California defends the belt, 35–34, at home over San José State.
Where this game sits in the lineage
California came in 7 days into reign #213, which began with a win over Arizona, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. California went on to defend it 2 more times before Washington took it on October 27, 1990, 28 days after the reign began.
For San José State this was its first 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.
It was the first of 2 meetings between the two with the belt on the line; all-time California leads 2–0.
About this game
California defended the belt at home against San José State on October 6, 1990, winning 35-34 in a week 7 regular season game. The narrow victory allowed California to retain the belt.
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 56798) · This game in the downloadable dataset