USC defends the belt, 24–14, on the road at California.
AP poll, week 9: USC No. 3 at California unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 350 days into reign #167, which began with a win over Washington, with 11 defenses already behind it; this was its 12th defense. USC went on to defend it 12 more times before Washington took it on November 15, 1980, 735 days after the reign began.
For California this was its 7th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the 3rd of 6 belt games between the two; going in, USC led the belt series 2–0; all-time USC leads 6–0. Every meeting →
About this game
USC visited California on October 27, 1979, in week 9 of the regular season. California won 24-14. USC was defending the belt and retained it 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 49380) · This game in the downloadable dataset