Tennessee takes the belt, 7–0, at home over Auburn.
AP poll, week 4: Auburn unranked at Tennessee No. 4 · No. 1 that week: TCU. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Tennessee took the belt here, ending Auburn’s run of 280 days and 2 defenses (reign #82) and starting reign #83. It lasted 450 days and 18 defenses, until USC took it on January 1, 1940.
For Tennessee this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt — and this was the day it took it.
It was the first of 4 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Tennessee leads 3–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Tennessee defeated Auburn 7-0 on October 8, 1938, in a regular season game. With this victory on the field, Tennessee took the College Football Belt from Auburn.
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 22469) · This game in the downloadable dataset