Florida State defends the belt, 41–14, at home over Virginia Tech.
AP poll, week 12: Virginia Tech 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 56 days into reign #204, which began with a win over Clemson, with 6 defenses already behind it; this was its 7th defense. Florida State went on to defend it 2 more times before Southern Miss took it on September 2, 1989, 350 days after the reign began.
For Virginia Tech this was its 7th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt.
It was the first of 2 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time Florida State leads 2–0.
About this game
Florida State defeated Virginia Tech 41-14 on November 12, 1988, in the regular season finale. 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 55796) · This game in the downloadable dataset