Ohio State defends the belt, 31–10, on the road at Michigan State.
AP poll, week 3: Ohio State No. 12 at Michigan State unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Ohio State came in 301 days into reign #175, which began with a win over Michigan, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. It was the last defense: Stanford took the belt in the very next belt game, on September 25, 1982.
For Michigan State this was its 9th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the 3rd of 6 belt games between the two; going in, Ohio State led the belt series 2–0; all-time Ohio State leads 6–0. Every meeting →
About this game
Ohio State visited Michigan State on September 18, 1982, in a week 3 regular season matchup. Michigan State won 31-10. Ohio State was the belt holder entering the game and 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 51406) · This game in the downloadable dataset