Princeton defends the belt, 1–0, at home over Columbia.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Princeton came in 1,080 days into reign #4, which began with a win over Yale, with 16 defenses already behind it; this was its 17th defense. Princeton went on to defend it 8 more times before Harvard took it on November 18, 1882, 1,451 days after the reign began.
For Columbia this was its 6th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the 5th of 8 belt games between the two; going in, Princeton led the belt series 4–0; all-time Princeton leads 8–0. Every meeting →
About this game
Princeton defended the belt at home against Columbia on November 12, 1881, winning 1-0 to retain the championship.
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 154) · This game in the downloadable dataset