USC defends the belt, 17–0, at home over Arkansas.
AP poll, week 3: Arkansas unranked at USC No. 1 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 257 days into reign #153, which began with a win over Ohio State, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. USC went on to defend it 5 more times before Notre Dame took it on October 27, 1973, 299 days after the reign began.
For Arkansas this was its 6th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the first of 2 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time USC leads 2–0.
About this game
USC defended the belt against Arkansas on September 15, 1973, winning 17-0 at home in week 3 of the regular season.
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 44087) · This game in the downloadable dataset