College Sports Trivia
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245 free College Sports trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free College sports trivia questions with answers. College sports in America are older than the professional leagues and stranger in every detail, which makes them ideal quiz material. These 245 questions cover the president whose White House meetings produced the NCAA, the division that bans athletic scholarships, the ruling that changed how athletes get paid, and the 1939 winner of the first basketball tournament. There are rounds on March Madness and the coach who won ten titles in twelve years, on the Heisman Trophy and the man the statue was modelled on, on the Rose Bowl's 49-0 opening game, the Army-Navy tradition of singing both alma maters, the College World Series in Omaha, and the 2024 women's final that outdrew the men's. Every answer was checked against a primary reference before publication, so the records, dates and figures here are accurate rather than approximate. Difficulty runs from questions any fan will get to a few aimed at people who follow signing day.
30 of 245 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which president's White House conferences led to the founding of the NCAA?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt summoned college football leaders to the White House in 1905 after a season of deaths and injuries; the body founded in 1906 was renamed the NCAA in 1910.
Q 02Which NCAA tier may not offer athletic scholarships at all?
Division III
Division III, the NCAA's largest division with about 450 schools, bars athletic scholarships, so its athletes receive no financial aid tied to their sporting ability.
Q 03Roughly how many student-athletes compete in NCAA sports each year?
About 500,000
About 500,000 is the NCAA's own count: more than half a million athletes at over 1,000 colleges, 98 percent of whom, it says, will go pro in something other than sport.
Q 04Where is the NCAA headquartered?
Indianapolis
Indianapolis has housed the NCAA since 1999, and the men's Final Four is often played nearby.
Q 05What did the Supreme Court's 2021 Alston ruling against the NCAA allow?
Unlimited education-related compensation
Unlimited education-related compensation followed because a unanimous court held that NCAA caps on such benefits broke antitrust law; the NCAA dropped its ban on name, image and likeness pay days later.
Q 06Which team won the first NCAA men's basketball tournament in 1939?
Oregon
Oregon's 'Tall Firs' beat Ohio State 46-33 in the 1939 final at Evanston, Illinois, to win the first NCAA men's basketball tournament, then an eight-team event.
Q 07Which eighth seed won the first 64-team NCAA men's basketball tournament, in 1985?
Villanova
Villanova made 22 of 28 shots, 78.6 percent, to beat defending champion Georgetown 66-64 in what became known as 'The Perfect Game'; no lower seed has won the title.
Q 08Which university has won the most men's basketball championships?
UCLA
UCLA has won 11 NCAA men's basketball titles, the first in 1964 and the most recent in 1995; Kentucky is second with eight.
Q 09Which round of the men's NCAA basketball tournament is made up of the regional semifinals?
The Sweet Sixteen
The Sweet Sixteen is the regional semifinal round, named for the teams left; Kentucky's high school association holds a trademark on the phrase, which it uses for its state tournament.
Q 10How many NCAA championships did John Wooden win at UCLA?
Ten
John Wooden won ten NCAA titles at UCLA between 1964 and 1975, including seven straight from 1967 to 1973; he retired immediately after the 1975 championship game.
Q 11How long was UCLA's record winning streak under John Wooden?
88 games
88 games: the run began in January 1971 and ended with a 71-70 loss at Notre Dame in January 1974; two months later NC State also ended UCLA's seven-year hold on the national title.
Q 12What did John Wooden call his framework of motivational principles?
The Pyramid of Success
Wooden's Pyramid of Success stacks 15 building blocks, from industriousness and enthusiasm at the base to competitive greatness at the top; he defined success not as winning but as the peace of mind of knowing you gave your best effort.
Q 13What is John Wooden's well-known nickname?
The Wizard of Westwood
Q 21Which system did the College Football Playoff replace?
The Bowl Championship Series
The Bowl Championship Series ran from 1998 to 2013, using polls and computer rankings to pair the top two teams in one title game; the four-team playoff replaced it.
Q 22Which postseason game is nicknamed 'The Granddaddy of Them All'?
The Rose Bowl
Broadcaster Keith Jackson dubbed the Rose Bowl 'The Granddaddy of Them All' because, first played in 1902, it is the oldest college bowl game.
Q 23What replaced football in Pasadena after a 1902 rout?
Chariot races
Chariot races replaced football after Michigan beat Stanford 49-0, a game Stanford's captain asked to stop with eight minutes left.
The Wizard of Westwood was named for Westwood, the Los Angeles district around the UCLA campus; Wooden himself disliked the nickname.
Q 14John Heisman coached which school to a record 222-0 win over Cumberland in 1916?
Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech won 222-0, the most lopsided score in college football history, because Cumberland had dropped football yet faced a $3,000 forfeit if it failed to turn up.
Q 15Who won the first Heisman Trophy, in 1935?
Jay Berwanger
Jay Berwanger, a Chicago Maroons halfback, won the first award in 1935 and was the first pick of the first NFL draft in 1936, yet never played a professional game after a salary dispute.
Q 16Who is the only player to win the Heisman Trophy twice?
Archie Griffin
Archie Griffin won in 1974 and 1975 for Ohio State, where he fumbled on his only carry of his first game, then ran for a school-record 239 yards in his second.
Q 17Who is the youngest Heisman winner?
Lamar Jackson
Lamar Jackson was 19 when he won the 2016 Heisman for Louisville, a few days younger than the previous youngest winner, Jameis Winston; he later won two NFL MVP awards.
Q 18Who was the model for the figure on the Heisman Trophy?
A 1934 NYU football player
A 1934 NYU football player, Ed Smith, posed for the sculptor, an old high-school classmate, and did not learn the statue had become the Heisman until 1982.
Q 19Whose 246 yards won the first College Football Playoff final?
Ezekiel Elliott
Ezekiel Elliott ran for 246 yards and four touchdowns as Ohio State, the fourth and last seed, beat Oregon 42-20 in January 2015 to win the first playoff.
Q 20How many teams did the College Football Playoff expand to for the 2024 season?
Twelve
The playoff grew from four teams to twelve for the 2024 season, with first-round byes for the top four seeds; Ohio State won the first twelve-team title in January 2025.
Q 24On which date is the Pasadena bowl game traditionally played?
1 January
1 January, New Year's Day, is the game's traditional date, except when that falls on a Sunday: then both the game and the parade move to Monday 2 January.
Q 25Which conferences traditionally supplied Pasadena's bowl teams from 1947 to 2024?
The Big Ten and the Pac-12
The Big Ten and the Pac-12 were paired by an exclusive agreement struck in 1946 and first played out in the 1947 game; the playoff era and the Pac-12's 2024 breakup ended it.
Q 26Which city has hosted the Army-Navy game most often?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia is the usual host because it lies about halfway between West Point and Annapolis; the game first went there in 1899, when the series resumed after a five-year break.
Q 27What happens at the end of every Army-Navy game?
Both academies' alma maters are sung
Both academies' alma maters are sung: the winning team first stands alongside the losers and faces the losing academy's students.
Q 28Under which official brand name is the annual Army-Navy football meeting promoted?
America's Game
America's Game is the Army-Navy brand; since 2009 it has been played on the second Saturday of December, a week after the conference title games have closed the season elsewhere.
Q 29Which trophy goes to the winner of the yearly football series among Army, Navy and Air Force?
The Commander-in-Chief's Trophy
The Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, first awarded in 1972 by President Nixon, goes to the academy with the best record in the three games; if they split, the holder keeps it.
Q 30Which school won five College World Series titles in ten seasons under coach Skip Bertman?
LSU
LSU won in 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 2000; the 1996 title came on Warren Morris's two-out home run in the bottom of the ninth, which turned an 8-7 deficit into a 9-8 win.