Florida State defends the belt, 45–21, at home over East Carolina.
AP poll, week 8: East Carolina unranked at Florida State No. 5 · No. 1 that week: Arkansas. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Florida State came in 28 days into reign #204, which began with a win over Clemson, with 3 defenses already behind it; this was its 4th defense. Florida State went on to defend it 5 more times before Southern Miss took it on September 2, 1989, 350 days after the reign began.
For East Carolina this was its 2nd shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 3 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time East Carolina and Florida State have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
On October 15, 1988, Florida State defeated visiting East Carolina 45-21 in a regular season week 8 matchup. As the belt's defending holder, Florida State kept 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 55593) · This game in the downloadable dataset