Tag: Jen Cohen

With Carol Folt’s retirement, Lincoln Riley is the last man standing at USC

The athletic director, the chief of staff, a key board figure, and now the president. The people on stage with Lincoln Riley in 2021 will all be gone next year.

Three years ago, when Lincoln Riley made the stunning decision to leave Oklahoma for USC, he mentioned the Trojans’ strong administrative alignment as one of the biggest factors that motivated him to do so. Three years later, he might be starting to question that decision a little.

One of the biggest X-factors in USC’s wooing of Riley was chief of staff Brandon Sosna. However, Sosna left for a front office job in the NFL before Riley even coached his first game in Cardinal and Gold.

USC certainly does not hire Riley without athletic director Mike Bohn. Under Bohn’s leadership, USC’s athletic department went from being a scandal-driven laughingstock to one of the premier operations in the country. However, Bohn resigned after Riley’s first season amidst reports of inappropriate conduct.

One of the speakers at Riley’s introductory press conference was USC Board of Trustees President Rick Caruso. However, Caruso resigned just a few months later to pursue a campaign for Mayor of Los Angeles.

And of course, spearheading the entire operation was USC President Carol Folt. While Bohn and Sosna may have done most of the dirty work, ultimately it was Folt who had to sign off on Riley’s nine-figure contract. Just last week, Folt announced her plans to retire at the end of the academic year.

At Riley’s introductory press conference in November of 2021, the head coach posed for a photo with Folt, Bohn, Sosna, and Caruso. Now, Riley will be the only one of the five still at USC next year.

Is this the end of the world? Not at all. Ultimately, Riley’s job is to coach the football team. It is not as though he is spending multiple hours with the president and athletic director on a daily basis.

But given that Riley was promised strong administrative alignment when he signed on, the fact that the four biggest people responsible for hiring him will be gone less than four years later is not exactly a great sign.

It is too soon to know what this will mean for Riley’s long-term future, but if he does not feel he has the support of the new administration, he could potentially decide to jump ship for the NFL sooner rather than later.

After all, there is a very good chance Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears will need a new head coach this offseason. Just saying . . .

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Discussing Carol Folt’s leadership of USC football requires nuance

Carol Folt has done a lot to support USC football, but the program isn’t yet where it needs to be. This is a difficult debate.

On our recent USC call-in show at The Voice of College Football, we had a debate with a caller at the 28-minute mark of the video, posted below. Our discussion revolved around USC President Carol Folt and her leadership of USC football. We discussed the various details and dimensions surrounding how much she is prioritizing the program and, in the caller’s opinion, is not being as supportive or effective as she should be for USC football.

One notion which figured centrally and prominently in this discussion was Folt’s belief that USC needs to win the right way. The caller felt that was a coded way of saying USC won’t try to be extra-aggressive in the arenas where Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, and Oregon regularly succeed. The contrary point to that claim is that Carol Folt hired Mike Bohn and Brandon Sosna, who brought aboard Lincoln Riley. Folt helped broker the Big Ten move which will give USC a lot of new and needed revenue. She oversaw the ground breaking on a state of the art football-only facilities.  Now with the hiring of Athletic Director Jenifer Cohen and the hiring of a new and improved defensive coaching staff USC has positioned itself to make a run at the top of the Big Ten Conference.

Have Folt and USC made the changes to allow USC to compete at the highest levels of college football? That is to be determined. Has President Folt committed to helping USC reach the expected standard? Certainly to a point. Callers and critics might say it simply hasn’t been enough. Where we can all agree: Let’s give Folt some credit even while we note where USC is still falling short. Folt cares. Now we need to see if she and Cohen can improve on what they have established. There is certainly room for improvement, even while needed fixes have already been made and paid for.

Here’s our segment:

https://www.youtube.com/live/WIczn-l-zmw?si=jXiGrwo5Qb78sgq-&t=1681

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

Jen Cohen, USC should give Taylor Mays a small pay raise after NCAA rule change

Jen Cohen needs to tell Taylor Mays, in a concrete way, he is valuable to USC.

USC football hopes Taylor Mays stays on the Trojans’ staff for the long haul. Now that the NCAA Division I Council has allowed defensive analysts to become hands-on coaches who can be on the sidelines during practices and games, USC defensive analyst Taylor Mays has been liberated and given the new ability to be more of a hands-on coach for the Trojans. USC Athletic Director Jen Cohen has spent a lot of money on Lincoln Riley’s new defensive coaching staff. She can’t break the bank for Taylor Mays, but she should try to throw him a few extra dollars in direct — and immediate — recognition of his increased value to USC now that he has been allowed, as a matter of NCAA policy, to do more coaching for the program.

In case you missed the story on NCAA coaching rule amendments, here it is from Pete Nakos of On3 Sports:

“At its annual meetings in Indianapolis, the 40-person council representing all 32 Division I conferences moved to allow all staff members to provide technical and tactical instruction to athletes during practice and games. For years, analysts and quality control coaches have been limited to assisting off the field through watching film and providing expertise in creating gameday strategy.

“Now they can help athletes grow on the field. The decision eliminates the NCAA’s 11-countable coaches policy, allowing just 10 assistants and a head coach to provide on-field instruction. The rule has become antiquated as top programs now employ a variety of analysts, quality control coaches, recruiting coordinators, player personnel directors, general managers and scouts. The move also ensures the NCAA doesn’t face any future legal action from college football coaches.”

Taylor Mays can now do a lot more coaching. USC should recognize Mays’ importance to the program and act accordingly.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

Jen Cohen’s moment of truth has arrived at USC

Jen Cohen has to get things organized behind the scenes. USC football operations aren’t delivering the way they should.

Jen Cohen has done a lot of good things as USC’s athletic director. She was ready to pony up and pay for quality defensive coaches on Lincoln Riley’s new and improved staff. She has raised funds for USC’s new and improved athletic facilities. Those are two substantial and important contributions to USC athletics and the school at large.

However, what does a USC athletic director have to do? What is always at the top of any priority list for a USC AD? Take care of the football program. The hiring of the defensive coaches was part of this, and that’s not being ignored, but the decommitments of Justus Terry and Isaiah Gibson point to weaknesses in USC’s NIL program and in the larger overall operations of the football program. The coaches don’t deserve the blame here. Eric Henderson put in the “dawgwork” to land these guys. That they’re gone three months later doesn’t reflect negatively on Henderson. Something else happened which soured these recruits on USC. It’s speculation and not ironclad fact, but it’s hard to think — as a rational, logical person — that NIL or compensation packages weren’t involved in these decommitments.

We have seen this scenario play out in various ways at USC: The Trojans either land a commitment or think they are about to land a commitment. The recruit visits another school, or a competing school drops a bigger bag. USC loses. While we can debate the specific timelines and details attached to individual recruitments USC lost, the larger overall reality is that USC’s NIL game is not up to standard. Ohio State, Oregon, and SEC schools are hammering the Trojans.

This is not a Lincoln Riley problem. This is a Jen Cohen problem. The coaches don’t run the fundraising programs. They sell the program and try to convince players to join. The NIL program is an administrative effort which points to internal operations supporting the coaches in their recruiting efforts.

Eric Henderson did his job in March. The NIL program, by all appearances, didn’t support the coaches enough. Jen Cohen has to have the tough conversations behind the scenes to ensure USC doesn’t continue to get outgunned, and that commitments of NIL resources have the reliability and follow-through to retain the confidence of both recruits and coaches.

The USC football program is not in full alignment right now. No one else but Jen Cohen is primarily and centrally responsible for creating that full alignment. It can’t be put any more plainly than that.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

Pac-12 News: USC to hire athletic director Jen Cohen away from Washington Huskies

Former Washington Huskies athletic director Jen Cohen will reportedly be taking over as the new AD for the USC Trojans.

A shakeup in leadership took place in the Pac-12 Conference on Monday morning.

According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the USC Trojans are set to hire Jen Cohen as their new athletic director, taking over for former AD Mike Bohn, who resigned from the role in May.

Cohen was the standing AD for the Washington Huskies since 2016 and is a current member of the College Football Playoff selection committee. The most notable success that Cohen has had at Washington is the hiring of football head coach Kalen DeBoer, who led the team to a 11-2 record in 2022.

At USC, Cohen becomes the first female athletic director in school history. She will be tasked with overseeing the Trojans’ leap to the Big Ten next year, alongside Oregon, UCLA, and her former employer, Washington.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]