Tennessee defends the belt, 13–0, on the road at NC State.
AP poll, week 3: Tennessee No. 1 at NC State unranked · No. 1 that week: Tennessee. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Tennessee came in 356 days into reign #83, which began with a win over Auburn, with 8 defenses already behind it; this was its 9th defense. Tennessee went on to defend it 9 more times before USC took it on January 1, 1940, 450 days after the reign began.
For NC State this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
This is the only time NC State and Tennessee have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Tennessee, defending the belt, traveled to NC State on September 29, 1939 for a regular season matchup in week 3. Tennessee won 13-0 and retained 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 22968) · This game in the downloadable dataset