The Leinart deal is hilarious on both accounts. A school should NEVER ask a former player to unretire a jersey especially a former Heisman winner and 2x national title winner. Massive turn off if I'm a prospective recruit honestly. Leinart comes off as selfish with the denial but see why he issues it. He shouldn't have to rescind on something he earned. Hope to never hear about this at ND and would be shocked if I did.
Also ... The difference in recruiting mindset for the types of players USC goes after. You hear ALL the time that kids are told to pick Notre Dame for Notre Dame, not for a coach. CJ Carr even said it when he was still in high school - Tommy Rees could be gone before he gets to campus and they talked to CJ about that possibility to make sure he chose ND the school, not for any other reason.
Compare that to the NBC Sports article shared above that recruits were asking to wear that number to go to USC. That is a complete lack of respect for the legacy of USC. I think it's important to recognize that they have a lot of history and this why the rivalry is important between the two schools. ND recruits would know that there's some type of history behind a retired jersey (or statue in a stadium, etc) even if they didn't know the history right away. USC is shopping down a different aisle in all the wrong ways.
Unaffiliated AD with an unaffiliated coach and unaffiliated GM who cares nothing about the legacy of the school and the players. No wonder they were so quick to trash on a historic rivalry because they care so little about the history of their own school, the sport of college football, and the rivalry game itself. Trash all around.