Lafayette defends the belt, 8–0, on the road at Franklin & Marshall.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Lafayette came in 347 days into reign #14, which began with a win over Pennsylvania, with 9 defenses already behind it; this was its 10th defense. Lafayette went on to defend it 2 more times before Pennsylvania took it on October 23, 1897, 364 days after the reign began.
For Franklin & Marshall this was its 5th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 10 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
It was the 2nd of 2 belt games between the two; going in, Lafayette led the belt series 1–0; all-time Lafayette leads 2–0.
About this game
Lafayette visited Franklin & Marshall on October 6, 1897, in a regular season matchup. Franklin & Marshall won 8-0, 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 1919) · This game in the downloadable dataset