Princeton defends the belt, 1–0, at home over Michigan.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Princeton came in 1,072 days into reign #4, which began with a win over Yale, with 13 defenses already behind it; this was its 14th defense. Princeton went on to defend it 11 more times before Harvard took it on November 18, 1882, 1,451 days after the reign began.
For Michigan this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
This is the only time Michigan and Princeton have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Princeton hosted Michigan on November 4, 1881, in a regular season matchup. Princeton won 1-0, successfully defending the college football belt against the visiting Michigan team.
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 146) · This game in the downloadable dataset