Hey, y’all, Commish here. Our Lord of the Spreadsheets, Kevin, was hard at work going way too in-depth on something like we always do here. Enjoy!

On November 14th of last year, the day of the 2025 Land Grant Trophy game, we introduced the concept of the Land Grant Title Belt, a wrestling style trophy belt that can be passed between all FBS land grant universities, in a Bluesky thread that can be found here. This naturally led some of our readers to ask about the other types of grants, and if similar trophies could be tracked for those. This sounded like a good offseason project, so here’s Part One out of however many different grants y’all can find for me to track, the Space Grant Title Belt.

If you have a name idea for any of these trophies, drop it in the comments of wherever this is posted; otherwise I’m going to keep calling it The Space-terhood of the Traveling Grants in my head and I’d really rather not. (Commish here, we’re calling it this now)

So, who is eligible for this thing? Same as the Land Grant version, we’re opening it up to every FBS school that appears on the Wikipedia List of the Space Grant Schools. This presents an immediate problem because where there are only 40 eligible land grant schools, there are 108 space grant programs, vastly increasing the number of times the belt is up for grabs each year. To simplify this, I made a few assumptions:

Before you take issue with the last point, the Land Grant Title Belt has been played for 501 times since the first game between two land grant schools, in 1890. The Space Grant Belt has 406 just since 1988; simply finding the earliest starting point would be an astronomical amount of work, and the number of games would be well into the thousands. Here’s the full list of eligible teams:

The 1988 season opened with Nebraska defeating Texas A&M on August 27th to become the first-ever title holder. They would defend their title the following weekend against Utah State before losing the belt to UCLA on September 10. UCLA would hold on for almost the entire season, defending against Washington, Oregon State, Cal, Arizona, Oregon, and Stanford before USC became the third team to hold the title on November 19th. USC would go on to lose the Rose Bowl to Michigan, sending the belt east of the Mississippi River for the first time. Michigan held the title for the entirety of the 1989 season, defending their claim 9 times against every eligible team in the Big Ten of the era. They would fall in a rematch against USC in the Rose Bowl to end the season, making the Trojans the first-ever repeat champ.

USC defended twice to open the 1990 season, but fell to Washington in mid-September. The Huskies would lose the following week to Colorado, who would hold the title through the remainder of their national championship run that season. Colorado fell to Baylor early in 1991, who held on against Missouri, SMU, and Houston before losing to Rice. Then, in consecutive weeks, Rice lost to TCU, and TCU returned the belt to Baylor. Baylor would go on to lose to Texas Tech in mid-November, and the Red Raiders would take the title into 1992, where they would lose to Oklahoma in their season opener. Oklahoma would hold it for one week against Arkansas State before sending the belt west to USC once more. USC immediately lost the belt to Washington, sparking a tour of what would become the Pac-12, including first-time champs Arizona, Cal, and Arizona State during the ‘93 and ‘94 seasons. Arizona took the belt into the 1995 season and defended their title four times, including first-time challengers Georgia Tech and New Mexico State, before falling to Colorado State in October. The title would then pass from Colorado State to Utah, then to New Mexico, Wyoming, Tulsa, BYU, back to Utah, and then to Utah State before landing in Hattiesburg when the Aggies fell to Southern Miss early in the 1996 season. 1996 also saw first-time champs Houston and Syracuse. The 1997 season opened with Syracuse falling to NC State, and the belt entered the ACC for the first time. NC State lost to Georgia Tech, who then lost it to Florida State, who held on for the remainder of the season and fell to Florida on the last weekend. The Gators held serve for an entire year before giving it back to the Noles to end 1998.

Florida State held it throughout their undefeated 1999 title run, and the belt entered the new millennium in Tallahassee. They eventually fell to Miami in October 2000, and the Hurricanes would go on an unprecedented run of 25 straight title defenses, right up until the 2003 Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State.

Ohio State went on their own run, holding the title until being bested by Michigan to end the 2003 season, and Michigan lost the now-familiar Rose Bowl matchup against USC. USC defended their title twenty times throughout their undefeated 2004 and 2005 seasons before losing the belt and the national title to Texas in the Vince Young Rose Bowl. Texas lost to Ohio State early in 2006, who would hold the title until losing to Florida in the national title game. This would spark a short tour of the SEC, with Auburn, LSU, and Arkansas all holding the belt for the first time before the Hawgs lost to Missouri on New Year's Day 2008. The belt stayed in the Big 12 throughout 2008, hitting Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma, before making another national title game appearance and returning to Gainesville with the Gators. Florida would retain their title throughout most of the 2009 season, before losing to Alabama in December, and then the Tide defended the belt in the national title against Texas.

Alabama began 2010 with a string of title defenses, then lost to LSU, who in turn gave the belt to Arkansas. Arkansas lost a bowl game to Ohio State, who lost to Miami early in 2011. The title passed from Miami to Manhattan when the Canes fell to Kansas State the following week, then passed to Oklahoma and on to Baylor. In 2012, Baylor took the belt into Morgantown and fell to West Virginia in the 70-63 game, then WVU lost to Texas Tech, who fell to Kansas State, who passed the title back to Baylor to end the season. Baylor held on throughout most of the next season but fell to Oklahoma State, who immediately fumbled the title to Oklahoma. (Anything can happen in Bedlam, including losing the Space Grant Belt!) Oklahoma took the belt into 2014, before kicking off another tour of the Big 12 by losing to TCU in October. In quick succession, Baylor, West Virginia, and TCU again all took their turn before TCU was able to hold on for an eleven-game stretch that covered the end of 2014 and most of the 2015 season. They lost to Oklahoma State, who lost to Baylor, who lost to the Horned Frogs, and the belt ended the 2015 season where it began.

To open 2016, TCU lost to Arkansas, who immediately lost to Texas A&M, giving the losing side of the first-ever belt game their first taste of victory in the series. The glory was short-lived, as A&M would fall to Alabama in their first attempt at defending the title a month later, and the Tide would hold on for the remainder of 2016 and most of 2017 before losing to Auburn in the Iron Bowl. Auburn would fall to Georgia the next week, and the Dawgs would take the belt to its first appearance in the college football playoff before giving it back to Alabama in the title game. Alabama defended the title throughout their 2018 national runner-up season but retained the belt since Clemson is not an eligible claimant. Alabama would lose the belt to the 2019 LSU buzzsaw, who held it for the remainder of their undefeated run.

2020 opened with LSU losing the belt to Mississippi State, who lost to Arkansas, who lost to Auburn in consecutive weeks. Auburn lost to Alabama and the belt went to yet another title game. In 2021, Alabama would eventually lose the belt to Texas A&M, who would lose it to first-time title holders Ole Miss, who eventually lost it to Baylor in the Sugar Bowl. Baylor would open 2022 by losing to BYU, who immediately passed it on to Oregon. From there it went to Washington, who held it from the end of ‘22 through their run to the CFP Final against Michigan in January 2024. Michigan opened their 2024 title defense with a loss to Texas, who eventually passed the belt to Georgia, then to Ole Miss, and finally Florida to end the 2024 season.

Florida lost the belt to first time champions USF in September 2025, and the belt chase broke open. USF lost it to Miami, who passed it on to another first time champ, Louisville. Louisville lost it to Cal, and Cal ended the season by losing to Stanford. After nearly 40 years of bouncing around the top of the sport, the Space Grant Title Belt will be held over the offseason by a team that went 4-8 and has never before held the title.

Thank you for reading! Also, looking ahead to the 2026 season…