Alabama defends the belt, 28–10, at home over Notre Dame.
AP poll, week 6: Notre Dame unranked at Alabama No. 2 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Alabama came in 280 days into reign #195, which began with a win over USC, with 4 defenses already behind it; this was its 5th defense. Alabama went on to defend it 2 more times before Penn State took it on October 25, 1986, 301 days after the reign began.
For Notre Dame this was its 14th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 6 times before.
It was the 2nd of 4 belt games between the two; going in, Notre Dame led the belt series 1–0; all-time it is 2–2. Every meeting →
About this game
Notre Dame visited Alabama on October 4, 1986 in a week 6 regular season matchup. Alabama won 28-10, keeping the belt as the defending champion.
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 54224) · This game in the downloadable dataset