Iowa defends the belt, 38–13, at home over Iowa State.
AP poll, week 4: Iowa State unranked at Iowa No. 21 · No. 1 that week: North Carolina. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Iowa came in 7 days into reign #244, which began with a win over Arizona, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. It was the last defense: Tulsa took the belt in the very next belt game, on September 21, 1996.
For Iowa State this was its 2nd shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 7 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time Iowa and Iowa State have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Iowa defeated Iowa State 38-13 on September 14, 1996 in a regular season matchup. The defending belt holder Iowa retained the championship 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 60493) · This game in the downloadable dataset