FOOTBALL

USC Morning Buzz: Who Runs The Program?

I joked the other day that Chad Bowden might be calling plays midway though next season. That seems less outlandish given the power he wields.

By removing the strength coach, USC is showing Lincoln Riley isn’t calling the shots. It must really rankle a control freak like Riley.

I feel I need to repeat this because not everyone reads the blog daily: Bowden was hired by athletic director Jen Cohen and reports to her. Sources have told me Cohen and Riley have a strained relationship and she feels constrained by the 10-year contract Mike Bohn gave Riley.

This is why Bowden was brought in by Cohen.

Now one way of looking at it is USC is making changes — without Riley’s approval — is it gives him a reason to leave and get away from that 10-year contract.

But the changes are actually giving him a better chance to win, so it’s helping him at the same time.

As always with USC, it’s a unique situation.

  • Former USC tailback A’Marion Peterson has transferred to Texas-San Antonio.
  • Alijah Arenas has been released from the hospital one week after his car crash.

48 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Who Runs The Program?”

  1. Jen Cohen Press Release 4/30/25: “Mister Riley will participate from the booth this season. Coach Bowden will be on the sidelines for our opener.”

    Lincoln Riley Statement: “I am honored to serve the team in my new capacity….. as booth man for the Big Ten Network”

    Liked by 1 person

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      1. What happens if he goes 9-3, beating Notre Dame and Michigan …while losing to three .500 teams [including UCLA]?

        #ItCouldHappen

        Liked by 1 person

  2. KAM: Former CNN reporter Chris Cillizza says journalists were *not* covering up Biden’s mental decline but were rather just “too trusting” of the Biden White House. “I think it was an inherent and sort of unconscious bias more than a conscious bias.”

    DON: The clowns in the media never cared about reporting on Senile Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline until they realized in July 2024 there was no way he would beat me.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. You left out that Chuck Todd VEHEMENTLY denied that reporters covered up for Biden and then blamed Harris, Dr Jill, Hunter and everyone one else who was near Biden for covering his mental decline up

      Liked by 1 person

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    2. Cut it out!

      #BidenWas100%Fine….

      #…[HeJustHadAMildStutterFromChildhood…..

      #…ThatImpactedTheUseOfHisBrain&Legs]

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      2. Sparrow WANTED to believe that. Millions of dems did —-to their detriment. And ours. And the world’s.

        Just the same I miss Sparrow. I hope he’s okay!

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      4. The coverup was worse than Watergate, but the idiots who chose it want everyone to move on. Pretend all of the consequences of that poor choice is not on them. Yeah, I’d cry that everyone should move on, too, if I had that much blood on my hands.

        Like

      5. KAM: DHS just rescued two sisters aged 16 and 18 who came into the U.S. as unaccompanied minors. They were allegedly being pimped out for s*x out of a hotel in West Covina, California.

        The Senile Joe Biden Regime lost track of more than 320,000 migrant kids and Cowardly Gabby says we should forget about them.

        DON: The Senile Joe Regime and Cowardly Gabby are evil.

        Liked by 1 person

  3. ABC: All photos of gang tattoos appearing on deportees were photoshopped by Kristi Noem —and —-when these model citizens are returned [by Supreme Court order!] to the U.S. it will be apparent these men have no tattoos whatsoever [although they may have each spilled acid on their knuckles in unrelated accidents]”…..

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    1. Saying that the tats are photoshopped is really reaching, and at this point, the dems are grasping at anything, which makes them look really pathetic

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      1. ABC’s saying “they were photoshopped —let’s move on”….. “let’s agree to disagree” and “some might interpret them as gang tattoos — let’s talk about Pete Hegseth” is more than a disservice: It’s Foreign Propaganda.

        #Disney=CCP

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      2. KAM: Trump is right again- the legacy media has lost ALL of its credibility- they have zero integrity. Terry “Moron” Moran said without evidence that the illegal alien’s tattoos were photoshopped!

        🤣
        😂

        what a

        🤡

        . That’s why he tried to change the subject super fast, Trump wasn’t having it.

        DON: What a great pimp slap of truth to ABC.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. I would love to agree with you, but if you saw the picture, it’s pretty obvious it was photoshopped. But the tats he had on his hand were not something a normal person gets. They’re something a gang member gets.

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      4. Fake News Terry Moran makes the ridiculous claim that the cryptic MS-13 tattoo on Garcia’s knuckles was “photoshopped” because someone put “MS-13” on top and spelled out what each tattoo symbolizes. Almost everyone knows someone put those on the image to spell it out.

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      5. Yes, Gabby, but many are saying “it was tattooed right on his knuckles” as if the “MS-13” itself was real.

        I don’t want that POS back. So don’t get me wrong.

        I want Trump to keep going. If you don’t want someone mistaking you for a gang member, don’t make yourself look like one.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Riley claims that he wanted a GM and was actively involved in the search for one with Cohen for several months. He further states that Bowden was the perfect hire. Bowden stayed at Riley’s home for a number of days rather than a hotel. They are purportedly friends. And Bowden speaks in glowing terms about Riley – “the best offensive mind in football”, “best evaluator of talent that I have ever been associated with”, “we get along so well because we are both obsessed with winning”, ect. If Bowden/Cohen want Riley to quit, they are doing a tremendous job of hiding that fact and so is Riley. I really don’t know what to believe with this one.

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    1. What to believe: Jen knows Riley is a great offensive coordinator. She feels about Riley the way Riley feels about Jayden: “Minimize his potential for mistakes and we have a good product.”

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    1. Answer: Riley is a pragmatist. He’ll be fine…

      ##EVERYBODYWillBeFineIfWeStarWinning….

      #…NOBODYWillBeFineIfWeDon’t….

      #[It’sJustTheWayItIs]

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      1. Michael,

        That only happens if SC hires a 6’4″ inch tall man that believes that there is no transgender crap, has balls as big as they can be, stares down woke and political crap with no problem and turns SC back into being SC, a place of determnation and winning. If you hire someone like the midget folt, forget about it.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. KAM: IBM Rolls Back DEI, Commits To Political Neutrality. “IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to keep ad revenue away from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced.

    DON: After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a hot mic discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have ‘got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point’ in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who sued IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.”

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  10. KAM: Secretary of State Rubio announced he located DOSSIERS created by the Senile Joe Biden regime with the intent to CENSOR certain Americans “There’s at least one person at THIS TABLE TODAY who had a dossier in that building…”

    DON: This was BLACKMAIL, and those responsible should be ARRESTED.

    Liked by 1 person

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  11. KAM: Could the US’s transactional approach toward conflict resolution yield lasting peace in Africa’s troubled Great Lakes region?

    DON:  The US approach could end a more than 30-year-long regional conflict over land, resources, ethnicity and political power that kicked off after the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled across the border into Congo. But Po-LIB-ico said, “no region appears to matter less to the White House than Africa“! The Fake News is caught lying again!

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Gabby:

      Fake News doesn’t get “caught” lying —-Fake News is One, Continuing Lie by definition…..

      Like

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  12. KAM: Ukraine Signs Mineral-Rights Pact With US! Trump now has invested in Ukrainian sovereignty as a key American commercial interest, a signal that makes clear to Putin that we will not back away from Ukraine, even if we aren’t going to militarize the relationship any further. 

    DON: WINNING!

    Liked by 1 person

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  13. KAM: Preachy Democrat Judge releases suspected Tesla firebomber citing ADHD and no access to “gender-affirming care”!So the domestic terr*rist doesn’t have to go to prison because he has depression and thinks he’s a woman?

    DON: Democrats believe in Dual Justice.

    Liked by 1 person

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      2. Board Pest Board Cancer Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka Charlie Bucket the UCLA Fan aka The Guy who posts as Buddhakarma & So Cal’s Wife & Michael Guarino & Trojan RJJ & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse and TrojanFan 1-3 & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young and KATHY and Foreskin Thoughts and SCOTTLOVESTHEROOOOOTTÞ and Manureman has a twin.

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  14. KAM: FBI agents photographed kneeling during George Floyd protest have been removed from their positions – CNN

    DON: That’s what people voted for!

    Liked by 1 person

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