BYU defends the belt, 37–17, on the road at Utah.
AP poll, week 14: BYU No. 8 at Utah unranked · No. 1 that week: North Carolina. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
BYU came in 35 days into reign #246, which began with a win over Tulsa, with 4 defenses already behind it; this was its 5th defense. BYU went on to defend it 2 more times before Washington took it on September 6, 1997, 322 days after the reign began.
For Utah this was its 2nd shot at the belt; it had held the belt once before.
This is the only time BYU and Utah have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
BYU visited Utah on November 23, 1996, in a regular season matchup. Utah won 37-17, but BYU was the belt holder 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 60972) · This game in the downloadable dataset