable additions included Dre Brown and Max Stienecker from Big Ten programs Illinois and Wisconsin, respectively, as well as bringing with him Zaire Turner from Notre Dame. He also elevated in-house personnel staffer Weston Zernechel and enhanced the roles of others.
Bowden also is no stranger to the analytics component. He years ago developed his own proprietary scoring model for evaluating potential recruits and NCAA Transfer Portal entries for the Irish.
Additionally, Bowden spearheaded Notre Dame's hiring of Anthony Treash away from PFF, an addition that numerous members of the Irish football program praised along the team's CFP journey when Notre Dame became the hands-down national leader in "Middle-8" scoring -- the final four minutes of the first half and opening four minutes of the second.
Since Bowden's arrival in Los Angeles, USC's recruiting efforts for its 2026 class and beyond have surged; the Trojans have the consensus No. 1 class per 247Sports, with nearly a dozen four-star prospects and highlighted by five-star Xavier Griffin. Eleven of the commitments have occurred since the hiring of Bowden in late January.