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Posted on 11/09/2025 8:55:34 PM PST by xxqqzz
USC reached deep into its bag of tricks Friday night in the Trojans’ 38–17 victory over Northwestern at L.A. Memorial Coliseum.
Early in the second quarter in a tie 7–7 game, the Trojans lined up to punt on fourth-and-6 with a player wearing No. 80—the same number as punter Sam Johnson—waiting to punt the ball away. When the ball was snapped, that player pulled the ball up and hurled it to the Northwestern sideline to connect with receiver Tanook Hines for a 10-yard pickup and a first down.
That player wearing No. 80 turned out to be third-string quarterback Sam Huard, not the punter Johnson. Huard changed his jersey number from No. 7 to No. 80 this week, and since USC doesn’t feature last names on the back of the jersey, everyone just assumed it was Johnson back to punt.
It fooled everyone in Los Angeles on Friday night—even play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti and analyst Robert Griffin III on the Fox broadcast.
According to Fox Sports rules analyst Mike Pereira, the play shouldn’t have counted. The NCAA rulebook states that “two players playing the same position may not wear the same number during the game.”
“Huard was lined up as the punter,” Pereira told The Athletic, “so therefore that’s actually a 15-yard penalty because both he and Johnson lined up as the punter [in the game].”
Well, that’s no fun. But the play did stand in the game, and the Trojans rolled to a 38–17 win to improve to 7–2 on the season.
(Excerpt) Read more at si.com ...
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Void the game.
I wonder what the prop bet line was on that happening?
Sounds like a stunt Belichick would pull.
The Big Ten officials would make great republican congressmen.
And USC are typical Democrats, as Harry Reid would have said, “They [Northwestern] didn’t win, did they?”
I’m a Trojan, and even I thought it was not only illegal but also unethical and disrespectful—concepts which appear to be unknown to Lincoln Riley.
That said: Danny White, the old Dallas Cowboys punter (and backup quarterback, iirc) ruined punting for me. He was always looking for opportunities to just take off and run for the first down—almost always successfully. Why won’t anyone do that anymore?
Don’t void it. USC should lose it by forfeit.
Larry Seiple’s run probably saved the 72 Dolphins perfect season.
Some old, white, football guy once said, “Winning is the only thing.”
I don’t know that this play would have been illegal, since Huard was the first USC “punter” on the field in punt formation. The punts afterward were Johnson, and those could have been penalized.
Which is why I included “unethical” and “disrespectful”. If you played golf with Riley, you’d need to follow him into the woods to make sure he didn’t employ his foot-mashie.
......and the same guy probably said, "The runner-up is just the first loser."
I was wondering about that when the announcers mentioned it. Even they were confused.
Cause football now is a game of derived percentages. No one cares to try anything risky. If they fail, they get fired and lose a ridiculously overpayed job security blanket.
What was once fun, it is now as boring and predictable as watching reruns of Kirk and the Gorn for the 1 thousandth time.
What I’ve seen in the last few years of college football which I think should be banned is players on the same team wearing the same number.
The rule is they can’t both be on the field at the same time, which is obvious.
A lot of teams will have an offensive player usually at RB or WR, wearing the same number as a player on defense, usually a LB or DB.
I thought the rule was you can’t change numbers on a player midgame, if that happened it definitely should be a penalty, if not then it’s legal to have two players on the team with the same number, which I think should also be banned, right now it’s not.
Does anyone else recall when young people were encouraged to play football, basketball and baseball to learn fair play and sportsmanship?
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