Gaining an edge a decade or so ago for a college football program meant facilities with the "wow" factor, or investing in player recovery methods to ensure they stayed fresh and bounced back quicker, and in recent years that edge has been found in investing in NIL and finding talent through the transfer portal to fill roster holes, but there's no denying the latest way to gain an edge for high school, college, and NFL programs is going to lie in Artificial Intelligence.
A quick look through your social media timeline shows just how quickly AI has infiltrated nearly every facet of life, from creating graphics and invitations, to improving our workflows, to evaluating data it's everywhere.
It was really only a matter of time before a program created a staff position dedicated to the AI explosion.
According to reports from On3 and USA Today, USC is promoting director of analytics Conor McQuiston to a newly created role - Director of AI. While most staffs are surely trying to find ways for an edge with AI, the move makes the Trojans the first program in college football history to officially dedicate a staff position to artificial intelligence.
For a lot of coaches, hearing "AI" usually brings to mind sci-fi movies or tech guys in Silicon Valley trying to reinvent the wheel. But in the context of a modern program with College Football Playoff and national title expectations, this isn't a gimmick, it’s a natural evolution of advanced scouting and data management.
While there's no official job description shared just yet, On3's Pete Nakos shares that McQuiston's role will put him in "charge of building AI models with their data to try and find advantages in everything from game plans to scouting.
Every program in the country already uses data to try and find an edge everywhere we can. Whether that is tracking explosive play percentages, third-down tendencies, or GPS units tracking numbers from practice. But most staff analytics positions are reactive. A staffer builds a spreadsheet, looks at what happened over the last four weeks, and hands the coordinator a report.
What USC is aiming to do with this promotion is shifting from analytics to predictive modeling. McQuiston’s job won't just as much about organizing numbers as it will be about building custom models that can process massive amounts of data to find hidden competitive advantages.
A groundbreaking hire, Riley's move to become the first to embrace AI with an official title and role for someone in the building is likely going to be something copied by a lot more college football programs.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.