Southern Miss takes the belt, 25–19, on the road at Alabama.
AP poll, week 1: Southern Miss unranked at Alabama No. 5 · No. 1 that week: Navy. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Southern Miss took the belt here, ending Alabama’s run of 260 days and 0 defenses (reign #105) and starting reign #106. It lasted 43 days and 4 defenses, until Memphis took it on October 31, 1953.
For Southern Miss this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt — and this was the day it took it.
It was the first of 3 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Alabama leads 2–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Southern Miss traveled to Alabama on September 18, 1953, for the first game of the regular season and defeated the host Crimson Tide 25-19. With this victory on the road, Southern Miss claimed the College Football Belt from Alabama.
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 31420) · This game in the downloadable dataset