BYU defends the belt, 45–21, on the road at TCU.
AP poll, week 10: BYU No. 15 at TCU unranked · No. 1 that week: North Carolina. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
BYU came in 7 days into reign #246, which began with a win over Tulsa, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. BYU went on to defend it 6 more times before Washington took it on September 6, 1997, 322 days after the reign began.
For TCU this was its 5th shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
This is the only time BYU and TCU have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
BYU visited TCU on October 26, 1996, in a regular season week 10 matchup. TCU defeated BYU 45-21, but BYU held the belt heading into the game and retained it 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 60774) · This game in the downloadable dataset