Princeton defends the belt, 12–0, at home over Harvard.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Princeton came in 357 days into reign #7, which began with a win over Yale, with 6 defenses already behind it; this was its 7th defense. Princeton went on to defend it 9 more times before Harvard took it on November 12, 1887, 721 days after the reign began.
For Harvard this was its 8th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the 5th of 13 belt games between the two; going in, Princeton led the belt series 2–1–1; all-time it is 6–6–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Princeton, defending the belt, defeated visiting Harvard 12-0 on November 13, 1886. The victory allowed Princeton to retain the college football 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 384) · This game in the downloadable dataset