Rutgers Trivia
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48 free Rutgers trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Rutgers is older than the United States, was named after a Revolutionary War colonel who donated a bell, and once had a rooster for a mascot that its own football coach called a chicken. This Rutgers trivia quiz covers the whole story: the 1766 charter from Benjamin Franklin's son, the first classes in a tavern, the 1869 game against Princeton that started college football, the campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden, and the move to the Big Ten. You will also find questions on the people who passed through: Paul Robeson, Milton Friedman, Selman Waksman and streptomycin, Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the law faculty, James Gandolfini, Ray Rice and the Pandemonium in Piscataway. Difficulty runs from easy questions any Scarlet Knight can answer to expert-level details about the Cannon War, the alma mater rewrite and Adam Korsak's punting records. Every answer was checked against university histories and encyclopaedic sources before publishing, and each question is cited. Good for alumni gatherings, tailgates and New Jersey trivia nights.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rutgers was chartered in 1766 as Queen's College, honouring the wife of which British king?
George III
George III's wife, Queen Charlotte, gave the college its first name, and it kept that royal name through the Revolution fought against her husband, becoming Rutgers only in 1825.
Q 02New Jersey's last royal governor, who signed the 1766 charter, was the son of which Founding Father?
Benjamin Franklin
William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, was royal governor of New Jersey from 1763 to 1776 and signed the 1766 charter; he stayed loyal to the Crown during the Revolution, unlike his famous father.
Q 03Rutgers was founded by ministers of which denomination to train future clergy?
Dutch Reformed
Dutch Reformed ministers founded the college to train clergy; the tie survives in the motto 'Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra', adapted from Utrecht University's in the Netherlands.
Q 04Seven of the nine colonial colleges, but not Rutgers, share which league?
Ivy League
The Ivy League took seven of the nine colleges chartered before the Revolution, including Dartmouth, which is three years younger than Rutgers.
Q 05Where did Rutgers hold its first classes in 1771?
In a tavern
In a tavern: a college founded to train ministers opened in 1771 at the Sign of the Red Lion, a former inn where a single tutor taught a handful of students.
Q 06Who was Henry Rutgers, for whom Queen's College was renamed in 1825?
A Revolutionary War colonel
A Revolutionary War colonel, Henry Rutgers never studied at the college that took his name: he graduated in 1766 from King's College, now Columbia.
Q 07Henry Rutgers gave the newly renamed college a $5,000 bond and which other gift?
A bell
A bell bought with his $200 still hangs in the cupola of the oldest campus building, while the bond's interest steadied a college that had twice shut for lack of money.
Q 08Rutgers became New Jersey's land-grant college in 1864 under which federal law?
The Morrill Act
The Morrill Act of 1862 funded land-grant colleges; New Jersey chose Rutgers in 1864, creating the Rutgers Scientific School with departments of agriculture, engineering and chemistry.
Q 09Before becoming New Jersey's state university in 1945, Rutgers was what?
A private college
A private college from 1766, Rutgers served as New Jersey's land-grant school from 1864, yet it took acts of 1945 and 1956 to make it the state university.
Q 10Which Rutgers campus began in 1918 as the New Jersey College for Women?
Douglass
Douglass took its name in 1955 from founder and first dean Mabel Smith Douglass; Rutgers College itself voted to admit women only in 1970 and enrolled its first full class of them in 1972.
Q 11Which city is home to Rutgers' oldest campus, on College Avenue?
New Brunswick
New Brunswick beat Hackensack by ten votes to seven when the trustees chose the college's home in May 1771.
Q 12Which river separates Rutgers' College Avenue campus from its Busch and Livingston campuses?
The Raritan
The Raritan also runs through the alma mater: a student of the class of 1874 wrote 'On the Banks of the Old Raritan' and set it to an old Scottish tune.
Q 13Which sponsor's name did the Rutgers Athletic Center (RAC) take in 2021?
Jersey Mike's
Jersey Mike's, the sandwich chain born on the Jersey Shore, bought the name in 2021 in a 20-year deal; the RAC's steep stands make it so loud that fans call it the Trapezoid of Terror.
Q 21Which future star of a 1950s family sitcom was Rutgers' quarterback from 1924 to 1926?
Ozzie Nelson
Ozzie Nelson went on to earn a law degree in 1930 but made his name leading a dance band, long before The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet reached television in 1952.
Q 22The 1869 Rutgers game called the first college football game used rules closest to which sport?
Soccer
Soccer is the nearest match: with 25 men a side, teams scored by kicking a round ball into the opposing goal, and carrying or throwing it was against the rules.
Q 23What did Rutgers players wear in the first college football game to tell themselves apart from Princeton?
Turbans and handkerchiefs
Q 14Rutgers' northern campus was formed in 1946 when it absorbed what?
The University of Newark
The University of Newark, itself formed in 1936 from five Newark schools, was folded into Rutgers a year after the legislature made Rutgers the state university.
Q 15Which school did Governor Chris Christie try to merge Rutgers–Camden into?
Rowan
Rowan University was to absorb Rutgers–Camden under a plan Christie backed; opposition led by Camden faculty, students and alumni defeated it, and the campus stayed part of Rutgers.
Q 16Who became the first sitting US president to speak at a Rutgers commencement?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama told the class of 2016 he came 'because you asked': Rutgers had run a three-year campaign of letters, tweets and videos to land him for its 250th anniversary.
Q 17What did Rutgers change in its alma mater in 2013?
A line about becoming a man
A line about becoming a man was dropped: 'My father sent me to old Rutgers, and resolved that I should be a man' became 'From far and near we came to Rutgers', four decades after women enrolled.
Q 18Rutgers' only official school colour is what?
Scarlet
Scarlet won out in 1869 after the student newspaper argued for a striking colour whose ribbon was easy to buy; an earlier push for orange failed, and trustees made scarlet official in 1900.
Q 19What was Rutgers' mascot from 1925 until 1955?
A fighting rooster
A fighting rooster called the Chanticleer, named for the rooster of the medieval Reynard the Fox tales, served from 1925 to 1955, but the link to 'being chicken' made it a punchline.
Q 20Which Nobel-winning economist graduated from Rutgers in 1932?
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman arrived on a scholarship meaning to become an actuary, until two Rutgers teachers, Arthur Burns and Homer Jones, drew the mathematics student into economics.
Turbans and handkerchiefs in the school colour marked out the Rutgers side because there were no uniforms: players simply shed their coats, vests and hats before the start.
Q 24Rutgers and Princeton students feuded over which object, carried off in a night raid in 1875?
A Revolutionary War cannon
A Revolutionary War cannon stayed in Rutgers' home town after the War of 1812 until it went back to Princeton; in 1875 Rutgers students hauled one home by night, and a joint committee had to return it.
Q 25Rutgers' first intercollegiate contest, in 1866, was a 40–2 loss to Princeton in which sport?
Baseball
Baseball brought the 40–2 humiliation, and the urge for revenge is credited with pushing Rutgers to challenge Princeton to a football game three years later.
Q 26Rutgers and Princeton staged the first intercollegiate contest in what sport in 1972?
Ultimate Frisbee
Ultimate Frisbee's first college game was staged 103 years to the day after the schools' first football game and on the same ground, by then a parking lot; Rutgers won 29–27.
Q 27Unbeaten Rutgers reached which round of the 1976 NCAA basketball tournament?
Final Four
The Final Four ended the run: Rutgers arrived 31–0, then lost the national semifinal to Michigan and the third-place game to UCLA to finish 31–2.
Q 28Rutgers officially joined which athletic conference on July 1, 2014, alongside Maryland?
Big Ten
The Big Ten took in Rutgers and Maryland together on July 1, 2014; Rutgers paid an $11.5 million exit fee to leave the American Athletic Conference after a single season there.
Q 29What name did Rutgers' football stadium take in a 2019 sponsorship deal?
SHI Stadium
SHI Stadium got its name from a 2019 deal with a New Jersey IT firm, replacing HighPoint.com Stadium, a name adopted only a year earlier when the previous sponsor rebranded itself.
Q 30Which other team joined 9–0 Rutgers as unbeaten and untied in 1961?
Alabama
Alabama went 11–0 under Bear Bryant and won the Sugar Bowl, while Rutgers, 9–0 in its first unbeaten season, played no bowl game at all.