By Justin Williams, Pete Sampson and Antonio Morales
USC football is expected to hire Notre Dame general manager Chad Bowden for a similar position, sources briefed on the move confirmed Friday.
Bowden, 30, had a massive impact on recruiting for the Fighting Irish under coach Marcus Freeman, both via the portal and high school ranks. Before his time at Notre Dame, Bowden served as recruiting director at Cincinnati. He followed Freeman to Notre Dame as a recruiting staffer when Freeman was hired as defensive coordinator under Brian Kelly ahead of the 2021 season; Bowden took over as recruiting director for the Irish after Freeman was promoted to coach ahead of the 2022 season, and Bowden was ultimately given the title of general manager and assistant athletics director for personnel prior to the 2024 season, during which Notre Dame reached the College Football Playoff national championship, losing to Ohio State.
Bowden was recently named the 2024 FootballScoop Player Personnel Director of the Year, an honor voted on by Bowden’s peers. He is also the son of Jim Bowden, a national MLB writer for The Athletic.
How Bowden reshaped Notre Dame’s approach to talent acquisition
Bowden turned Notre Dame’s recruiting operation on its head during his three seasons under Freeman, essentially shaking the program out of its more traditional approach to talent acquisition. The Irish got more aggressive in the transfer portal with much success. Notre Dame also tried to push the boundaries of its recruiting territories, although that was more of a mixed bag in terms of results. Regardless, Bowden was a significant value add for Freeman’s program, which the coach wants to “major in high school recruiting.”
Bowden’s biggest strength was relationship building, whether that was high school prospects, their families or even major donors who helped fund Notre Dame’s NIL operation. Even on the night before the national championship game against Ohio State, Bowden was meeting with a donor at the team hotel. When it came to recruiting connections with families, whether that was in person or virtual, Bowden was excellent in both playing offense (getting prospects to campus) and defense (monopolizing prospects’ times so other schools could not).
Bowden pushed the limits of what Notre Dame’s recruiting operation could be, and he was not afraid to ruffle feathers at a traditional power. He’d dress up as a leprechaun, referee or secret service agent to welcome prospects to campus. He was once thrown out of the South Bend airport for blasting a boom box to welcome recruits as they left security. That level of outside-the-box thinking might be what’s most difficult for Freeman to replace. — Pete Sampson, Notre Dame football writer
Bowden’s task at USC: Usher program into the NIL era
For USC, Bowden’s expected hiring concludes a general manager search that dates back to last summer at the very least. The program tried to hire Alabama general manager Courtney Morgan for the same position and offered him a handsome salary to do so. Morgan previously worked at Washington and overlapped with USC athletic director Jen Cohen while over there.
While Cohen and USC’s administration made a strong push for Morgan, he opted to stay with Kalen DeBoer, who he is extremely close with, at Alabama. In the months since then, the Trojans’ brass has had conversations with people in the college and NFL landscape about the job.
The search took longer than the fan base has probably liked — it was always going to be impossible to make the hire in-season — but it has been viewed as the top priority for the football program.
USC has a general manager — Lincoln Riley’s longtime confidant Dave Emerick — in place, but he assumed the role before the sport shifted into what it is now with NIL negotiations and other personnel decisions taking priority. Emerick helped Riley with putting together USC’s widely acclaimed defensive staff last offseason. NIL negotiations weren’t what he was really supposed to be doing.
Now, that’ll be Bowden’s responsibility as he and Riley build this roster and program together in tandem. USC’s NIL budget was north of $12 million last year. So there was some money to work with. Bowden will play a key role in determining how that budget, whatever the number is in the future, will be allocated.
How he and Riley, who is coming off two disappointing seasons, coexist will also be crucial. Notre Dame is one of the model programs in the sport, though, and even though it’s USC’s chief rival, it’s a program worth emulating. — Antonio Morales, USC football writer
Required reading
(Photo of USC-Notre Dame game: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
