Harvard defends the belt, 13–0, at home over Bowdoin.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Harvard came in 333 days into reign #16, which began with a win over Pennsylvania, with 3 defenses already behind it; this was its 4th defense. Harvard went on to defend it 19 more times before Yale took it on November 24, 1900, 749 days after the reign began.
For Bowdoin this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 5 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
It was the first of 4 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Harvard leads 4–0. Every meeting →
About this game
On October 4, 1899, Harvard defeated Bowdoin 13-0 in week 5 of the regular season. As the belt's defending holder, Harvard 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 Game record: College Football Data (id 2357) · This game in the downloadable dataset