USC defends the belt, 24–7, on the road at Minnesota.
AP poll, week 5: USC No. 4 at Minnesota unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 686 days into reign #167, which began with a win over Washington, with 18 defenses already behind it; this was its 19th defense. USC went on to defend it 5 more times before Washington took it on November 15, 1980, 735 days after the reign began.
For Minnesota this was its 9th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
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 Minnesota on September 27, 1980, in a week 5 regular season matchup. Minnesota won 24-7. As the belt's defending 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 49888) · This game in the downloadable dataset