Washington defends the belt, 36–3, at home over San Diego State.
AP poll, week 4: San Diego State unranked at Washington No. 3 · No. 1 that week: North Carolina. The belt vs. the polls →
Where this game sits in the lineage
Washington came in 7 days into reign #247, which began with a win over BYU, with no defenses yet; this was its first defense. It was the last defense: Nebraska took the belt in the very next belt game, on September 20, 1997.
For San Diego State this was its 3rd shot at the belt; it had never held the belt. It still hasn’t: 4 attempts in all, every one of them a loss or a tie.
This is the only time San Diego State and Washington have met with the belt on the line.
About this game
Washington hosted San Diego State on September 13, 1997, in a regular season week 4 matchup. Washington won 36-3 and retained the College Football Belt as the defending champion.
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 61177) · This game in the downloadable dataset