Lafayette defends the belt, 18–6, on the road at Navy.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Lafayette came in 33 days into reign #14, which began with a win over Pennsylvania, with 5 defenses already behind it; this was its 6th defense. Lafayette went on to defend it 6 more times before Pennsylvania took it on October 23, 1897, 364 days after the reign began.
For Navy this was its 2nd shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
This is the only time Lafayette and Navy have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Lafayette visited Navy on November 26, 1896, in a week 12 regular season matchup. Navy won the game 18-6, but Lafayette retained 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 1875) · This game in the downloadable dataset