Pennsylvania defends the belt, 22–0, at home over Wesleyan (CT).
Where this game sits in the lineage
Pennsylvania came in 21 days into reign #15, which began with a win over Lafayette, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. Pennsylvania went on to defend it 12 more times before Harvard took it on November 5, 1898, 378 days after the reign began.
For Wesleyan (CT) this was its 22nd shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 30 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
It was the first of 2 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Pennsylvania leads 2–0.
About this game
On November 13, 1897, Pennsylvania defeated visiting Wesleyan (CT) 22-0 to retain the College Football Belt. The shutout victory kept the belt in Pennsylvania's possession.
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 2041) · This game in the downloadable dataset