USC defends the belt, 48–14, at home over Minnesota.
AP poll, week 4: Minnesota 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 315 days into reign #167, which began with a win over Washington, with 6 defenses already behind it; this was its 7th defense. USC went on to defend it 17 more times before Washington took it on November 15, 1980, 735 days after the reign began.
For Minnesota this was its 8th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
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 defeated visiting Minnesota 48-14 on September 22, 1979, in a regular season week 4 matchup. The defending belt holder USC retained the belt with the victory.
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 49021) · This game in the downloadable dataset