Arizona defends the belt, 23–3, at home over UTEP.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Arizona came in 281 days into reign #243, which began with a win over Arizona State, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. It was the last defense: Iowa took the belt in the very next belt game, on September 7, 1996.
For UTEP this was its 4th shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 5 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time Arizona and UTEP have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Arizona defended the belt on August 31, 1996, defeating visiting UTEP 23-3 in a week 2 regular season matchup to retain the lineal 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 60392) · This game in the downloadable dataset