The Times of Troy: Who will be USC’s next football general manager? The answer is key to future success

Hello, everyone! The happiest of new years from the Times of Troy! I’m Ryan Kartje, your Times’ USC beat reporter, back after a brief holiday hiatus spent chasing a toddler around the backyard and watching him go up and down and up and down his new slide. Not exactly a *relaxing* break, but a much-needed one nonetheless.

Because in case you haven’t noticed, the offseason, as we once knew it in college football, no longer exists. The transfer portal looms over all. No coach can sleep soundly. No roster is safe. At any point, your star players can be poached or reverse course on their plans. Just this last week, USC’s top offensive linemen, Emmanuel Pregnon left the Trojans for the portal, after assuring USC two weeks earlier that he’d choose them over the NFL. Nothing, at the moment, is stable.

“I don’t think any of us could have predicted, I guess, just how quickly it has changed, how fundamentally it has changed,” Lincoln Riley said Dec. 18. “I think the whole college football world is trying to adapt right now, which is, honestly, I think for everybody a little difficult to keep up with.”

That includes USC, where officials are well aware that the program’s current personnel structure isn’t going to cut it as the landscape of the sport continues to evolve. Since Dave Emerick joined the staff as USC’s general manager in 2022, the functions and responsibilities of that position — and the operation as a whole — have changed entirely. And while that’s clear to those in charge at USC, it doesn’t change that the program has stumbled through the start of this offseason, in part, because it has yet to adjust to that new world.

But changes are on the way. USC is looking for a new general manager and reshaping the program’s structure. That hire, I’m told, should be made in the coming weeks, as USC picks from a pool of final candidates with a wide array of backgrounds, including NFL front office and college experience.

Whomever USC chooses for the position, what’s still unclear is how that person will work with Riley, who to this point has been in total control of almost every aspect of his program, including being the final arbiter on all personnel decisions. Riley has previously kept a pretty close circle on such matters. He and Emerick had known each other for years through Mike Leach before Emerick became his general manager.

This next hire won’t be dictated by Riley. But the relationship between the coach and his new general manager will be crucial as the pressure ramps up on Riley ahead of his fourth season.

Courtney Morgan, Alabama’s current general manager, understood that when he turned down a lucrative offer to lead USC’s front office back in August. That offer, which was first reported by CBS Sports, was for $1 million, a number that would’ve completely reset the market for college football general managers.

USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen was already well acquainted with Morgan from their time together at Washington, and Morgan knew L.A. well, having grown up here and graduated from Westchester High. It looked, on paper, like a perfect marriage, with Morgan able to help reclaim ground in the Southern California recruiting scene.

Cohen and USC put on a full-court press to lure Morgan from Alabama, where he’d been hired a few months earlier. The $1-million offer represented a massive increase from what he was making in Tuscaloosa.

But still, Morgan turned USC down. That decision, according to a person familiar with Morgan’s thinking, came down to the fact that he didn’t see himself working as well with Riley and his approach as he did with Kalen DeBoer, who brought Morgan with him to Alabama from Washington and whom he already trusted. Enough, apparently, that he took $150,000 less per year to stay.

He still got a massive raise at Alabama and reset the market anyway. But after USC missed on Morgan in August, it took a step back on the GM search during the football season, when such massive changes couldn’t exactly be made midstream. In early fall, USC did hire an NFL consultant, with years of front office experience, to assess its personnel structure and make suggestions on where the department should invest.

That process should reach its conclusion soon. But as the landscape continues to change, hiring a capable GM is really just the first step in a long road that seems to be changing by the week.

Extra points

—Rumors continue to fly about Jayden Maiava leaving USC. But with the transfer portal closed for the time being, there’s been no indication that that’s the case. What I do know is that Maiava abruptly changed his NIL representation last week, leaving behind California Power for Athletes First soon after a new deal had been negotiated for him at USC. It’s the second time Maiava has changed representation in a year, after he dumped NILX for California Power last spring.

—USC offered a transfer portal passer last week. But I wouldn’t expect Emmett Brown, a 5-foot-10 San Jose State transfer, to factor into the starting quarterback conversation, if he were to sign with USC. Brown was a three-star recruit coming out of San Marcos High, who spent one season at Washington State before playing at San Jose State in 2024. He threw for 1,621 yards and 16 touchdowns with five interceptions over seven games before losing his starting job in San Jose. Seems like an ideal fit as a No. 2 or No. 3 quarterback next season.

—A tip of the cap to Jaxson Dart, the former Trojan quarterback whose college career ended on a high note with Ole Miss last week. During my six seasons on the beat, Dart was easily USC’s second-best quarterback behind Caleb Williams, and a great kid to boot. It was Williams’ arrival, with Riley in 2022, that ultimately ushered Dart to Oxford, Miss., where he finished as Ole Miss’ all-time leading passer. Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward are the consensus quarterbacks on draft boards at the moment, but don’t be surprised if he winds up a top-10 pick.

Trojans guard Kennedy Smith.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

—Kennedy Smith is crucial to USC’s hopes of contending for a Final Four. That much has been clear since the freshman guard’s return from surgery ahead of the Trojans’ momentous win over UConn. The reigning Gatorade National Player of the Year’s defense helped slow the Huskies, and her ability to stretch the floor as a shooter is essential to USC’s spacing as opposing defenses collapse on JuJu Watkins and forward Kiki Iriafen. “She’s a freak of nature,” coach Lindsay Gottlieb said last week. And she should only get better from here.

—It’s time to sink or swim for Eric Musselman and his Trojans. USC fought hard to stay afloat in a back-and-forth loss to Michigan, but the schedule ahead could make just treading water over the next month tough. To this point, USC’s strength of schedule had ranked outside of the top 200. But from here, each of the Trojans’ next 10 matchups are against teams ranked above them by KenPom. Four are ranked in KenPom’s top 20. This team still has plenty of questions to answer, and no time left to answer them.

In case you missed it

USC standout Emmanuel Pregnon reverses course and enters transfer portal

Hernández: USC players stepped up during a Las Vegas Bowl win. Now Lincoln Riley must do the same

Pete Carroll wants to mentor Caleb Williams, coach Bears and teach at USC? He’s a young 73

UCLA and USC football transfer portal tracker: Who’s in and who’s out?

Unable to overcome its size disadvantage, USC fades late in loss to Michigan

JuJu Watkins and No. 4 USC overcome slow start in blowout win over Nebraska

USC makes season-ending statement in thrilling Las Vegas Bowl comeback over Texas A&M

What I’m Watching This Week

Mark Eydelshteyn, left, and Mikey Madison in a scene from “Anora.”

(Associated Press)

We’ve officially entered Oscar season, one of my favorite times of the year, when I try to catch up on all the potential best picture candidates that I missed through the fall. Of the likely noms this year, I’d already seen “Dune 2” (phenomenal) and “Wicked” (delightful).

But before diving into the deep end with a movie like “The Brutalist,” which is 3.5 hours long and has an intermission (!), I started my Oscars season journey with “Anora,” a story about an exotic dancer who impulsively marries the young son of a Russian oligarch. A more profane, wild version of “Pretty Woman,” to put it kindly, Anora had a great story and so many great performances that I’d say it’s a must-see ahead of the Oscars. Though, word to the wise, I wouldn’t watch it on an airplane.