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Matt Leinart hit out at Dave Portnoy for his comment on USC during his appearance on Fox's “Big Noon Kickoff” on Saturday. Portnoy appeared earlier on the pregame show, criticizing the antics of the Trojans in the fake punt they executed in the 38-17 win over Northwestern on Friday.In his “Rant of the Week” segment on the show, Portnoy criticized college football teams allowing multiple players to wear the same jersey number. He accused USC of exploiting this rule with the deceptive fake punt, but the former Trojans quarterback wasn’t having it.“By the way, that's Dave's worst rant of the year,” Leinart said. “That's a terrible rant, Dave. Dave Portnoy is the biggest dirtbag of all time. Am I right, Iowa fans?”USC pulled off the clever deception in the first half of the Friday night game. Quarterback Sam Huard, who wears No. 7, quietly lined up as the punter in a No. 80 jersey, worn by punter Sam Johnson. He executed a successful fake-punt pass for a first down, catching everyone off guard. This did not intrigue Dave Portnoy.“I've got a problem with this," Portnoy said. "I don't know when it started. I hate college football, how they're giving out the same number on multiple teams.“You can have three No. 3s. Last night in USC against Northwestern, this problem came to a hit. USC, who are dirtbags, they put out the punter; it looked like the punter wearing No. 80. It was actually the third-string backup quarterback, and he threw a pass.”Dave Portnoy calls for the abolishment of duplicate numbers in college footballSpeaking further on his “Rant of the Week” segment, Dave Portnoy made it clear that he's not a fan of the rule that allows duplicate numbers. After USC took advantage of it in a way never seen before, the Barstool Sports founder wants the NCAA to revisit the rule.“I don't know when we started doing this," Portnoy said. "There should be one No. 1, one No. 2. Fine, you have over 100 guys? [You have one No.] 101, 102, 103, but I don't want to see Arch Manning No. 16 on Texas and their safety [Michael Taaffe] wearing No. 16."And it leads to this: a ke punt that shouldn't be a fake punt because you have a quarterback pretending to be a punter. What happened? When did this go on? Get rid of the double numbers. It's got to go."Unlike the NFL, duplicate number is an age-old practice in college football. However, some restrictions were made in 2020, limiting teams to only two players wearing the same number. That didn't stop Lincoln Riley and his team from pulling the trick on Friday night.
