Southern Miss defends the belt, 42–6, at home over Tampa.
AP poll, week 3: Tampa unranked at Southern Miss No. 20 · No. 1 that week: Pittsburgh. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Southern Miss came in 15 days into reign #106, which began with a win over Alabama, with one defense already behind it; this was its second defense. Southern Miss went on to defend it 2 more times before Memphis took it on October 31, 1953, 43 days after the reign began.
For Tampa this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 2 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time Southern Miss and Tampa have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Southern Miss defeated Tampa 42-6 on October 3, 1953, in week 3 of the regular season. As the belt's defending champion, Southern Miss retained the championship 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 63871) · This game in the downloadable dataset