Princeton retains the belt after a 0–0 tie with Harvard.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Princeton came in 1,087 days into reign #4, which began with a win over Yale, with 17 defenses already behind it; this was its 18th defense. Princeton went on to defend it 7 more times before Harvard took it on November 18, 1882, 1,451 days after the reign began.
For Harvard this was its 4th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. A tie leaves the belt with the holder, so it went home empty-handed.
It was the 3rd of 13 belt games between the two; going in, Princeton led the belt series 2–0; all-time it is 6–6–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Harvard visited Princeton on November 19, 1881, in a regular season matchup that ended in a 0-0 tie. Under the belt's tie rule, Princeton retained 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 159) · This game in the downloadable dataset