Nation's No. 1 Recruiting Class Makes Unprecedented Move That Could Reshape College Football

A first-of-its-kind staff hire signals where the sport's next competitive arms race is headed.

This 22-year-old signal-caller is one of the top players at a program that made a surprise internal promotion to create a new role. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

USC created a job that did not exist anywhere in college football.

The Trojans, fresh off signing the nation's No. 1 recruiting class in the 2026 cycle, are promoting Conor McQuiston, director of football analytics in 2025, to a new position as director of artificial intelligence. People inside the building believe he is the first staffer in the sport with a dedicated AI title.

The same program that just out-recruited everyone is now trying to out-think or out-process them, too. McQuiston will report to general manager Chad Bowden. The school recently received a $200 million gift from alum Mark Stevens and his wife, Mary, earmarked for AI research.

What USC's director of AI will actually do

The exact details and job description remain unsettled, even within the program. Per Antonio Morales of The Athletic, "Over the past year, McQuiston has worked on projects focused on opponent scouting, tendencies and similar matters."

Morales' source added the program plans to keep hiring around McQuiston to deepen its analytics staff as a result of the move.

The Trojans, anchored by quarterback Jayden Maiava, are seeking to improve upon a 9-4 record last season. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

On3's Pete Nakos reported McQuiston will be tasked with building AI models from USC's own data to hunt for advantages in everything from game plans to scouting. That is a meaningful shift. Most analytics positions in the sport are reactive, with a staffer compiling what already happened and handing a coordinator a report. USC is betting on prediction instead.

McQuiston's resume fits the experiment. The Michigan graduate worked as an undergraduate analytics manager for the Wolverines in 2021, spent two years with the NFL's Next Gen Stats group and served as an associate data scientist at PrizePicks before landing in Los Angeles.

Why the rest of college football will copy this

AI has already crept into the sport, particularly in recruiting, where staffs are drowning in film and short on hours.

"We have some alums... they built out an (AI) agent that watches film," a personnel staffer at a Power 4 program told Morales in May. "They have our grades. It's watched hundreds of hours of film to train itself for watching a kid's highlights and giving him an initial grade. ... And if they have a good enough grade, we'll dig into them more."

Few coaches are under pressure to deliver like USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley ahead of 2026. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

That quote is the real story here. Programs are already outsourcing the first layer of evaluation to machines. USC simply became the first to put it on the org chart, and a $200 million donation gives the Trojans a runway no one else has.

Lincoln Riley enters his fifth season at 35-18 with zero College Football Playoff appearances, so any edge matters. If McQuiston's models produce even marginal gains, athletic directors will be posting identical job listings by December.

USC opens the 2026 season against San Jose State at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, Aug. 29 at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.