BYU defends the belt, 40–18, at home over UTEP.
AP poll, week 11: UTEP unranked at BYU No. 13 · No. 1 that week: North Carolina. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
BYU came in 14 days into reign #246, which began with a win over Tulsa, with one defense already behind it; this was its second defense. BYU went on to defend it 5 more times before Washington took it on September 6, 1997, 322 days after the reign began.
For UTEP this was its 5th 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 BYU and UTEP have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
On November 2, 1996, BYU defeated UTEP 40-18 at home in a regular season week 11 matchup. BYU was the belt holder going in and retained the belt 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 60823) · This game in the downloadable dataset