Data & press
Take the belt with you
Every belt game and reign since 1869, as flat files you can open in a spreadsheet or load in code, plus a citation and the press kit. Free to use with attribution.
These files are regenerated with every site build, so they always match what the pages show. The JSON API serves the same data live (api/current.json, api/reigns.json, api/games.json) for anything that wants to fetch it rather than download it. Scores and dates come from the College Football Data API; the lineage — who held the belt, when and for how long — is computed by this site.
License
Free to use, with credit
The belt lineage (reigns, belt games and every computed field) is published under CC BY 4.0: use it, chart it, write about it, build on it — just credit collegefootballbelt.com and link back. The underlying game results belong to the College Football Data project; credit them too when you republish scores.
Cite it
Suggested citation
The College Football Belt. collegefootballbelt.com. Lineage data through September 12, 2026, accessed September 16, 2026.
@misc{collegefootballbelt,
title = {The College Football Belt},
howpublished = {\url{https://collegefootballbelt.com}},
note = {Lineal college football championship lineage, 1869--2026. Game results from the College Football Data API.},
year = {2026}
}
Press kit
Writing about the belt
One line: The College Football Belt is a lineal championship — one title, passed on the field to whoever beats the holder, traced through every game since the first one in 1869.
One paragraph: Boxing has lineal champions: to be the champ, you beat the champ. collegefootballbelt.com applies that rule to college football, starting with Rutgers’ win over Princeton in the first game ever played. Every game since is checked against the record: if the holder loses, the belt moves. Ties stay with the holder, bowls count, and nothing is voted on. The site recomputes the entire 1,634-game, 328-reign lineage from the College Football Data API several times a week; Notre Dame holds the belt today.
Logo: belt mark (SVG) · icon (512px PNG, current holder’s colors) · share card. Brand colors: brass #a97f38, ink #211a12, paper #e7e2d5.
Contact: hello@collegefootballbelt.com · @CollegeFBBelt. An independent fan project with no affiliation to any school, conference or the NCAA; see About.