{"id":235262,"date":"2025-10-19T01:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T01:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/235262\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T01:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T01:46:07","slug":"matt-leinart-hammers-officials-during-notre-dame-vs-usc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/235262\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Leinart hammers officials during Notre Dame vs. USC"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a key play in the game between Notre Dame<\/a> and USC<\/a> on Saturday night, officials got involved with a replay review. And former USC quarterback Matt Leinart<\/a> was not happy about it.<\/p>\n

The play in question occurred when Trojans quarterback Jayden Maiava<\/a> threw a pass toward the end zone intended for Ja\u2019Kobi Lane<\/a>. The pass came in low, seemingly bouncing off the turf.<\/p>\n

As it bounced, Notre Dame\u2019s Adon Shuler<\/a> got his hands on it and hauled it in. The refs ruled it an interception on the field. It quite clearly was not.<\/p>\n

\u201cRefs are so bad,\u201d Leinart wrote on Twitter<\/a>. He offered no other comment.<\/p>\n

After replay review, officials correctly overturned the call, ruling it instead an incomplete pass. That left USC facing a fourth down, and the Trojans kicked a field goal to cut their deficit to 14-13 with 1:42 remaining in the first half.<\/p>\n

Future of Notre Dame, USC rivalry in question<\/p>\n

No. 13 Notre Dame and No. 20 USC were squaring off this weekend in South Bend in what was the 93rd meeting between the two rivals. The game has been played every season (except the COVID-shortened 2020 season) dating back to 1926. The Fighting Irish own the all-time series 50-37-5.<\/p>\n

With both teams in contention for the 12-team College Football Playoff, this is one of the biggest meetings in years between the two historic rivals. However, this is the last scheduled meeting between\u00a0Notre Dame\u00a0and\u00a0USC due to conference realignment\/scheduling issues.<\/p>\n

Prior to kickoff on Saturday, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman<\/a> joined \u2018The Dan Patrick Show<\/a>\u2018 on Thursday to discuss the potential ending of the rivalry. Since taking over the program in 2022, Freeman\u2019s teams are 2-1 against USC.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, there are decisions that institutions make based off conference scheduling and things like that,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cI know that\u2019s playing into some of the discussions that USC is having, I\u2019m sur,e with our administration. The higher-ups, I\u2019m sure, are going back and forth on little details, so I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what it means to them, but I know it means a lot to us. It does. The rivalry, the quality of opponent and respect for the program means a lot to this University and football program and we want to see it continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

On3\u2019s Daniel Hager also contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a key play in the game between Notre Dame and USC on Saturday night, officials got involved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-235262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}