Harvard defends the belt, 23–0, at home over Bates.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Harvard came in 315 days into reign #18, which began with a win over Yale, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. Harvard went on to defend it 8 more times before Yale took it on November 22, 1902, 364 days after the reign began.
For Bates this was its 4th 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.
It was the 3rd of 7 belt games between the two; going in, Harvard led the belt series 2–0; all-time Harvard leads 7–0. Every meeting →
About this game
Harvard defended the College Football Belt on October 4, 1902, defeating visiting Bates 23-0 to retain the lineal championship.
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 3289) · This game in the downloadable dataset