Harvard defends the belt, 17–0, at home over Bowdoin.
Where this game sits in the lineage
Harvard came in 329 days into reign #28, which began with a win over Carlisle, with 3 defenses already behind it; this was its 4th defense. Harvard went on to defend it 6 more times before Yale took it on November 20, 1909, 378 days after the reign began.
For Bowdoin 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.
It was the 4th of 4 belt games between the two; going in, Harvard led the belt series 3–0; all-time Harvard leads 4–0. Every meeting →
About this game
Harvard defended the Belt on October 2, 1909, defeating visiting Bowdoin 17-0 in a regular-season matchup to retain the lineal championship.
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 6292) · This game in the downloadable dataset