Yale defends the belt, 21–0, at home over Bates.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Yale came in 332 days into reign #17, which began with a win over Harvard, with 7 defenses already behind it; this was its 8th defense. Yale went on to defend it 4 more times before Harvard took it on November 23, 1901, 364 days after the reign began.
For Bates this was its 3rd shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 8 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time Bates and Yale have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Yale defeated visiting Bates 21-0 on October 22, 1901 in a regular season matchup. As the defending belt holder, Yale retained the College Football Belt 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 3049) · This game in the downloadable dataset