As college football recruiting gets more competitive, teams are looking for ways to separate themselves from the competition. USC is no different, recently giving position promises to bring a 5-star athlete to the Trojans.
Another area that can help with recruiting is promising a number to a certain player, but at USC, number 11 belongs to Matt Leinart, and Leinart plans on keeping it that way, according to comments he made on his Throwbacks podcast.
“When I was at USC, I got my number retired,” Leinart said. “You win the Heisman Trophy, automatic retired number, which is pretty cool. So, our jerseys are hanging in the Coliseum on one side.”
Nine different numbers are retired by USC, including recent players such as Carson Palmer (3), Reggie Bush (5), Caleb Williams (13), and Matt Leinart (11). Palmer did allow a player to later wear the number three, but Leinart has no intentions of letting someone wear 11.
“There’s been multiple times where people at USC have asked me if I would unretire my jersey for some five-star prospect,” Leinart said. “And do you want to know what I told those guys straight up? I said, ‘Absolutely f****** 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.”
Winning a Heisman at USC gets your number retired, and Leinart does not want to have his number 11 tainted. He did give one caveat to the possibility of unretiring the number.
“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.
With these statements, it is hard to imagine the number 11 ever being worn again by a player at USC, but in a consistently changing college football landscape, you can never say never.
