Wisconsin football program loses GM Max Stienecker to USC

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s football program is losing one of its most significant off-field staffers. General manager Max Stienecker has accepted a position within USC’s recruiting department, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to The Athletic. FootballScoop first reported the news.

Stienecker, 24, was instrumental in helping build Wisconsin’s last two recruiting classes under head coach Luke Fickell. Wisconsin’s 2024 recruiting class set a program record with 11 four-star 247Sports Composite signees and was ranked No. 23 nationally — the second-best mark for the Badgers in the online ranking era. Wisconsin’s 2025 class, which signed in December, ranks No. 26 in the country.

Stienecker was part of a two-man team that followed Fickell from Cincinnati to Wisconsin in December 2022, alongside Pat Lambert, and formed the backbone of the Badgers’ recruiting department. Lambert served as Wisconsin’s director of recruiting, while Stienecker became the youngest director of player personnel in the Power 5. Lambert was considered the general manager of skill positions, and Stienecker was the GM of big skill, which meant he was in charge of running backs, tight ends and linebackers. Those two initially worked with current assistant offensive line coach Casey Rabach in the department.x

Sam Lateju, a 2025 Badgers outside linebacker signee from The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, said many people assumed he committed to the Badgers in part so he could follow his former high school teammate, Raphael Dunn, a safety in the 2024 class. But Lateju credited Stienecker and referred to him as “the cool older brother you hung out with.”

“It was not Raph,” Lateju said. “Coach Max, he was always invested in whatever I was doing, even the little things. He always stayed in contact. I just talked to him like last weekend. He was one of the reasons that made it easy to fall in love with Madison. And his energy was unmatched. Out of every college that recruited me, I’ve never seen anyone that had his kind of energy.”

Steinecker initially was interested in pursuing a coaching career and enrolled early at Cincinnati in the summer of 2018 to help with offseason football workouts while a student assistant for linebackers and special teams. He eventually began collaborating in the recruiting department with Lambert and then-Cincinnati recruiting director Chad Bowden. Stienecker earned a full-time job for Fickell right after graduation in 2021 working with Lambert as director of on-campus recruiting.

The move means Steinecker will now reunite with Bowden, who was named USC’s recruiting director on Jan. 24 after working at Notre Dame for three seasons. Bowden appears to be building a powerhouse recruiting department, having already brought in former Illinois director of player personnel Dre Brown and former Notre Dame director of player personnel Zaire Turner this offseason. Brown will serve as executive director of scouting and personnel and Turner is the assistant athletic director of recruiting operations, while Stienecker is expected to be the executive director of personnel.

Wisconsin still has a robust recruiting department that includes Lambert, Taylor Ewald (director of on-campus recruiting), Marisa Pavone (coordinator of recruiting operations), Jared Thompson (college scouting coordinator) and three assistant directors of player personnel — Zach Zilm, Izayah Green-May and Brandon Rose — among others. But filling Stienecker’s role figures to be vital to continued recruiting success.

Stienecker in 2022 was named to On3’s “rising star personnel staffers you need to know” and in 2023 was selected to 247Sports’ 30 Under 30, which recognized the top young coaches and off-field staffers in college football. Fickell saw such great value in Steinecker’s knowledge and enthusiasm that he promoted him at Wisconsin from player personnel director to general manager last summer.

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