Penn State takes the belt, 21–20, at home over Notre Dame.
AP poll, week 13: Notre Dame No. 10 at Penn State unranked · No. 1 that week: Pittsburgh. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Penn State took the belt here, ending Notre Dame’s run of 7 days and 0 defenses (reign #201) and starting reign #202. It lasted 41 days and 0 defenses, until Clemson took it on January 1, 1988.
For Penn State this was its 18th shot at the belt; it had held the belt 3 times before — and it took it back here.
It was the 3rd of 3 belt games between the two; going in, the series stood 1–1; all-time Penn State leads 2–1. Every meeting →
About this game
Notre Dame visited Penn State on November 21, 1987, in week 13 of the regular season. Penn State won 21-20, taking the College Football Belt from Notre Dame by virtue of the victory on the field.
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 55225) · This game in the downloadable dataset