Miami defends the belt, 48–14, at home over UConn.
AP poll, week 7: UConn unranked at Miami No. 1 · No. 1 that week: NC State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Miami came in 728 days into reign #253, which began with a win over Florida State, with 23 defenses already behind it; this was its 24th defense. Miami went on to defend it 7 more times before Ohio State took it on January 3, 2003, 818 days after the reign began.
For UConn 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 Miami and UConn have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Miami hosted UConn on October 5, 2002 in a regular season week 7 matchup, defeating the visiting Huskies 48-14. As the belt's defending holder, Miami retained the championship with the victory.
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 222782390) · This game in the downloadable dataset