Report: USC hires Kansas State's Trumain Carrol as Director of Sports Performance

Lincoln Riley and USC have reportedly hired Kansas State director of strength and conditioning Trumain Carrol as the Trojans’ new director of sports performance, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

In a corresponding move, the Wildcats promoted Ray Thomas to replace Carrol as its strength and conditioning coach.

Carrol joins USC after five years at Kansas State, and 20 in the collegiate strength and conditioning field, where he helped the Wildcats change its culture by emphasizing four core values: commitment, discipline, selflessness and toughness. That mentality helped KSU football to a 36-17 record over Carrol’s four seasons in Manhattan, as well as three bowl victories and the 2022 Big 12 Championship.

Carrol landed in Manhattan after one season at South Florida following a two-year stint at Arkansas.

Carrol played college football at Oklahoma State from 2001-05 and served in two different stints as an assistant of his alma mater’s strength and conditioning staff. He also spent four years as the director of strength and conditioning at Missouri-Kansas City (2008-11).

Greg McElroy identifies USC’s biggest needs in transfer portal

ESPN’s Greg McElroy believes the USC Trojans would benefit from acquiring talent at the wide receiver position this offseason from the transfer portal. After all, Jayden Maiava is set to become the full-time starting quarterback for USC this season. He’s going to need more than a weapon or two.

The Trojans were able to nab Zacharyus Williams from Utah last month, and Prince Stachan joined the team during the winter window. However, neither have eye-popping numbers as they join the program.

“Now, I love the top two wide receivers that the Trojans will have in their arsenal next year, Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane are going to be awesome,” McElroy said during his show, ‘Always College Football‘. “Those two guys are going into their third year. They’ve caught a lot of passes. They’ve been super efficient. They’ve been super effective. But having that number three would be huge for the for Jayden Maiava and this passing attack. The top two, I feel good about those. But if I could add one more, that would be significant.”

But while USC still has some depth to fill out wide, McElroy believes the Trojans linebacker room needs even more depth that the receiving corps.

“That’s probably the thinnest position group on the entire team,” McElroy said of the linebacker position in LA. “They have good starters. Eric Gentry is a redshirt senior. He’s played a lot of football. Desman Stephens has been around for a while, but at linebacker, especially, the likelihood of being able to go the entire season without one, or both getting banged up is concerning. So, probably going to have some attrition at that position.”

— On3’s Barkley Truax contributed to this report.