Ohio State defends the belt, 31–28, at a neutral site over Navy.
AP poll, week 14: Navy unranked at Ohio State No. 15 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Ohio State came in 39 days into reign #175, which began with a win over Michigan, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. Ohio State went on to defend it 2 more times before Stanford took it on September 25, 1982, 308 days after the reign began.
For Navy this was its 18th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 5 times before.
This is the only time Navy and Ohio State have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Ohio State defended the belt against Navy on December 30, 1981, winning 31-28 in a postseason matchup played at a neutral site. The victory allowed Ohio State to retain the lineal 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 51271) · This game in the downloadable dataset