Duke vs. USC

Duke and USC have 3 meetings on file, the first in 1938; USC leads the series 3–⁠0 in the games on file. Over the last 3 meetings it’s USC 3–⁠0, and USC has won the last 3. Share

Duke wins: 0
USC wins: 3
Ties: 0
Earliest on file: 1938
Longest streak: 3 USC
Current streak: 3 USC
Last 10 meetings: USC 3–⁠0
Most recent: 1975

The series at a glance

Every meeting by decade, colored by the winner
	’0	’1	’2	’3	’4	’5	’6	’7	’8	’9	W–L
1930s											0–⁠1
1960s											0–⁠1
1970s											0–⁠1

Both ranked: 1 meeting: Duke 0, USC 1; 1 both in the top 10
Average margin: 13 points; 2 decided by one score (8 or fewer)
At USC: 2–⁠0 USC’s record at home
Neutral sites: 0–⁠1 Duke first

Every meeting on file, as played. Ranks are the AP poll’s going in.

Both programs through the years

Our Elo rating at the end of each season, a measure of how strong a team was, not a forecast; 1500 is an average FBS team.

Stars of the series

Named most valuable

Al Krueger USC	1938
Doyle Nave USC	1938

Most valuable: as the games’ Wikipedia articles name them (CC BY-SA).

From the newspapers

1938 · Evening star, Jan 3, 1939
1962 · Evening star, Sep 23, 1962

Public-domain newspapers from the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America, found through the American Stories dataset (Dell and Harvard, CC BY 4.0). The earliest meetings with a story on file; each game’s page has the full text.

Photos

From the Los Angeles Times’s January 2, 1939 publication.Photo: Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The 1938 game
Photo: Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The 1938 game
Photo: Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The 1938 game
From the Los Angeles Times’s January 2, 1939 publication.Photo: Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The 1938 game