Yale defends the belt, 56–6, at home over Cornell.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Yale came in 691 days into reign #9, which began with a win over Harvard, with 16 defenses already behind it; this was its 17th defense. Yale went on to defend it 12 more times before Princeton took it on November 28, 1889, 735 days after the reign began.
For Cornell this was its first 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 Yale leads 2–0.
About this game
Yale defended the belt at home against Cornell on October 15, 1889, winning 56-6 to retain the championship.
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 593) · This game in the downloadable dataset