Q&A: Why extra-soft toilet paper is part of Chad Bowden's USC recruiting strategy

Los Angeles Times

11-04-2025

To Chad Bowden, no detail is too small.
USC football's new general manager has seen enough during his rapid rise through the personnel ranks to know little things can make a major impact on a program. So when he first took the reins of USC's front office in late January, Bowden set out looking for something small to improve right away, to get the ball rolling and set a tone in the building.
He started with the toilet paper.
'Charmin Ultra Soft,' Bowden said, with a smile. 'I got it in every bathroom now for our players.'
His tireless efforts since then to revamp the front office have energized the entire program this spring, sparking a stunning run on the recruiting trail that has USC — and its 22 commitments, eight more than any other school — atop every possible ranking for the class of 2026.
The vibes around USC have been especially good since Bowden's arrival. And if you ask him, the extra-soft toilet paper — or, at least, the idea behind it — is part of that reason.
Recently, one USC coach joked that it was the best change he'd made in two months on the job.
'It might not matter to some people,' Bowden said. 'But everything matters in what you're doing in a program. If you focus on that, there is a belief that starts to bleed out into the program of like, 'Oh, we're going to be on point in everything we do. Because that's who we are now.''
His first two months have been focused, in large part, on making that point — that every detail matters.
Bowden sat down with The Times on Thursday to discuss the little things that matter, his first two months on the job and his thoughts on the future. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you identify the little things within this program that you zeroed in on?
Everything matters. The amount of sleep our players are getting, the amount of sleep our coaches are getting, the type of life we're all living. I think about how everything our players are doing, every single hour of every single day, matters. Everything matters. We just got out of a player success meeting, going over every single player, whether it has to do with academics, whether they're sleeping right, what they're eating from a nutrition standpoint, how they're doing in the weight room. This whole thing is not just about football. It's about developing young people. That goes with doing the little things. Accountability and discipline, we're looking to instill discipline in this football program and take care of the little things to the best of our ability, to help them grow as men.
When did it become clear to you that the small details matter that much?
It's always mattered to me in this profession. I didn't really understand it. I think at my previous stop, I learned a lot about every avenue and how it all works together and how every detail of their day and every detail of this football program matters. Because if everything is aligning, from our toilet paper to them being in the B Gap, or them making sure when they're coming back on a stop route that it's at the yard marker you're asking them. Every single detail matters. And if you treat it that way, you're going to get the type of results that lead to really successful things.
Did you sense that you were bringing a new level of focus on those more minor facets of the program?
It was already here. I just think it's a different way. Look, finding your better way now is forever evolving. I have to evolve every single day, every single year. You have to enhance everything you do, otherwise this game will pass you by. That's just my mindset with everything. That at any given moment — I know this opportunity can be taken away from me at any moment. And I don't want it to be taken away from me. I have that mindset that people are gonna come for you. And I want to make sure when they do, that I'm better every single time.
How do you determine the sort of department you want to build? Is this a Pete Carroll situation where you've spent all this time writing out your principles and envisioning your perfect front office? Or did you bring something similar to what you had at Notre Dame?
Every place is different, and I pay respect to what has been done before me, and I have nothing but respect for what's been done over the last three years with the recruiting and personnel department. Now it's all under one. When I came in, I wanted to see what that was and what had been going on, and you know, it's not like I made any big adjustments. The only thing that really we did is we brought — recruiting was down there (points one way), recruiting was down there (points the other way). If anybody knows me, I don't like working in my own office. I like working with people because I want them to see me work. Because when they see me work, they're gonna go, 'Oh my God. I get this whole thing. I get why I have respect for him. I understand how much he works. I understand what he's doing.' I want them to hear my calls. I want them to hear what's going on every single day, and I want to hear what they're doing. I wanna make sure that we're all working and aligned together, and there's nobody slipping up because we're all on this path together. We're all on the same ship together, and we're all moving forward.
I don't want anyone to venture off. We're all in this thing together. So you come to a place like this where there's been a lot of success. We have great players, you know, there's been some really big-time recruiting wins. There's been a lot of good things that have already been going on in this program. It's just bringing everybody together to be on the same ship to freaking roll down, to roll in the Pacific Ocean against anybody, anytime, anywhere, any place, 53⅓ by 120, we're coming for you. Because we're all in this together.
So do you work out of a shared space?
I don't have my own office. I didn't want one. They asked me and they were dumbfounded, which was hilarious to me. But anyone that knows me knows I'm working with everyone. So recruiting and personnel, we're all in the same area, the front office.
I read recently that some of the new front office members have been living with you?
Dre [Brown] and Zaire [Turner] still live with me currently. Max [Stienecker] was living with me at one time, too. Unfortunately. He misses me already. But yeah, they're living with me and my wife Ava in Palos Verdes.
Guess it helps to get things off the ground with a new operation when you're under the same roof?
They know that they can stay with me whenever. They know that. Just like anybody on this staff could.
You mentioned early wins on the recruiting trail. You have the No. 1 class in 2026. When you look at how well you guys are doing in recruiting, what would you say has been the catalyst to building that momentum?
There's a lot of momentum that comes from having everyone working together. We all came up with this plan together. It's not just one person. It's everybody working together as one. And that's not just, you know, the coaches, whatever, our administration, our support staff. Everybody has helped this momentum and everybody at USC is helping with the vision of what this football program is going to be.
So it's not just one person. I think there's just an incredible amount of alignment and togetherness as I reference the ship, there's just everybody on the same page with what this is gonna be. I think that's why there's been a lot of success. Now I know everyone is looking at this momentum. I've done this everywhere I've gone. Everybody is riding the highs right now, and just understand that with really great highs come some lows, right? And we're gonna go through some through this class. But the highs are going to be way bigger than the lows. And what we're eventually going to build, I don't care if we finish with the No. 1 recruiting class in the rankings and staff, I care about us getting the right ones that value USC, that value this degree, value the connections and the network, and the fact that this place can set you up for the rest of your life on top of that. You have your dream and goals in mind of playing in the NFL, you have the best coaches in the entire country, the best coaches in the world for you to reach your full potential as a football player, and on top of that, there's not one thing we don't have and we live in the greatest city in America in Los Angeles.
You project a lot of confidence. How much do you feel like that has helped propel you in your career?
It's more about how much I've lost. I've never won a national championship. So I have no idea what that looks like. Obviously I've been in that moment, but we lost the moment. It's not like I'm the one on the field scoring the touchdown. You're part of a program, right? That's what you do. It's not confidence. It's a willingness to always try to enhance a football program to whatever it takes to get to the top of that moment, winning that moment. That's really all it is. It's knowing that I don't have all the answers. But I want to win, and we want to win at USC. That's what USC is all about. We're the hottest ticket in town in the city of Los Angeles when we're winning. We're going to get there. It might not be today, but I can promise you, today, right now, April 10, 2025, we're going to operate today like we're a national championship program. And it's going to be that way every single day that I'm here, every single minute, every hour, that's what we're going to be. The results might not be what people want, but stay with us, because the future is incredibly bright. And it's the brightest that it ever has been in a very long time.
In terms of the future, the college football landscape is set to change significantly soon with the House settlement. I'm curious what your biggest concerns or questions are about the new era we're entering.
I have no concerns with the current landscape. Whatever guidelines or whatever rules are going to be in place, I look forward to maximizing whatever those are. So it doesn't matter to me what's placed in front of us. We're going to go for it all. And we'll have a lot of different plans to make sure that we're going to be at the top when it's all said and done. The new landscape to me, people are worried. I've seen interviews and people talking about this new landscape, but I'm excited. I'm excited for whatever it's going to be. We're going to do things the right way. But we're also going to maximize it.
Right now everything is out in the open. There's no cap on what players can be paid. I know those people who are worried suggest that when things change and NIL deals have to be approved by a clearinghouse, we're just going to see many of those deals go under the table. Do you think it's inevitable with those rules that we'll see schools trying to circumvent the cap?
I know that we're going to recruit the right kids. And I know that even if something like that were to take place, we're going to do everything by the book, and we're going to maximize that to the best of our ability. It won't matter because we're going to choose kids who choose USC for the right reasons. If that's how other programs want to conduct themselves, they can. It won't matter. It won't matter in the end.
Whatever ends up happening with college athletics and college football, whatever type of enforcement, whatever it looks like, I just know we're going to be prepared for it. We're going to do everything the right way.