Auburn defends the belt, 23–20, at home over Alabama.
AP poll, week 15: Alabama unranked at Auburn No. 3 · No. 1 that week: Pittsburgh. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Auburn came in 35 days into reign #184, which began with a win over Florida, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. Auburn went on to defend it 1 more time before Miami took it on August 27, 1984, 303 days after the reign began.
For Alabama this was its 14th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 5 times before.
It was the 5th of 7 belt games between the two; going in, Alabama led the belt series 3–1; all-time Alabama leads 5–2. Every meeting →
About this game
Auburn defeated Alabama 23-20 on December 3, 1983 in Auburn, Alabama, in week 15 of the regular season. Auburn was the defending belt holder 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 52641) · This game in the downloadable dataset