Southern Miss defends the belt, 41–14, on the road at Louisiana.
AP poll, week 4: Southern Miss No. 17 at Louisiana unranked · No. 1 that week: Navy. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Southern Miss came in 22 days into reign #106, which began with a win over Alabama, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. Southern Miss went on to defend it 1 more time before Memphis took it on October 31, 1953, 43 days after the reign began.
For Louisiana this was its 2nd 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 Louisiana and Southern Miss have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Southern Miss visited Louisiana on October 10, 1953, in a week 4 regular season matchup. Louisiana won 41-14. Southern Miss held the belt coming into the game 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 63872) · This game in the downloadable dataset