Jen Cohen backs Lincoln Riley, reveals message after down 2024 season

As USC shifted to a new conference in 2024, Lincoln Riley was looking for a bounce-back year. The Trojans finished 8-5 in 2023 thanks to struggles on defense, but they were picked sixth in the Big Ten preseason media poll.

However, USC ended up finishing 7-6 after winning its bowl game, and the pressure continues to ramp up around Riley. Despite the down year, he still has the backing of AD Jen Cohen.

Cohen, speaking with the Los Angeles Times’ Ryan Kartje, affirmed her confidence in Riley ahead of the 2025 campaign. She cited the need to invest in the program, and USC has done just that – notably with the addition of Chad Bowden as general manager, among other moves.

“Lincoln has the experience, right?” Cohen told Kartje. “He’s built and led championship teams before. And so my focus with him is just investing and giving him — and not just him, but his entire coaching staff, his support staff that he has around him every resource possible to get to the next level.”

Bowden was the big splash of the offseason so far, coming in from rival Notre Dame. He will receive a salary upward of $1 million, On3’s Pete Nakos previously reported, and USC continued to invest in the player personnel side of Riley’s staff. Former Wisconsin general manager Max Stienecker as its executive director of player personnel.

Those investments, Cohen said, are important to putting USC in position to succeed in the changing college football landscape. That was also her message to Lincoln Riley after the 2024 season.

“This industry is changing so much, so rapidly, that we’re always in conversations and evaluating everything that we need,” Cohen said. “What resources do we need? What pieces do we need to put in place to be successful? So it’s not an end-of-the-year conversation. It’s ongoing. I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made since the end of the season and in the offseason. I think he’s done an excellent job of putting together a great coaching staff. We worked really hard to keep a number of talented coaches and to retain them. Consistency is so important, so I’m really pleased with that.

“I thought we made some really good additional hires that complement the staff, both from an experience and a development standpoint, as well as a recruiting standpoint. [Football general manager Chad Bowden’s] hire obviously is huge for us and the infrastructure that he’s building. So I feel like there’s a lot of things we were talking about well before the end of the season, and we’ll keep talking about and keep evolving and keep growing and changing. But there’s been some really positive action taken to create what looks like some really exciting moment as we enter into the spring and into next season.”