USC defends the belt, 27–10, on the road at Arizona.
AP poll, week 7: USC No. 2 at Arizona unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
USC came in 700 days into reign #167, which began with a win over Washington, with 20 defenses already behind it; this was its 21st defense. USC went on to defend it 3 more times before Washington took it on November 15, 1980, 735 days after the reign began.
For Arizona this was its 4th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the 2nd of 5 belt games between the two; going in, USC led the belt series 1–0; all-time USC leads 5–0. Every meeting →
About this game
USC traveled to Arizona on October 11, 1980, as the defending belt holder. Arizona won the game 27-10, but since USC was the belt holder going in, the result meant USC retained the belt 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 50029) · This game in the downloadable dataset