Miami defends the belt, 63–17, at home over Florida A&M.
AP poll, week 2: Florida A&M unranked at Miami No. 1 · No. 1 that week: Maryland. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Miami came in 693 days into reign #253, which began with a win over Florida State, with 19 defenses already behind it; this was its 20th defense. Miami went on to defend it 11 more times before Ohio State took it on January 3, 2003, 818 days after the reign began.
For Florida A&M this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t; this remains its only belt game.
This is the only time Florida A&M and Miami have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
On August 31, 2002, Miami hosted Florida A&M in a Week 2 regular season matchup. Miami defeated Florida A&M 63-17, successfully defending the belt.
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 222432390) · This game in the downloadable dataset