Matt Leinart And Brady Quinn Are Still Fighting Over The "Bush Push"

Matt Leinart and Brady Quinn are now “teammates” as football analysts for Fox Sports, but that doesn’t mean they’ve put the past behind them. The two former quarterbacks squared off in a beef over their most famous matchup on Tuesday and, like the game they played in, Leinart came away victorious.

Leinart and Quinn were under center opposing each other during one of the greatest games in college football history. Now known as the “Bush Push” game, it featured USC and Notre Dame going down to the wire and the Trojans coming away victorious on a late quarterback sneak from Leinart … with a little help from his running back Reggie Bush. USC won the game 34-31.

Almost 12 years later, Quinn clearly hasn’t gotten over it.

Here’s the exchange from Tuesday that started when someone Tweeted out an interview with Quinn:

Leinart responded with a dagger:

Quinn weighed in:

And Leinart finished it off:

And a final punch back from Quinn:

It’s worth noting, that in the interview that started this off, Quinn said he hoped in the same situation his running back would have done the same thing as Bush. Then-Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis also said he’d have done what Bush did.

In the end, Leinart’s “three-straight” slam won the day but, in fact, Notre Dame was 0-4 against USC during Quinn’s time in South Bend, including a 44-24 beatdown he suffered as a senior.

As for Quinn’s assertion that Leinart overlooks paying players, let’s get something straight: USC didn’t pay anyone. Two wannabe agents with no association to USC paid Reggie Bush to leave school. The Trojans saw no benefit from their actions. That’s not defending Bush taking money, I’m just saying no one at USC has ever condoned what happened.

In the end, USC won that game. If Notre Dame had played better defense on 4th and 9 with 1:32 to go, this conversation wouldn’t even be necessary.

That smarts.