BREAKING: USC Set to Hire Mike Bohn as Athletic Director

USC has reached an agreement with Cincinnati's Mike Bohn to be its new athletic director.

Sam Greene-USA TODAY Sports

The new leader of USC's athletic program has apparently been decided upon. 

Multiple sources told SI that the university has reached an agreement in principle with Cincinnati athletic director Mike Bohn. 

The Athletic's Bruce Feldman first reported USC is nearing a deal with Bohn. The school is expected to announce the hire next week, with Bohn being introduced as early as Monday, per sources.

While the ink isn't dry on a contract, I'm told USC is offering big money to poach the longtime AD. The word initially came down late Thursday evening that USC was close to making a hire. It marks the second major decision from new president Carol Folt, who oversaw Lynn Swann's resignation in early September. Upon her hire, Folt was tasked to make significant changes to an athletic department riddled with scandal under Swann.

Sources said the school has been angling to hire an AD that could possibly land Urban Meyer to be its next football coach, and Bohn might be able to deliver. Meyer, of course, is an alumnus of Cincinnati and the two have a relationship. Bohn hired Bearcats football coach Luke Fickell off Meyer's Ohio State staff in December of 2016. 

There has been back-channel dialogue between USC and Meyer's camp for months as the university has been preparing for the possibility of moving on from Clay Helton, per sources. Bringing in Bohn is a motion to finish the process.

Bohn has been an athletic director since 1998, which includes stops at Idaho, San Diego State and Colorado, where he resigned in 2013. He took over Cincinnati's athletic department in 2014.

For USC, the hire would end a run of storied alumni football players turned athletic directors without previous administrative experience. In fact, Mike McGee (1984-93) is the Trojans' only AD to not have previous ties to the school. McGee, incidentally, was also Cincinnati's AD prior to becoming USC's. 

The 58-year-old Bohn has been in athletics administration since 1984, after earning a master's degree from Ohio University. He earned his bachelor's from Kansas, where he played football and baseball.

-- Adam Maya is a USC graduate and has been covering the Trojans since 2003. Follow him on Twitter @AdamJMaya.