Alabama defends the belt, 20–3, at home over Nebraska.
AP poll, week 1: Nebraska No. 10 at Alabama No. 1 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Alabama came in 329 days into reign #163, which began with a win over USC, with 7 defenses already behind it; this was its 8th defense. Alabama went on to defend it 1 more time before USC took it on September 23, 1978, 350 days after the reign began.
For Nebraska this was its 6th shot at the belt; it had held the belt twice before.
It was the 2nd of 2 belt games between the two; going in, Nebraska led the belt series 1–0; all-time it is 1–1.
About this game
Alabama, defending the belt, defeated Nebraska 20-3 on September 2, 1978 in the first week of the regular season. Alabama retained the belt 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 48020) · This game in the downloadable dataset