Southern Miss takes the belt, 30–26, at home over Florida State.
AP poll, week 1: Florida State No. 6 at Southern Miss unranked · No. 1 that week: Penn State. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Southern Miss took the belt here, ending Florida State’s run of 350 days and 9 defenses (reign #204) and starting reign #205. It lasted 7 days and 0 defenses, until Mississippi State took it on September 9, 1989.
For Southern Miss this was its 4th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before — and it took it back here.
This is the only time Florida State and Southern Miss have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Southern Miss defeated Florida State 30-26 on September 2, 1989, in the first week of the regular season. With the victory, Southern Miss took the College Football Belt from Florida State.
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 55940) · This game in the downloadable dataset