{"id":696033,"date":"2026-06-10T17:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T17:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696033\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T17:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T17:33:13","slug":"usc-lincoln-riley-to-become-first-college-football-program-to-hire-director-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696033\/","title":{"rendered":"USC, Lincoln Riley to become first college football program to hire director of AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to On3\u2019s Pete Nakos<\/a> and Wilson Alexander<\/a>, the USC Trojans<\/a> and Lincoln Riley<\/a> are set to hire a director of AI. USC would be the first college football program to do so, bringing a whole new position to the sport. Conor McQuiston is expected to get the position, set to be announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cUSC is promoting director of analytics Conor McQuiston to director of AI, sources confirm to On3\u2019s Pete Nakos and Wilson Alexander,\u201d Nakos said. \u201cHe\u2019ll be in charge of building AI models with their data to try to find advantages in everything from game plans to scouting. USA Today first reported the hire.\u201d<\/p>\n

[ $19.99 gets you a FULL year of On3 | Rivals national coverage ]<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, the exact job description has not yet been revealed for McQuiston. But you have to imagine there are multiple different ways USC could take this. Whether it\u2019s with on-field ideas, training regimens, or even helping the recruiting world \u2014 AI is a tool the Trojans want to use moving forward. McQuiston will just be the one in charge of the whole operation.<\/p>\n

More on Conor McQuiston, work in the sports world<\/p>\n

Shortly after the report from Nakos and Alexander, an official bio<\/a> of McQuiston popped up on USC\u2019s website. They detailed some of his prior jobs, including work at the NFL level.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe worked at Prize Picks where he served for a year (2024-2025) as an associate data scientist for game operations with a focus on the NFL. Prior to his time at Prize Picks, McQuiston spent two years at the NFL as both a lead research analyst and before that a seasonal research analyst for Next Gen Stats.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for experience in college football, McQuiston did spend some time in the Michigan<\/a> program during his undergraduate years. Back in 2021, his title was undergraduate analytics manager \u2014 a season where the Wolverines went 11-1 during the regular season before winning a Big Ten Championship. They also earned a spot in the College Football Playoff<\/a>, only to lose to Georgia<\/a> in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

USC certainly is looking for a similar type of result. Riley is looking to compete during the 2026 season, feeling like a great group is in Los Angeles. At the same time, the program\u2019s philosophy took a turn by leaning more into high school recruiting recently. The Trojans have to feel as if they are also set up for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to On3\u2019s Pete Nakos and Wilson Alexander, the USC Trojans and Lincoln Riley are set to hire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-696033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}