Miami defends the belt, 33–7, on the road at Penn State.
AP poll, week 2: Miami No. 2 at Penn State unranked · No. 1 that week: Clemson. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Miami came in 329 days into reign #253, which began with a win over Florida State, with 7 defenses already behind it; this was its 8th defense. Miami went on to defend it 23 more times before Ohio State took it on January 3, 2003, 818 days after the reign began.
For Penn State this was its 19th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 4 times before.
It was the 2nd of 2 belt games between the two; going in, Penn State led the belt series 1–0; all-time it is 1–1.
About this game
Miami traveled to Penn State on September 1, 2001, for a week 2 regular season matchup. Penn State won 33-7, but Miami was the belt defender and 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 Box score at ESPN · Game record: College Football Data (id 212440213) · This game in the downloadable dataset