Michigan defends the belt, 31–7, on the road at Illinois.
AP poll, week 7: Michigan No. 6 at Illinois unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Michigan came in 28 days into reign #151, which began with a win over UCLA, with 3 defenses already behind it; this was its 4th defense. Michigan went on to defend it 4 more times before Ohio State took it on November 25, 1972, 63 days after the reign began.
For Illinois this was its 9th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the 2nd of 3 belt games between the two; going in, Illinois led the belt series 1–0; all-time Michigan leads 2–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Michigan traveled to Illinois on October 21, 1972, in week 7 of the regular season as the defending belt holder. Illinois won the game 31-7, but Michigan retained the 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 43645) · This game in the downloadable dataset