USC officially named Mike Bohn as its new athletic director on Thursday. Bohn comes to USC after spending the last five years as Cincinnati's athletic director.
Bohn is USC's fourth athletic director in the last decade. He replaces Lynn Swann, who replaced Pat Haden, who replaced Mike Garrett. You might have noticed that Bohn is the only one of those four athletic directors who did not play football at USC. He is also the only one of those four who takes the USC athletic director job having already had administration experience in an athletic department in the last 35 years.
Introducing the 9th athletic director in USC history! #FightOn pic.twitter.com/8R1sx5UiC7
— USC Trojans (@USC_Athletics) November 7, 2019
Before becoming Cincinnati's athletic director, Bohn spent time in the same role at Colorado, San Diego State and Idaho. During his nine years at Colorado, he oversaw the schools move from the Big 12 to the Pac-12 but resigned following the 2013 season mostly because Colorado's football program had stagnated.
"I will work tirelessly and relentlessly to make the Trojan family proud," Bohn said. "We're going to build a championship program that you deserve."
Now Bohn will be tasked with saving USC's football program. USC is one of the most successful programs in college football history but has failed to find consistent success since Pete Carroll left for the Seattle Seahawks, and the NCAA came down with sanctions. The Trojans have cycled through Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian, and now have the embattled Clay Helton at the helm. The three coaches have won the Pac-12 once since Kiffin took over in 2010, going 11-3 under Clay Helton in 2017. Since then, however, USC is 10-11 overall, and many believe the only reason Helton is still employed is that USC needed to find a new athletic director to hire his replacement before it could replace him.
"It'd be premature to talk about coaches," Bohn said when asked about Helton's status.
Bohn has still not met with Helton, but noted that he hopes the Trojans finish the season strong.
It's the world's worst-kept secret that many boosters around the USC program want Urban Meyer leading the Trojans onto the field next fall. Bohn hired one of Meyer's assistants, Luke Fickell, to take over the Cincinnati program before the 2017 season, and it's a hire that has worked well for the Bearcats programs.
