The Los Angeles Dodgers are in the first week of their 2026 MLB season, trying to win a historic three-peat championship. Only two MLB franchises have ever three-peated as World Series champions, the New York Yankees on three different occasions and the Oakland Athletics in the early 1970s. USC football has had two chances to three-peat. The first came in 1933.
USC football went 20-1 the previous two seasons, going 10-0 in 1932 and winning the Rose Bowl each season to seal a national championship. This propelled the Trojans into 1933 with visions of a third straight title. Howard Jones fielded another great USC team.
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The Trojans recorded eight shutouts in 1933. They held nine opponents under four points. They allowed seven points in two of their games. The only game in which they allowed more than seven points all season long was the one game they lost: 13-7 to Stanford. USC tied Oregon State 0-0.
Had USC beaten Stanford, the odds are good that the Trojans — with an 11-0-1 record instead of the 10-1-1 mark they finished with — would have been recognized as national champions, even with the tie against Oregon State. Howard Jones came achingly close to three straight titles, but it was not to be.
This wasn’t the last or only time Stanford ruined a USC season. In 1979, the team which finished No. 2 in the country after beating No. 1 Ohio State in the 1980 Rose Bowl was also beaten by Stanford. The Cardinal again prevented USC from winning a national championship, 46 years after Stanford thwarted the 1933 team’s bid for a three-peat.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC football fell just short of 3-peat national championship in 1933