Alabama defends the belt, 42–10, at home over Vanderbilt.
AP poll, week 2: Vanderbilt unranked at Alabama No. 4 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Alabama came in 252 days into reign #195, which began with a win over USC, with one defense already behind it; this was its second defense. Alabama went on to defend it 5 more times before Penn State took it on October 25, 1986, 301 days after the reign began.
For Vanderbilt this was its 15th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the 2nd of 2 belt games between the two; going in, Alabama led the belt series 1–0; all-time Alabama leads 2–0.
About this game
Alabama defended the Belt on September 6, 1986, defeating visiting Vanderbilt 42-10 in the regular season's second week to retain their title.
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 54025) · This game in the downloadable dataset