USC defends the belt, 42–21, on the road at Alabama.
AP poll, week 3: USC No. 7 at Alabama unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 254 days into reign #141, which began with a win over Michigan, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. USC went on to defend it 3 more times before Stanford took it on October 10, 1970, 282 days after the reign began.
For Alabama this was its 10th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 3 times before.
It was the first of 4 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time it is 2–2. Every meeting →
About this game
On September 12, 1970, defending belt holder USC traveled to Alabama for a week 3 regular season matchup. Alabama won 42-21, but USC retained the belt as the defending champion.
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 41844) · This game in the downloadable dataset