10-1, beat Notre Dame and won the Rose Bowl over Tulane. Named champion by essentially every contemporary and retroactive selector: Berryman, Billingsley, Boand, Dickinson, Dunkel, Helms, Houlgate, Football Research (CFRA), National Championship Foundation, Poling, Sagarin, Sagarin (ELO-Chess), and Williamson.
USC’s 1931 schedule1931 National Champion: And Who Else Claims It
MULTIPLEDISPUTEDUSC swept every major contemporary and retroactive selector, including Helms, the National Championship Foundation, and the College Football Researchers Association; Pittsburgh's rival claim rests solely on Parke Davis, a selector we don't carry picks for.
The case for each side
Claimed by the program: no recognized selector picked them
8-1. Named champion only by Parke Davis (shared with Purdue); not a Helms, NCF, or CFRA selection.
Pittsburgh’s 1931 scheduleNo national title game was played after the 1931 season: before 1998 there was no mechanism to play one, which is why so many of these seasons were settled by vote instead.