UCLA retains the belt after a 26–26 tie with Tennessee.
AP poll, week 3: Tennessee unranked at UCLA No. 10 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
UCLA came in 301 days into reign #189, which began with a win over USC, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. UCLA went on to defend it 1 more time before Washington took it on September 28, 1985, 315 days after the reign began.
For Tennessee this was its 15th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 7 times before. A tie leaves the belt with the holder, so it went home empty-handed.
It was the 2nd of 2 belt games between the two; going in, UCLA led the belt series 1–0; all-time UCLA leads 1–0–1.
About this game
Tennessee visited UCLA on September 14, 1985, in week 3 of the regular season, with the game ending in a 26-26 tie. Under the site's tie rule, UCLA retained the belt as the holder.
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 53445) · This game in the downloadable dataset