Stanford takes the belt, 21–7, at home over USC.
AP poll, week 7: USC unranked at Stanford No. 3 · No. 1 that week: Minnesota. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Stanford took the belt here, ending USC’s run of 299 days and 4 defenses (reign #84) and starting reign #85. It lasted 350 days and 7 defenses, until Oregon State took it on October 11, 1941.
For Stanford this was its 3rd shot at the belt; it had held the belt twice before — and it took it back here.
It was the 3rd of 8 belt games between the two; going in, the series stood 1–1; all-time USC leads 4–3–1. Every meeting →
About this game
On October 26, 1940, Stanford defeated visiting USC 21-7 in a regular season matchup. With this victory on the field, Stanford claimed the College Football Belt from USC.
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 23922) · This game in the downloadable dataset