Iowa defends the belt, 42–28, at home over Indiana.
AP poll, week 6: Indiana unranked at Iowa No. 15 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Iowa came in 14 days into reign #172, which began with a win over UCLA, with one defense already behind it; this was its second defense. Iowa went on to defend it 1 more time before Minnesota took it on October 24, 1981, 28 days after the reign began.
For Indiana this was its 5th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 8 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time Indiana and Iowa have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Iowa hosted Indiana on October 10, 1981, in a week 6 regular season matchup. Iowa won 42-28 to retain the College Football 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 50801) · This game in the downloadable dataset