USC retains the belt after a 7–7 tie with Oklahoma.
AP poll, week 5: USC No. 4 at Oklahoma No. 6 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 271 days into reign #153, which began with a win over Ohio State, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. USC went on to defend it 3 more times before Notre Dame took it on October 27, 1973, 299 days after the reign began.
For Oklahoma this was its 5th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before. A tie leaves the belt with the holder, so it went home empty-handed.
It was the first of 3 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time USC leads 2–0–1. Every meeting →
About this game
USC visited Oklahoma on September 29, 1973, in a week 5 regular season matchup that ended in a 7-7 tie. Under the belt's tie rule, USC retained the belt as the holder.
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 44207) · This game in the downloadable dataset