Arizona State defends the belt, 37–6, at home over UTEP.
AP poll, week 7: UTEP unranked at Arizona State No. 10 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Arizona State came in 7 days into reign #177, which began with a win over Stanford, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. Arizona State went on to defend it 2 more times before Washington took it on November 13, 1982, 35 days after the reign began.
For UTEP this was its first shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 5 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time Arizona State and UTEP have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Arizona State defended the belt at home against UTEP on October 16, 1982, winning 37-6 in week 7 of the regular season. The victory allowed Arizona State to retain the 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 51597) · This game in the downloadable dataset