West Virginia Wesleyan defends the belt, 9–7, at a neutral site over SMU.
Where this game sits in the lineage
West Virginia Wesleyan came in 54 days into reign #49, which began with a win over Syracuse, with 3 defenses already behind it; this was its 4th defense. West Virginia Wesleyan went on to defend it 3 more times before Lehigh took it on October 17, 1925, 343 days after the reign began.
For SMU this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 5 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time SMU and West Virginia Wesleyan have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
West Virginia Wesleyan traveled to a neutral site to face SMU on January 1, 1925, in a postseason matchup. West Virginia Wesleyan won 9-7, maintaining possession of the college football belt.
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 13982) · This game in the downloadable dataset