Florida defends the belt, 38–3, at home over Mississippi State.
AP poll, week 5: Mississippi State unranked at Florida No. 19 · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Florida came in 7 days into reign #198, which began with a win over Alabama, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. It was the last defense: LSU took the belt in the very next belt game, on October 3, 1987.
For Mississippi State this was its 14th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
It was the first of 2 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Florida leads 2–0.
About this game
Florida, defending the belt, defeated Mississippi State 38-3 on September 26, 1987 in a regular season week 5 matchup. The Gators retained the belt with the victory.
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 54807) · This game in the downloadable dataset