Army defends the belt, 35–0, at home over Villanova.
AP poll, week 2: Villanova unranked at Army No. 1 · No. 1 that week: Army. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Army came in 294 days into reign #95, which began with a win over Navy, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. Army went on to defend it 13 more times before Columbia took it on October 25, 1947, 693 days after the reign began.
For Villanova this was its 5th shot at the belt; it had held the belt twice before.
It was the first of 2 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Army leads 2–0.
About this game
Army defeated visiting Villanova 35-0 on September 21, 1946, in the second week of the regular season. As the belt holder, Army retained the lineal 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 26970) · This game in the downloadable dataset