Luca Evans (OC Register)  —  LOS ANGELES — Three years ago, amid the mad recruiting scramble that had erupted with Lincoln Riley’s sudden arrival to USC, the newly minted head coach was observing a high school 7-on-7 event when a rather large human on the sidelines caught his eye.

Oaks Christian’s Hayden Lowe, then just a freshman, wasn’t participating. This was a passing tournament. But he had a natural build for an edge rusher, so Riley approached Lowe’s head coach Charlie Collins, a former NFL assistant.

“He’s the next KT,” Collins told Riley of Lowe, “or better.”

KT, of course, referred to former Oaks Christian standout and current New York Giants star Kayvon Thibodeaux. This was no ordinary endorsement. So Riley took note, and offered Lowe a scholarship that day, despite never having seen him actually line up.

In the years to come, as Lowe rounded into the top 2025 edge rusher in California, Riley didn’t call, Collins said. Nobody from USC called, as the staff underwent massive defensive turnover. The Trojans’ offer hung in a void, until Collins started “barking a little bit at ’em for being a little bit slow,” as he put it.

“I kind of let ’em have it,” Collins reflected in July. “But you know, in a loving way. But I kind of like … don’t put yourself in that position, 11th hour.”

They got Lowe at the 11th hour, earning his commitment just two days after his visit in the summer. Still, Collins felt USC’s staff could have done a better job of turning their attention toward the Westlake Village program, and emphasized as much to Riley.

“I told Lincoln, ‘USC is still USC, but we got to keep it that way,’” Collins said. “Way you do that is to make sure that you win your backyard.”

Riley agreed wholeheartedly, Collins said. And in the past year, USC’s head coach has continued to emphasize that recruiting California kids has been “priority number one,” as he expressed to reporters on Thursday.

But the eye test and hard data suggest that USC is increasingly looking beyond state lines and toward the South to build its future, as longtime national powers in Southern California like Mater Dei and St. John Bosco continue to feel a lack of push from USC to keep their recruits at home.

After years stacking local talent under Clay Helton in the Pac-12, a USC staff with widespread Southern ties has offered more total kids from Texas than California in every complete recruiting class of Riley’s tenure. As the Trojans’ attention in California appears to be decreasing, their momentum in Georgia has escalated drastically, with 15% of their total offers in 2025 targeted there. Georgia cornerbacks Shamar Arnoux and James Johnson, safeties Kendarius Reddick and Steve Miller, and four-star linebacker Jaden Perlotte – plus 2026 five-star linebacker Xavier Griffin – have all committed in just the past four months.

“They’ve found a little oil in the ground,” said Brandon Nabors, a Georgia-based agent who represents more than a dozen Georgia players and several who are being recruited by USC.

“And, I mean, it’s pouring out, man.”

When asked Thursday about USC focusing less on Southern California powerhouses and turning more toward Georgia, Riley asserted the shift wasn’t a “conscious effort.”

“Obviously you see, the ’26 class, we’re off to a great start here on the West Coast,” Riley said. “That’ll always be a big part of it.”

“If there ends up being a few more guys out of state, yeah,” Riley continued, “but that’s definitely going to balance with years where we’re very heavy in the state of California and in the West.”

To his point, USC already has four California commitments in its 2026 class. But the program, too, is moving away from cornering top Southern California schools and is broadening its philosophy toward getting the “right guys” in the area, as Riley has repeated before.

For decades before Riley, dating to the days of Matt Leinart and Matt Barkley and continuing through J.T. Daniels and Amon-Ra St. Brown, a clear pipeline existed from Orange County powerhouse Mater Dei to USC. That pipeline is nothing more than a weak drip now, after former USC alumnus Bruce Rollinson retired in 2022 and Mater Dei has seen plenty of coaching turnover since.

None of Mater Dei’s top 13 committed 2025 and 2026 recruits have chosen USC, and USC has correspondingly offered scholarships to only three of them. Since Raul Lara took over the head job at Mater Dei in April after Frank McManus’ firing, USC coaches have appeared on the Santa Ana campus only once – and haven’t stopped by since the spring, according to several Mater Dei staffers who spoke with the Southern California News Group.

“But, our kids have seen Dan Lanning two weeks ago,” Mater Dei receivers coach James Griffin said, referring to the Oregon head coach. “So. You know what I mean?”

Griffin emphasized there’s no sour grapes between USC and Mater Dei. But Monarchs coaches still expressed confusion as to why USC hasn’t worked to establish a more consistent presence there. Lara pointed to the SEC’s Alabama and Georgia, and Big Ten programs like Oregon, Penn State and Ohio State – all top-10 programs nationally – as schools that had recently visited campus multiple times.

The feeling extends to Bellflower and St. John Bosco High, currently the second-highest-ranked program in the country by MaxPreps (Mater Dei is first), where head coach Jason Negro said he had a “great” relationship with Riley but confirmed he hasn’t seen a USC coach on campus since the spring.

“I would think that, if you have two of the best teams in the country year-in and year-out in your backyard, that you would – set up a tent on their campus trying to get all of our guys,” Negro said. “And they haven’t done that. So I don’t know why that is.”

“I don’t know if it’s – we must be the greatest coaches in America, is what they’re basically telling me,” Negro continued, “because we’re doing it with a bunch of guys that aren’t qualified to play at USC.”

Instead, USC’s camp-outs in Georgia have brought major dividends. In his recruiting conversations with staff, Nabors said, USC had emphasized its desire in targeting the state was to find “strong, fast, aggressive kids” who could play in the Big Ten. And despite not having a massive advantage in NIL collective funds compared to a host of SEC programs – with USC’s House of Victory’s budget somewhere over $12 million for 2024-25 – the wealth of endorsement opportunities available in Los Angeles had often “sold” his clients, Nabors put it.

“I’d rather be in California, in Los Angeles, making a dollar at USC,” Nabors said, “than going to Florida, in Gainesville, and making a dollar in Gainesville.”

For now, if the program’s current 2025 numbers hold, Lowe will arrive to USC’s campus next year as just one of four commits from California – by far the lowest percentage of USC’s total class in at least a decade. Perhaps it’s a slight fluke of a cycle. But USC’s geographical philosophy, in future recruiting, will prove a key point of their continued rebuild under Riley.

“I always say,” Collins said, “win your home games.”

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