USC defends the belt, 41–7, at home over Washington State.
AP poll, week 5: Washington State 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 314 days into reign #162, which began with a win over UCLA, with 5 defenses already behind it; this was its 6th defense. It was the last defense: Alabama took the belt in the very next belt game, on October 8, 1977.
For Washington State this was its 7th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the 4th of 7 belt games between the two; going in, USC led the belt series 2–0–1; all-time USC leads 6–0–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Washington State visited USC on September 30, 1977, in week 5 of the regular season. USC defeated Washington State 41-7 and retained the college football 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 47395) · This game in the downloadable dataset