Tennessee defends the belt, 34–6, at home over Memphis.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Tennessee came in 14 days into reign #158, which began with a win over Clemson, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. Tennessee went on to defend it 5 more times before UCLA took it on September 20, 1975, 329 days after the reign began.
For Memphis this was its 5th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
This is the only time Memphis and Tennessee have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Tennessee defended the belt against Memphis on November 9, 1974, winning 34-6 to retain the 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 45371) · This game in the downloadable dataset