Alabama defends the belt, 56–28, on the road at Tennessee.
AP poll, week 8: Alabama No. 2 at Tennessee unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Alabama came in 294 days into reign #195, which began with a win over USC, with 6 defenses already behind it; this was its 7th defense. It was the last defense: Penn State took the belt in the very next belt game, on October 25, 1986.
For Tennessee this was its 16th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 7 times before.
It was the 7th of 7 belt games between the two; going in, the series stood 3–3; all-time Alabama leads 4–3. Every meeting →
About this game
Alabama defended the belt on October 18, 1986, in a regular season matchup at Tennessee. Tennessee won 56-28, but Alabama retained the belt as the defending 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 54321) · This game in the downloadable dataset