Notre Dame takes the belt, 23–14, at home over USC.
AP poll, week 9: USC No. 9 at Notre Dame No. 5 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Notre Dame took the belt here, ending USC’s run of 299 days and 6 defenses (reign #153) and starting reign #154. It lasted 336 days and 7 defenses, until Purdue took it on September 28, 1974.
For Notre Dame this was its 10th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 5 times before — and it took it back here.
It was the 3rd of 9 belt games between the two; going in, USC led the belt series 1–0–1; all-time USC leads 6–2–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Notre Dame defeated USC 23-14 on October 27, 1973, taking the College Football Belt from the Trojans in this regular season matchup played in South Bend.
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 44470) · This game in the downloadable dataset