USC defends the belt, 21–5, on the road at Hawai'i.
AP poll, week 14: USC No. 3 at Hawai'i unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 21 days into reign #167, which began with a win over Washington, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. USC went on to defend it 21 more times before Washington took it on November 15, 1980, 735 days after the reign began.
For Hawai'i this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 4 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
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 traveled to Hawai'i on December 2, 1978, in week 14 of the regular season as the defending belt holder. USC won 21-5 and retained the belt.
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 48815) · This game in the downloadable dataset