LOS ANGELES — Lincoln Riley has been saying it loud for months, in rooms private and public, as the NCAA’s definition of amateurism has been increasingly buried under a heap of pay-for-play cash: the current model of college football is now a professional model.
“We’re having to make some tough decisions,” Riley said on an early December appearance on USC’s “Trojans Live” radio show. “We’re having to decide where to allocate reps, or where to allocate resources, roster spots, all of those things. You’re getting ready to to reduce the roster size. You’re getting ready to have a salary cap, essentially.”
“I mean,” Riley continued, “that’s what we’re becoming.”
The transfer portal market has become increasingly unstable, with offers from NIL collectives rising exponentially under an out-of-control free market. Revenue sharing, and a $20 million allotment for universities to delegate pay directly to athletes across their various sports, is coming with the resolution of the House v. NCAA settlement. And as blue-blood programs across the nation race to add roster-management help, the Trojans are getting in the mix: a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to the Southern California News Group that USC is planning to finalize hiring a new general manager for football in the next two to three weeks.
The development, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, falls into a growing pattern of schools targeting front-office help similar to an NFL operation, as that GM role has become one of the most valuable positions in college sports. Look to Michigan, where head coach Sherrone Moore hired former Chicago Bears chief of staff Sean Magee as the Wolverines’ GM in April. Look to the Bill Belichick era at North Carolina, targeting longtime NFL executive Michael Lombardi as the Tar Heels’ GM.
USC already has a GM on staff: Dave Emerick, who was targeted by Riley in 2022 from Mississippi State and is heavily involved in recruiting conversations with agents and families on player valuations. Emerick, though, was hired largely to do a different job in a different era – long before revenue-sharing developments that are set to reshape college sports. And the source told the Southern California News Group that USC began discussing adding a GM in a new role, after the House V. NCAA settlement landed in summer 2024.
“Essentially, the function, the responsibilities, the job of a GM has changed, so we realized we needed to change our infrastructure,” the source said.
Around that time, USC made a push to hire GM Courtney Morgan away from Alabama. After Morgan ultimately re-upped with Alabama for an eye-popping deal worth about $825,000 annually, according to multiple reports, USC went “back to the candidate pool,” as the source put it. In the fall, the source said, USC brought in a consultant with NFL front-office experience who broke down the football program’s structure and further emphasized the need to hire a new-era GM, and USC dove back into a search after the season concluded.
In a candid mid-transfer portal media availability in December, Riley shed light on the complex nature of USC’s roster management. Each school had a “budget,” Riley put it – likely turning, eventually, into a mix of donor cash from NIL collectives and revenue-sharing funds – and an unofficial “salary cap” with which to assemble a roster.
“You see the discussion on how much you pay a starting quarterback in the NFL,” Riley said, then. “How much is a running back worth? How much is a receiver worth? If a guy has this type of production, then what percentage of a salary cap does that entitle him to, or does that make sense for the program to be able to give to them?”
“It’s very cut and dry,” Riley continued. “It’s very production-based.”
In an offseason without massive coaching exodus, outside of a couple of staff changes, USC has still seen a large amount of turnover in the transfer portal. Gone are key contributors at receiver, in Kyron Hudson, Duce Robinson, and Zachariah Branch. Gone are starting offensive linemen Mason Murphy and Emmanuel Pregnon. Gone is sophomore running back Quinten Joyner, seemingly poised to compete for the RB1 job in 2025. And Riley, multiple times across the past month, has strongly hinted that financial considerations – both from players’ and USC’s perspective – have played a role in some departures.
Take Joyner, who “wanted to stay” at USC, a source with knowledge of the situation told the Southern California News Group. In his initial year-end conversations with staff, the source said, Joyner was given a valuation in the low six-figure range, which the source called “a fraction of his expectation.”
USC staff reached back out to Joyner after he had entered the transfer portal with an improved offer, the source said, that still didn’t match what he ended up receiving from Texas Tech. The reason for the lower valuation, the source said, was that USC wanted to see more off-field and academic growth from Joyner, a redshirt freshman.
Riley has primarily relied on his personnel team at USC, Athletic Director Jen Cohen and chief of staff Jay Hilbrands to assess larger player and roster value, also working with “a lot of consultants” in the offseason, the head coach told reporters in December. That will be a large function of USC’s newest GM, in addition to working with recruiting and budget management.
The source made clear, though, that that hire wasn’t “coming in to replace anybody,” and would serve as an entirely new position. It’s unclear where that will leave Emerick, who Riley praised over the summer as having done a “really good job” working hand-in-hand with USC’s NIL collective House of Victory.
“I think, certainly, his role’s going to evolve going forward,” Riley said then, “as is, really, the rest of that department for us.”
