USC defends the belt, 20–17, on the road at Tennessee.
AP poll, week 3: USC No. 4 at Tennessee unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 672 days into reign #167, which began with a win over Washington, with 16 defenses already behind it; this was its 17th defense. USC went on to defend it 7 more times before Washington took it on November 15, 1980, 735 days after the reign began.
For Tennessee this was its 14th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 7 times before.
It was the 2nd of 2 belt games between the two; going in, USC led the belt series 1–0; all-time USC leads 2–0.
About this game
USC visited Tennessee on September 13, 1980, in a regular season week 3 matchup. Tennessee won 20-17. As the belt's defending champion, USC retained the championship despite the loss.
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 49753) · This game in the downloadable dataset