USC AD Jennifer Cohen confident investments in football will help Lincoln Riley win

In the 18 months since she took over as USCs athletic director, Jennifer Cohens job has grown more complicated by the week.

When she was first 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.

Were entering into a different era, Cohen said on Thursday, and for us, were motivated to win that era at USC.

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 the 2024 season at 7-6, Rileys worst record yet as a head coach.

Those results, Cohen told The Times, certainly didnt meet the expectations that we have.

But since, Cohen has 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 this week.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was your message to Lincoln Riley after this season given that it didnt meet your expectations? Cohen: Heres the thing.

This industry is changing so much, so rapidly, that were 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 its not an end-of-the-year conversation.

Its ongoing.

Im pleased with the progress weve made since the end of the season and in the offseason.

I think hes 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 Im 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 Bowdens] hire obviously is huge for us and the infrastructure that hes building.

So I feel like theres a lot of things we were talking about well before the end of the season, and well keep talking about and keep evolving and keep growing and changing.

But theres 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.

What role would you say Riley has played in that progress youre referring to? Cohen: Its 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, weve 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? Weve 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 cant just say youre the NFL now youre not.

Were still a college football program with a bunch of different complexities that dont exist in the NFL, but theres best practices in the NFL that we needed to implement.

So finding Chad and his excitement about Chad and his belief in him, Chads belief in Lincoln, was a real win-win for USC.

Im excited about it.

What would you say your confidence level is in Riley as USCs coach right now? Cohen: Lincoln has the experience, right? Hes 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 a disappointing season, and were upfront just now that this years 7-6 finish doesnt meet expectations.

What do you need to see this year to show that the program is on an upward trajectory? Cohen: What I can say is that USC is a special place and that were aligned and were 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 weve put into this program.

We know we can do it here because its been done here before.

Im just ready for spring ball to start to see some of these new faces we have in terms of next season.

Youve clearly invested a lot of resources into football since you got here.

You rebuilt a new defensive staff.

Now you revamped the football personnel department.

Theres not a lot left to rebuild after that.

Is it fair to say there are no more excuses left in terms of seeing real progress this next season? Cohen: I just think we have high expectations.

He has them and I have them.

Yeah, were 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/collegiate end of that spectrum with Chad Bowden? What qualities were most important to you in looking for that person? Cohen: Actually, I think hes the whole picture in that.

To your point, when youre looking at people who only had NFL backgrounds, it wasnt that they didnt understand recruiting or have those relationships, it was that they also didnt 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.

Thats why were building out an entire infrastructure around Chad.

That being said, Chads strengths arent 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 hes bringing in and are 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.

Were 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 as we approach that date? Cohen: I think this is a unique opportunity.

Were entering into a different era and for us, were motivated to win that era at USC.

We think that we can.

Theres 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 its 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 thats really important too.

Im not prepared to share specifics right now, but I am prepared to share how were thinking about our decisions and what were shaping our decisions around.

Weve had these guiding principles that help shape our plan and one is championship-level football.

Weve talked about that.

Were never going to shy away from that at USC.

And its also the engine that funds the rest of the athletic programs.

Its the program that brings the most visibility and recognition to our university, so thats a priority in the plans were developing.

As such though, its not one or the other.

Broad-based success is also extremely important to us.

Were so proud of our programs.

Our Olympics sports, we have so many ranked teams right now.

Weve consistently finished in the top 10 in the Directors Cup, more Olympians than anybody else and an Olympics coming here in 2028.

So were really committed to continuing our broad-based success and Olympic success with the plan were developing.

Then you take those things and you say, OK, how can we be financially responsible, right? Thats 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 were 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 were investing and in some ways redirecting investment into football is a great example of that.

But were gonna have to do that across our department.

And hopefully as we do that, well get fans and donors to also recognize that we need them, too.

Were all gonna have to adapt to this.

So if and when and I anticipate it will the settlement gets approved in April, well look forward to sharing much more specifics then.

Without sharing specifics, 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 football programs across the country? Cohen: Yeah, I mean, to have a championship level program, you have to invest like other championship-level programs.

So I think thats 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 going forward? 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 were having in the Big Ten, at the conference level, so its 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 were in the strongest position for NIL of any school in the country as far as Im concerned.

We are in the best market for sports, and that really differentiates us from a lot of our competitors and thats 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 that its 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 were in college, and were having a hard time having checks and balances.

In the pros, they dont 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 thats 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 were entering into? Cohen: I think these are complicated times as an industry, so when youre creating different policies and changes, theres always the chance theres going to be some sort of litigation around it.

I think its too early to tell if thats where its going to come from, but I think its just part of the environment that weve already been operating in for a long period of time.

What challenges have arisen and what have you learned so far from this first season in the Big Ten? Cohen: Its 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 womens 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 its really important were in this conference for having a seat at the table about all the things weve been discussing like, where is this thing going and how is this going to shape up? Well we have a voice in that because were in the Big Ten.

Next week, Ill go and attend a meeting with not just Big Ten ADs but SEC ADs.

And USC belongs in those conversations, and I think thats another positive from the transition weve had.

Ive also, I think its been fun to go play in different venues and have different fans here.

Though, Im a little bit irritated how many visitors were having in Galen for the mens [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 well 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 thats keeping you or other athletic directors up at night right now? Cohen: Did you just say one? Thats 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 its 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 theres not really one thing, theres so many things in the environment were in.

And were in the people business, so people are complicated and they can be messy.

So its kind of that.

As far as where were going, I feel like our staff is really invigorated by it.

Yes its hard.

Yes its 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 weve 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 were just motivated to go win this thing.

Win the new era.

Seize the opportunities.

And theres going to be plenty of sleepless nights doing it, but tjeres going to be plenty of celebrations along the way, too.

And thats why I love what I do..

This article has been shared from the original article on latimes, here is the link to the original article.