{"id":269426,"date":"2026-06-10T11:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/usc-football-hiring-director-of-ai-a-first-of-its-kind-move\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T12:15:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:15:28","slug":"usc-football-hiring-director-of-ai-a-first-of-its-kind-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/usc-football-hiring-director-of-ai-a-first-of-its-kind-move\/","title":{"rendered":"USC football hiring director of AI, a first-of-its-kind move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaaf\/bigten\/2026\/06\/10\/usc-football-director-ai-lincoln-riley\/90489398007\/\">USC football hiring director of AI, a first-of-its-kind move<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaaf\/bigten\/2026\/06\/10\/usc-football-director-ai-lincoln-riley\/90489398007\/\">https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaaf\/bigten\/2026\/06\/10\/usc-football-director-ai-lincoln-riley\/90489398007\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-10 11:24:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.usatoday.com\">www.usatoday.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>June 10, 2026, 11:24 a.m. ET<\/p>\n<ul class=\"gnt_sh\">\n<li class=\"gnt_sh_li\">The University of Southern California is expected to hire Conor McQuiston as its first-ever director of artificial intelligence for college football.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_sh_li\">USC also plans to hire more full-time staff to support the football program&#8217;s analytics and research department.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_sh_li\">The university recently received a $200 million gift from Mark and Mary Stevens designated for AI research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Southern California on the cusp of a first-of-its-kind position in college football, USA TODAY Sports has learned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Lincoln Riley&#8217;s program is expected to name Conor McQuiston as its first-ever director of artificial intelligence for college football, two people familiar with the move confirmed to USA TODAY Sports. The people requested anonymity because the hiring had not been announced. McQuiston is expected to be named to the post Wednesday, June 10.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">McQuiston, who has past experience working in analytics in both the NFL and college football, will report directly to USC general manager Chad Bowden, son of former Major League Baseball general manager Jim Bowden. In his previous role as Notre Dame&#8217;s general manager, Chad Bowden hired the program&#8217;s first-ever director of analytics Anthony Treash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">People in the Southern California program familiar with the move to elevate McQuiston into the position believe the Trojans are the first team in college football to name a director of AI for football &#8212; an emerging element in the sport that former LSU and Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly discussed last month with USA TODAY Sports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Recently, USC received a $200 million gift, targeted for AI research and utilization, from billionaire Mark Stevens and his wife, Mary. Mark Stevens is a USC alum and minority owner in the NBA&#8217;s Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n<p>Follow every MLB game: Latest MLB scores, stats, schedules and standings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Members of the Trojans football program touted the willingness of athletics director Jennifer Cohen to embrace the move of naming McQuiston as the program&#8217;s initial head of AI&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaaf\/bigten\/2026\/06\/10\/usc-football-director-ai-lincoln-riley\/90489398007\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>USC football hiring director of AI, a first-of-its-kind move https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaaf\/bigten\/2026\/06\/10\/usc-football-director-ai-lincoln-riley\/90489398007\/ Publish Date: 2026-06-10 11:24:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":269427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/gcdn\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/05\/16\/USAT\/90116538007-usatsi-27708827.jpg?crop=7727,4347,x0,y0&width=3200&height=1801&format=pjpg&auto=webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269428,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269426\/revisions\/269428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}