Iowa takes the belt, 20–7, at home over UCLA.
AP poll, week 4: UCLA No. 6 at Iowa unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Iowa took the belt here, ending UCLA’s run of 7 days and 0 defenses (reign #171) and starting reign #172. It lasted 28 days and 3 defenses, until Minnesota took it on October 24, 1981.
For Iowa this was its 8th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt — and this was the day it took it.
This is the only time Iowa and UCLA have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
On September 26, 1981, Iowa defeated UCLA 20-7 in a regular season game. With this victory, Iowa claimed the College Football Belt from UCLA.
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 50669) · This game in the downloadable dataset