Alabama defends the belt, 31–17, at home over Southern Miss.
AP poll, week 3: Southern Miss 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 259 days into reign #195, which began with a win over USC, with 2 defenses already behind it; this was its third defense. Alabama went on to defend it 4 more times before Penn State took it on October 25, 1986, 301 days after the reign began.
For Southern Miss this was its 3rd shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the 2nd of 3 belt games between the two; going in, Southern Miss led the belt series 1–0; all-time Alabama leads 2–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Alabama defended the belt at home against Southern Miss on September 13, 1986, winning 31-17 in week 3 of the regular season. The victory allowed Alabama to retain the lineal championship.
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 54065) · This game in the downloadable dataset