UCLA defends the belt, 35–19, on the road at California.
AP poll, week 8: UCLA No. 3 at California unranked · No. 1 that week: Pittsburgh. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
UCLA came in 296 days into reign #161, which began with a win over Ohio State, with 6 defenses already behind it; this was its 7th defense. UCLA went on to defend it 3 more times before USC took it on November 20, 1976, 324 days after the reign began.
For California this was its 6th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the first of 3 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time California leads 2–1. Every meeting →
About this game
UCLA traveled to California on October 23, 1976, in week 8 of the regular season as the defending belt holder. California won 35-19, but UCLA retained the belt as the defending champion.
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 46834) · This game in the downloadable dataset