USC retains the belt after a 14–14 tie with Washington State.
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 271 days into reign #84, which began with a win over Tennessee, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. USC went on to defend it 3 more times before Stanford took it on October 26, 1940, 299 days after the reign began.
For Washington State this was its 2nd shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. A tie leaves the belt with the holder, so it went home empty-handed.
It was the 2nd of 7 belt games between the two; going in, USC led the belt series 1–0; all-time USC leads 6–0–1. Every meeting →
About this game
USC visited Washington State on September 28, 1940, in a week 3 regular season matchup that ended in a 14-14 tie. Under the site's tie rule, the belt holder retains possession on a tie, so USC successfully defended the belt.
Written by Claude, strictly from this site’s own record of the game — the score and what it meant for the belt. CFBD doesn’t have a box score for games this old, so nothing here is invented beyond what’s verifiably on file.
Sources Game record: College Football Data (id 23664) · This game in the downloadable dataset