USC head coach Lincoln Riley is entering his fourth season at the helm of the Trojans as the team looks to return to glory in its second year in the Big Ten Conference.
Before leaving Oklahoma for USC, Riley was known as an offensive "guru" and an elite recruiter throughout the country. While his national footprint and the quality of his recruiting classes haven't changed much on paper, there is one critical area he seems to have neglected: his team's home state of California.
It's a notion so simple that even the most casual fans can see its benefits.
Luckily for Trojan fans, it sounds like common sense is beginning to prevail as USC welcomes general manager Chad Bowden to guide recruiting practices and the overall operations of the football program.
I've written this but Chad Bowden's recruiting, roster-building vision with #USC has been made crystal clear. It starts locally and throughout California. He re-emphasized that today. pic.twitter.com/mqUAkMbtbg
— Antonio Morales (@AntonioCMorales) March 3, 2025
“We’re going to do everything through the city,”said Bowden, h/t The Athletic. “We’re going to do everything through the state. That’s going to be our primary focus.”
Lincoln Riley's USC recruiting classes have not landed as many Californians as they should
Including the current players committed in the upcoming 2026 recruiting class, 32 of the 90 players who have committed to USC under Riley have come from California. That includes 25 of the 79 players who have actually signed to play with the school. That's about 31.6 percent -- not exactly what one would figure for a program that's supposed to be the best in the state, considering the talent that's right in its backyard.
In his first recruiting class, Riley used the portal, and thus, the return of his high school recruits was comparatively low. The next season, almost half the class was made up of Californian high school players. Yet, only 12 of the 46 players who signed with USC in the classes of 2024 and 2025 were from California.
Riley didn't make much use of his home state while coaching at Oklahoma either, granted Oklahoma is not the hotbed that California or Texas have become. Still, only 17 players from Oklahoma went on to join the Sooners program during Riley's five-year tenure. In that same period, Oklahoma signed six recruits from California.
So, Riley clearly knows there is talent in California; his program just needs to get back to bringing the locals into the program.
Chad Bowden's recruiting history
Bowden joined the Notre Dame recruiting department in 2021 and eventually became the program's first general manager. His work earned him the 2024 FootballScoop Player Personnel Director of the Year award, and he has four top-12 recruiting classes and a top-15 transfer class to his credit.
But how did Notre Dame, another historic program with a national brand and footprint, recruit the local areas? How did they recruit California?
During Bowden's time in South Bend, the Fighting Irish signed 12 players from California and 11 from their home state of Indiana. They also made great use of surrounding states like Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio to boost their recruiting even further.
Recruiting California is a huge benefit for college football programs. Each year, there are about 20 recruits in 247 Sports' top 250 rankings from the state. And there are at leat 38 more coming in the next two recruiting cycles (28 in the top 250 for 2026, 10 in the top 100 for 2027).
With USC's history and close proximity to many of the nation's best recruits, concentrating more on California seems like common sense. It's a wonder what took so long.