Notre Dame retains the belt after a 0–0 tie with Illinois.
AP poll, week 4: Illinois unranked at Notre Dame No. 18 · No. 1 that week: Pittsburgh. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Notre Dame came in 322 days into reign #78, which began with a win over Northwestern, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. It was the last defense: Carnegie Mellon took the belt in the very next belt game, on October 16, 1937.
For Illinois this was its 4th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before. A tie leaves the belt with the holder, so it went home empty-handed.
This is the only time Illinois and Notre Dame have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Illinois visited Notre Dame on October 9, 1937, in a week 4 regular season matchup that ended in a 0-0 tie. Under the belt's tie rule, Notre Dame retained the belt as the holder.
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 21781) · This game in the downloadable dataset