Nevada Wolf Pack
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free Nevada Wolf Pack trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Nevada Wolf Pack has been playing college sports in Reno since the 1890s, and the program has collected more good stories than most schools its size. Its coaches have changed how football is played, its alumni have won championships in the pros, and its rivalry games come with a prize unlike any other in the country. This quiz gathers the best Nevada Wolf Pack fun facts into multiple-choice questions. It covers football and basketball history, the players who went on to the NFL, the NBA and the Olympics, the coaches, the home venues, the mascots and the upsets that fans in northern Nevada still talk about. It is written for Wolf Pack fans, students and alumni, and for any college sports follower who enjoys a surprising story. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up something new even on the questions you miss.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01After beating UNLV in 1978, Nevada took apart which rivalry trophy and flew it home as carry-on luggage?
The Fremont Cannon
The Fremont Cannon weighs 545 pounds, the heaviest trophy in college football, so coach Chris Ault had to talk airport security into letting his players carry it aboard in pieces.
Q 02Which boxing referee, who disqualified Mike Tyson for biting Evander Holyfield, won an NCAA boxing title at Nevada?
Mills Lane
Mills Lane took the NCAA welterweight title in 1960 after learning to box in the Marines, then became a Nevada district judge with his own television court show.
Q 03Which baseball team drafted Nevada quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 2009, though he stayed with football?
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs spent a 43rd-round pick on him because he had been a standout high school pitcher who turned down baseball scholarships to play college football.
Q 04Which formation, with the quarterback four yards behind the center, is Nevada coach Chris Ault credited with creating?
The Pistol
The Pistol splits the difference between the shotgun and lining up under center, and within a few years NFL teams from Kansas City to Washington were running it.
Q 05Nevada erased a 22-point second-half deficit to stun which Ohio school in the 2018 NCAA men's basketball tournament?
Cincinnati
Cincinnati was a No. 2 seed and led by 22 with 11 minutes left, and the comeback tied the second-largest in NCAA Tournament history.
Q 06Which Nevada fullback joined the Cleveland Browns in 1946 as one of modern pro football's first Black players?
Marion Motley
Marion Motley reached the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968 after helping Cleveland win four straight league titles, and Nevada retired his No. 41.
Q 07Nevada ended which unbeaten rival's 24-game winning streak with a 34–31 overtime upset in Reno in 2010?
Boise State
Boise State missed two field goals, one as regulation ended and one in overtime, before a Nevada freshman kicked the winner and wrecked the visitors' hopes of a BCS bowl.
Q 08Which former Nevada center won three NBA titles and, like his mother Pamela, an Olympic gold medal?
JaVale McGee
JaVale McGee won rings with Golden State in 2017 and 2018 and the Lakers in 2020, a dozen years after Washington drafted him 18th overall out of Nevada.
Q 09Which NFL team did former Nevada quarterback Colin Kaepernick lead to Super Bowl XLVII after the 2012 season?
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers traded up to take him in the second round in 2011, and he began that Super Bowl season as the backup before an injury to Alex Smith.
Q 10Twins Caleb and Cody Martin transferred to Nevada's Wolf Pack from which school with almost the same nickname?
NC State
NC State writes Wolfpack as one word while Nevada always uses two, and Caleb made the switch pay as his new conference's Player of the Year in his first season.
Q 11Before becoming the Wolf Pack in 1923, Nevada's teams carried which nickname taken from the state flower?
Sagebrushers
Sagebrushers lasted until a local writer likened the teams to a pack of wolves in the early 1920s, and the students made the wolf their official mascot in 1923.
Q 12Nevada Wolf Pack teams wear navy blue and which second color, matching the metal in the state's nickname?
Silver
Silver fits a university whose football stadium is named for a family that got rich in the Comstock Lode mines of Virginia City.
Q 13Which venue, home of Nevada football since 1966, is named for a family of mining-fortune benefactors?
Mackay Stadium
Q 21In 2009 Colin Kaepernick, Vai Taua and Luke Lippincott became the first trio of college teammates to each do what?
Rush for 1,000 yards
Rush for 1,000 yards is what all three did in a season when Nevada led the nation on the ground, averaging 345 yards a game.
Q 22Nevada's four-overtime loss in 2007, Colin Kaepernick's freshman season, set a major-college football record for what?
Most combined points
Most combined points, 136 in all, came from a 69–67 thriller that ended only when the freshman was stopped short on a mandatory two-point try.
Q 23Former Nevada linebacker Brandon Marshall started and won Super Bowl 50 with which NFL team?
Denver Broncos
Mackay Stadium honors John Mackay and his son Clarence, who paid for the original field in 1909, and its playing surface was named for Chris Ault in 2013.
Q 14Eddie Money shot the video for Take Me Home Tonight in which Nevada basketball arena, opened in 1983?
Lawlor Events Center
Lawlor Events Center is named for Jake Lawlor, who coached football, basketball and baseball at Nevada, and the 1986 video was filmed there entirely in black and white.
Q 15Which wolf mascot took over Nevada's cheering duties in 1999 from his uncle Wolfie?
Alphie
Alphie was later joined on the sideline by a younger brother, Wolfie Jr., in 2007 and by a third costumed wolf, Luna, in 2013.
Q 16Nevada left the Western Athletic Conference in 2012 for which league, reuniting with in-state rival UNLV?
Mountain West
Mountain West membership put the two Nevada schools in the same conference for the first time since both played in the Big West in 1995.
Q 17In 1979 Nevada joined the Big Sky by swapping conference places with which private school, now a basketball power?
Gonzaga
Gonzaga was the Big Sky's only member without a football team, having dropped the sport in 1941, so it took Nevada's old place in the West Coast Conference.
Q 18Which former Nevada All-American receiver became a co-host of CBS Mornings and a Nickelodeon NFL broadcaster?
Nate Burleson
Nate Burleson once caught 19 passes in a single game for Nevada, and after his NFL playing days he won two Sports Emmys as a studio analyst.
Q 19Nevada's three-time WAC Player of the Year Nick Fazekas later played center for which country's national team?
Japan
Japan started him beside Rui Hachimura at the 2019 FIBA World Cup, after he had taken citizenship and been named the Japanese league's best player three times.
Q 20Which former Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors head coach took over Nevada men's basketball in 2015?
Eric Musselman
Eric Musselman won three straight conference titles in Reno and took the Wolf Pack to the Sweet Sixteen before leaving for Arkansas in 2019.
The Denver Broncos picked him up for their practice squad in 2013 after Jacksonville, which had drafted him in the fifth round, cut him three times.
Q 24Nevada finished second at the 2004 NCAA championship in which sport, which the university decided in 2018 to drop?
Rifle
Rifle brought Nevada within one place of a national team title, behind Alaska Fairbanks, two years after Ryan Tanoue won the individual air rifle crown.
Q 25Nevada quarterback Stan Heath finished fifth in voting for which award in 1948 after leading the nation in passing?
The Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Trophy vote followed a season in which he became the first college quarterback to throw for more than 2,000 yards, a mark that stood for fifteen years.
Q 26In 2011 Nevada's Tahnee Robinson became the first enrolled Native American woman to do what?
Be drafted into the WNBA
She went on to be drafted into the WNBA by the Phoenix Mercury in the third round, which also made her the first player the league had ever taken from Nevada.
Q 27Nevada graduate Krysta Palmer won an Olympic bronze medal for the United States at the Tokyo Games in which sport?
Diving
Diving from the 3-meter springboard, the Carson City native earned the first individual American medal in that event since 1988.
Q 28Budget cuts announced in 2009 cost Nevada its NCAA team in which winter sport, a program founded in 1936?
Skiing
Skiing gave Nevada individual NCAA champions from Pat Myers in the 1954 downhill to 2002, and the university brought the team back in 2022.
Q 29The University of Nevada opened in 1874 in which small Nevada town before moving to Reno in 1885?
Elko
Elko never enrolled more than 35 students, which is why the state moved its only university west after eleven years.
Q 30After firing Chris Tormey in 2003, Nevada athletic director Chris Ault hired whom as the next football coach?
Himself
Himself was the choice, and the third stint paid off: he unveiled a new offense, won shares of two league titles and went 13–1 in 2010.