Pennsylvania defends the belt, 8–0, on the road at Navy.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Pennsylvania came in 697 days into reign #13, which began with a win over Princeton, with 19 defenses already behind it; this was its 20th defense. Pennsylvania went on to defend it 4 more times before Lafayette took it on October 24, 1896, 714 days after the reign began.
For Navy this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the first of 4 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Navy leads 2–1–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Pennsylvania traveled to face Navy on October 7, 1896, in a regular season matchup with the College Football Belt on the line. Pennsylvania won 8-0, retaining the belt as the defending champion.
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 1725) · This game in the downloadable dataset