Tennessee defends the belt, 17–0, at a neutral site over Oklahoma.
AP poll, week 7: Oklahoma No. 5 at Tennessee No. 4 · No. 1 that week: Notre Dame. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Tennessee came in 86 days into reign #83, which began with a win over Auburn, with 7 defenses already behind it; this was its 8th defense. Tennessee went on to defend it 10 more times before USC took it on January 1, 1940, 450 days after the reign began.
For Oklahoma this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the first of 3 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Oklahoma leads 2–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Tennessee defended the College Football Belt on January 2, 1939, defeating Oklahoma 17-0 in a postseason matchup played at a neutral site. The victory allowed Tennessee to retain possession of 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 Game record: College Football Data (id 22923) · This game in the downloadable dataset