Ohio State defends the belt, 41–0, at home over Illinois.
AP poll, week 7: Illinois unranked at Ohio State No. 1 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Ohio State came in 378 days into reign #139, which began with a win over Purdue, with 11 defenses already behind it; this was its 12th defense. Ohio State went on to defend it 3 more times before Michigan took it on November 22, 1969, 406 days after the reign began.
For Illinois this was its 8th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the 3rd of 5 belt games between the two; going in, the series stood 1–1; all-time Ohio State leads 4–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Ohio State defeated Illinois 41-0 on October 25, 1969, in a regular season matchup. As the belt's defending holder, Ohio State 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 41518) · This game in the downloadable dataset