Former USC Trojan Matt Leinart made waves on his podcast recently by adamantly refusing a repeated request from the university.
As detailed by Cody Nagel of CBS Sports, the Heisman winner said “there’s been multiple times where people at USC have asked me if I would unretire my jersey for some five-star prospect.”
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Leinart’s No. 11 is retired by the Trojans, as are the jersey numbers of other Heisman winners.
“And do you want to know what I told those guys straight up? I said, ‘Absolutely f—ing not.’ I am never going to unretire my jersey for some random dude who, by the way, now could wear No. 11 and transfer after a year,” he explained.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented — Nagel notes that fellow Heisman winner Carson Palmer let Jordan Addison wear No. 3 — but Leinart still was strongly against the idea.
Unless, that is, the recruit in question is one of his sons.
“The only person that will ever wear my USC No. 11 would be Cole, who’s not there right now, he’s at SMU. Or two of my boys if they end up going to USC and playing football. That is it,” Leinart said.
And there’s no amount of money you could pay Leinart to change his mind, he promised.
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“It ain’t happening, bro. I’m keeping that up there forever. And you can call me selfish — I don’t give a s—.”
