Q&A: USC AD Jennifer Cohen confident investments in football will help Lincoln Riley win
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In the 18 months since Jennifer Cohen took over as USC’s athletic director, her job has grown more complicated by the week. When she was hired in August 2023, Cohen inherited an unstable department on its way to a new conference with an underachieving football program.
In the meantime, the entire landscape of college sports changed. Then changed again.
More change is still on the horizon, with a final ruling on a $2.78-billion antitrust settlement agreed to by the NCAA and five power conference set for April and USC readying to distribute $20.5 million in revenue to its athletes this fall if the House vs. NCAA settlement is approved.
“We’re entering into a different era,” Cohen said Thursday, “and for us, we’re motivated to win that era at USC.”
Lincoln Riley has struggled through his USC tenure, but pro football executives see a path for him to be an NFL head coach or offensive coordinator.
Cohen understands that starts, first and foremost, with winning on the football field, where USC has fallen short the last two seasons under coach Lincoln Riley. The Trojans finished last season 7-6, Riley’s worst record yet as a coach.
Those results, Cohen told The Times, “certainly didn’t meet the expectations that we have.”
Cohen has since turned her focus to giving Riley “every resource possible to get to the next level,” starting with a general manager and a revamped personnel department. And in the fall, when revenue sharing becomes a reality, Cohen made clear that “championship-level football” will be a guiding principle in determining how money is divided at USC.
The Times spoke to Cohen about that and much more. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What was your message to Lincoln Riley after this season given that it didn’t meet your expectations?
Cohen: This industry is changing so much, so rapidly, that we’re always in conversations and evaluating everything that we need. What resources do we need? What pieces do we need to put in place to be successful? So it’s not an end-of-the-year conversation. It’s ongoing. I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made since the end of the season and in the offseason. I think he’s done an excellent job of putting together a great coaching staff. We worked really hard to keep a number of talented coaches and to retain them. Consistency is so important, so I’m really pleased with that. I thought we made some really good additional hires that complement the staff, both from an experience and a development standpoint, as well as a recruiting standpoint. [Football general manager Chad Bowden’s] hire obviously is huge for us and the infrastructure that he’s building. So I feel like there’s a lot of things we were talking about well before the end of the season, and we’ll keep talking about and keep evolving and keep growing and changing. But there’s been some really positive action taken to create what looks like some really exciting moment as we enter into the spring and into next season.
USC has lagged behind developing a front office to help it navigate the NIL era. Lincoln Riley introduced staff he says will bolster the Trojans.
What role would you say Riley has played in that progress?
Cohen: It’s a partnership. This is his program to run. But I look at all these relationships as partnerships, with every coach we have here. Since I got here, we’ve been having ongoing dialogue about what he thinks he needs, and what I think I need and doing that together as we look at how much has changed, you know? We’ve both been part of championship-level CFP teams before, but the environment has changed.
So he played an active role in the search process for a GM, and we had conversations about a GM before last season. Ironically, I think we ended up in absolutely the best spot by being patient in the process. We brought in a lot of other people. He has a big network and so do I. Not just in college but in the NFL. We got a lot of advice and expertise and information that we collected along the way. I think [we] helped each other stay patient in the process.
We were looking for a unicorn. Because these college GM jobs are so unique, you know? You can’t just say you’re the NFL now — you’re not. We’re still a college football program with a bunch of different complexities that don’t exist in the NFL, but there’s best practices in the NFL that we needed to implement. So finding Chad and his excitement about Chad and his belief in him, Chad’s belief in Lincoln, was a real win-win for USC. I’m excited about it.
USC coach Lincoln Riley insists player departures are the result of a cold, pro-style formula the Trojans use to set NIL offers.
What would you say your confidence level is in Riley as USC’s coach?
Cohen: Lincoln has the experience, right? He’s built and led championship teams before. And so my focus with him is just investing and giving him — and not just him, but his entire coaching staff, his support staff that he has around him every resource possible to get to the next level.
When we talked after the 2023 season — as USC finished 8-5 — you called it “disappointing” and just said last year’s finish “doesn’t meet expectations.” What do you need to see from the program to show it’s on an upward trajectory?
Cohen: What I can say is that USC is a special place and that we’re aligned and we’re resourced in a way to compete in what is a very evolving and changing landscape. And that we as a department, him as a coach, me as an AD, us as a university — we have to keep adapting to that. I feel like we just have to go execute. We just have to go execute. And I feel really confident in the resources that we’ve put into this program. We know we can do it here because it’s been done here before. I’m just ready for spring ball to start to see some of these new faces we have.
Since Chad Bowden’s arrival as new GM, there has been much discussion about power dynamics within the USC football program.
You’ve clearly invested a lot of resources into football since you got here. You rebuilt a new defensive staff. Now you revamped the personnel department. There’s not a lot left to rebuild. Is it fair to say there are no more excuses left in terms of seeing real progress next season?
Cohen: I just think we have high expectations. He has them and I have them. Yeah, we’re just working together to get there.
I know you considered both NFL and college candidates for the GM job. What made you lean more toward the recruiting/college end of that spectrum with Chad Bowden? What qualities were most important to you?
Cohen: Actually, I think he’s the whole picture in that. To your point, when you’re looking at people who only had NFL backgrounds, it wasn’t that they didn’t understand recruiting or have those relationships, it was that they also didn’t have the experience of knowing how to navigate in a university setting or in NIL or in dealing with donors and all these other aspects that are part of ecosystem of a college athletic department and a college football program. We were open to that. We figured no matter who we hired, we were going to have to supplement skills and expertise around them regardless. That’s why we’re building out an entire infrastructure around Chad.
That being said, Chad’s strengths aren’t just in recruiting and relationships. He also has a strong background in eval. He has a strong background in utilizing data analytics in making informed decisions. He has a strong background in managing a roster and managing a budget to a roster. He has other people he’s bringing in and still going to bring in. We still need to build out some more of our analytics side that will complement him. But he really blew us away by the balance and the breadth and depth of his experience. And also just kind of knowing behind the scenes what he was able to do at Notre Dame with what resources he had really impressed us as well.
Chad Bowden will have to work alongside Lincoln Riley and he’ll have a tough task ahead of him at USC.
We’re less than two months out from the final decision on the House settlement, which would bring about revenue sharing in college sports. What are your feelings on where that stands? And what are your biggest concerns?
Cohen: I think this is a unique opportunity. We’re entering into a different era and for us, we’re motivated to win that era at USC. We think that we can. There’s been so much work done over the last several months. I feel like our staff has done a great job preparing a road map for us for the future, and it’s also been a really diligent, thorough, collaborative process — not just with my team and the athletic department and staff and coaches, but also with leadership on campus because that’s really important too.
I’m not prepared to share specifics right now, but I am prepared to share how we’re thinking about our decisions and what we’re shaping our decisions around. We’ve had these guiding principles that help shape our plan and one is championship-level football. We’ve talked about that. We’re never going to shy away from that at USC. And it’s also the engine that funds the rest of the athletic programs. It’s the program that brings the most visibility and recognition to our university, so that’s a priority in the plans we’re developing.
As such though, it’s not one or the other. Broad-based success is also extremely important to us. We’re so proud of our programs. Our Olympics sports, we have so many ranked teams right now. We’ve consistently finished in the top 10 in the Director’s Cup, more Olympians than anybody else and an Olympics coming here in 2028. So we’re really committed to continuing our broad-based success and Olympic success with the plan we’re developing.
Then you take those things and you say, ‘OK, how can we be financially responsible,’ right? That’s important. How we use our resources is important. We need to find new revenues to come into our department to help offset these added expenses. While we’re really excited to invest more in students, we also recognize internally that we have to do business differently. Internally, we have to make different decisions. Obviously how we’re investing and in some ways redirecting investment into football is a great example of that. But we’re gonna have to do that across our department. And hopefully as we do that, we’ll get fans and donors to also recognize that we need them, too. We’re all gonna have to adapt to this. So if and when — and I anticipate it will — the settlement gets approved in April, we’ll look forward to sharing much more specifics then.
JuJu Watkins finished with 38 points, 11 rebounds and eight blocks as USC overcame a second-half deficit to send rival UCLA to its first loss of the season.
Is it fair to say that the investment USC intends to make in football, in terms of percentage of revenue shared, would be in line with other major programs?
Cohen: Yeah, I mean, to have a championship-level program, you have to invest like other championship-level programs. So I think that’s fair.
Assuming the settlement is approved, the approach to NIL, I imagine, will look a lot different. What role do you envision House of Victory playing?
Cohen: The future of NIL, to me, is still a little bit of a mystery honestly. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions and work to be done in terms of NIL enforcement and the clearinghouse. This is a very important issue, and these are conversations we’re having in the Big Ten, at the conference level, so it’s too early to tell as to what role HoV may be playing long term in our future. What we do know is that maximizing NIL opportunities for all student athletes is a huge priority for us, and we have plans in place, differing plans in place, to ensure that. What we also know is we’re in the strongest position for NIL of any school in the country as far as I’m concerned. We are in the best market for sports, and that really differentiates us from a lot of our competitors and that’s going to serve our athletes going forward.
Yahoo! recently reported that the power conferences are planning to form a group, independent of the NCAA, to enforce NIL rules, approve NIL deals and police the revenue-sharing cap. Do you believe it’s realistic to think that could work?
Cohen: I believe that we have to believe that. You know, I think if we want to get to a system that has some sort of constraints — like we’re in college, and we’re having a hard time having checks and balances. In the pros, they don’t have those same challenges, right? So I believe we have to believe we can reimagine how to operate in this new era in a way that’s as equitable as possible.
Concerns have been raised by some athletes about the fallout from new roster limits. Is it inevitable that some athletes who are walk-ons or on partial scholarships will lose their spots at USC because of this new reality?
Cohen: I think these are complicated times as an industry, so when you’re creating different policies and changes, there’s always the chance there’s going to be some sort of litigation around it. I think it’s too early to tell if that’s where it’s going to come from, but I think it’s just part of the environment that we’ve already been operating in for a long period of time.
In his return after sitting out two games with an injured knee, Desmond Claude steadied the offense as USC defeated Penn State.
What challenges have arisen and what have you learned from this first season in the Big Ten?
Cohen: It’s a little early to evaluate it holistically. We do have a number of mechanisms to do that, both obviously with conversations with our coaches, but also with the way that we communicate and get feedback from our student athletes. I would say overall the first six months have been really positive. We won our first-ever Big Ten championship in women’s soccer, and that was one of the three sports in the fall traveling for a full Big Ten schedule. The exposure has been great for our students and our teams. I think it’s really important we’re in this conference for having a seat at the table about all the things we’ve been discussing — like, where is this thing going and how is this going to shape up? Well we have a voice in that because we’re in the Big Ten. Next week, I’ll go and attend a meeting with not just Big Ten ADs but SEC ADs. And USC belongs in those conversations, and I think that’s another positive from the transition we’ve had. I think it’s been fun to go play in different venues and have different fans here. Though, I’m a little bit irritated how many visitors we’re having in Galen for the men’s [basketball] games. But I actually kind of like that. The stakes are higher in this conference, and it sets a different tone. It challenges us as a department, and I think it challenges our fans too to learn how to compete with some of that.
As far as challenges go, certainly from a travel standpoint, it seems like the two basketball programs have been the most impacted, just with the way it schedules. At the end of the year, as we get through some of our spring sports that are starting in that travel as well — baseball, lacrosse, the tennis teams — we’ll be able to look at it holistically and learn a lot of lessons on what we can do to best support our teams and our athletes moving forward.
One issue that’s keeping you or other athletic directors up at night?
Cohen: Did you just say one? That’s funny!
First of all, I love being an athletic director, and I love being athletic director at USC. It means so much to so many people, so it’s such a privilege. And with that privilege comes a lot of expectations to do right by the school and every person that care about it. So there’s not really one thing, there’s so many things in the environment we’re in. And we’re in the people business, so people are complicated and they can be messy. So it’s kind of that.
As far as where we’re going, I feel like our staff is really invigorated by it. Yes it’s hard. Yes it’s challenging. Any time you ever get better, you only grow through the hard stuff. I feel like after being here 18 months now, I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress in getting ourselves aligned and unified and invested the right way, and our team has done a great job of creating clarity within the organization about who we want to be. So I think we’re just motivated to go win this thing. Win the new era. Seize the opportunities. And there’s going to be plenty of sleepless nights doing it, but there’s going to be plenty of celebrations along the way, too. And that’s why I love what I do.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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