{"id":368914,"date":"2025-12-25T06:44:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T06:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368914\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T06:44:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T06:44:14","slug":"matt-leinart-defends-usc-over-pausing-rivalry-with-notre-dame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368914\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Leinart defends USC over pausing rivalry with Notre Dame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former USC<\/a> quarterback Matt Leinart<\/a> defended his alma mater for pausing their rivalry<\/a> with Notre Dame<\/a> in the future. There is no scheduled game for 2026 and beyond at this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cCall me lame but I\u2019m going to trust a school that\u2019s produced more Heisman winners than anyone else in history and 11 National Championships to do what\u2019s right for the program,\u201d Leinart wrote on Twitter\/X. <\/a>\u201cTexas and A&M played forever and then they didn\u2019t. Same with Utah and BYU. It was a bummer but the world didn\u2019t end. Here\u2019s hoping this is a momentary pause just like those. Fight on and Merry Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reportedly, USC is pausing the rivalry<\/a> due to Notre Dame\u2019s agreement with the College Football Playoff. The Fighting Irish have a MOU for 2026 that if they are ranked in the top 12 of the CFP rankings at year\u2019s end, they are guaranteed a spot in the bracket.<\/p>\n

If the MOU were in effect this season, Notre Dame would have gotten into the field over\u00a0Miami<\/a>\u00a0despite being ranked lower. Miami also held the head-to-head matchup, jumping Notre Dame at the last possible moment. This scenario playing out against USC was apparently a concern for administration in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad Notre Dame had its new agreement with the CFP committee in place in 2025, the Irish would\u2019ve gotten in over Miami, who beat them earlier in the season,\u201d LA Times\u2019 Ryan Kartje\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0via X. \u201cThat scenario was a concern to USC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, for just the second time since World War II, there will not be a game between Notre Dame and USC. It\u2019s one of the more storied rivalries in college football despite the two never sharing a conference. We are not too far away from 100 games between them, sitting at 93 after the 2025 edition took place in South Bend.<\/p>\n

Notre Dame already has a game on the \u201926 and \u201927 schedule to replace USC. A home-and-home series will take place with\u00a0BYU<\/a>, a team they could have played in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in a few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former USC quarterback Matt Leinart defended his alma mater for pausing their rivalry with Notre Dame in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,181032,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-368914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-matt-leinart-01-mater-dei","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368914","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=368914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}