Matt Leinart Calls For Angel Reese To Be Suspended After Flagrant Foul On Caitlin Clark

Former USC Trojans quarterback and 2004 Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart really, really didn’t like how hard Angel Reese fouled Caitlin Clark earlier Sunday.

Leinart, who works as an analyst on Fox Sports’ "Big Noon Kickoff," was evidently watching the Chicago Sky take on the Indiana Fever earlier. During the third-quarter of the latest chapter in the budding rivalry, Clark drove with her left hand to the hoop and attempted to finish the layup with her right hand.

Heisman-winning quarterback Matt Leinart, a member of the Fox Big Noon Kickoff crew, walks the CU sideline before the Rocky Mountain Showdown on Sept. 16, 2023 at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo.

In the process, Reese came over to play help defense. While she may have been going for the ball, she made substantial contact with Clark’s head, to put it lightly.

I’m not going to say that the contact was definitively intentional, since Clark even said afterward that she didn’t think there was anything egregious about the foul.

But I’m also not willing to rule out that it could have been intentional. Remember, Reese erupted in joy when Chennedy Carter body-checked Clark into the ground earlier this month. She might have taken the opportunity to get her pound of flesh in today’s game.

Reese is the girl that rises up from the bench and starts clapping in this video.

Regardless of what I may think, Leinart seems convinced that Reese’s foul was intentional, and called for the league to punish her for the play.

"Angel Reese should be suspended. Period. Not good for the game," he wrote on X.

Again, we can’t really prove one or another if the foul was maliciously intended, and the WNBA probably won’t do anything to punish her (since they didn’t fine or suspend Carter for her foul). In all likelihood, Clark will have to take it on the chin and move on.

Clark and the Fever earned a 91-83 victory over Chicago, and will have another chance to take on the Sky on June 23.