Tennessee Volunteers Football
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7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Tennessee Volunteers Football trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few college football programs carry as much ritual as the Tennessee Volunteers. On autumn Saturdays more than 100,000 fans in orange fill Neyland Stadium, a hound named Smokey leads the team out of the tunnel, and a century of history comes along with them, from General Robert Neyland's dominant teams to the Peyton Manning years and the unbeaten 1998 national champions. This quiz covers Vols football from every angle: the game-day traditions and where they came from, the title seasons and the bowl games that decided them, the coaches who built the program and the ones who left in a hurry, the rivalry games against Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky, and the long line of Volunteers who became NFL stars. It is written for Big Orange fans, students and alumni, and it works for a tailgate, a watch party or a trivia night. Questions run from easy openers to deep cuts for lifelong fans, and every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the set for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which bluegrass song, written at a Gatlinburg inn in 1967, became the Tennessee Volunteers' unofficial anthem?
Rocky Top
Rocky Top took Felice and Boudleaux Bryant about 15 minutes to write, as a break from a set of slower songs. It is not the official fight song: that title belongs to Down the Field.
Q 02In which city do the Tennessee Volunteers play home games at the 100,000-plus-seat Neyland Stadium?
Knoxville
Knoxville has hosted the Vols on the same site since 1921, when the ground opened as Shields–Watkins Field with room for just 3,200 people. The playing surface still carries that name.
Q 03Smokey, the live mascot who leads the Tennessee Volunteers onto the field, is which breed of dog?
Bluetick Coonhound
Bluetick Coonhound Blue Smokey won the job at a 1953 halftime contest. The last dog introduced, he howled, the students cheered, and he howled again until the stadium roared.
Q 04After Alabama and Tennessee meet each October, players on the winning team traditionally light up what?
Cigars
Cigars have followed the game since the 1950s, when Alabama trainer Jim Goostree began handing them out after wins. Both teams kept it secret for years because of NCAA rules on tobacco.
Q 05After Tennessee beat Alabama 52–49 in 2022, fans carried what out of Neyland Stadium and into the river?
The goalposts
The goalposts were paraded around campus before going into the water, as the Vols had just ended a 15-game losing run in the series. Fans then donated $152,000 to replace them.
Q 06Which pattern, borrowed from the Ayres Hall clock tower, fills the end zones at Tennessee's Neyland Stadium?
Checkerboard
Checkerboard end zones arrived in 1964, vanished when artificial turf went down in 1968, and did not return until 1989. Nike later added the same pattern to the back of the helmet stripe.
Q 07Which NFL team made Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning the first overall pick of the 1998 draft?
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts got a quarterback who had finished his degree in three years yet stayed at Tennessee for a senior season. He started for them from 1998 to 2010.
Q 08Charles Moore chose Tennessee's orange and white after which flower that grew on the campus Hill?
Daisies
Daisies growing on The Hill gave Moore, a member of the very first team, the idea. The football players did not actually wear orange until 1922.
Q 09Which nickname followed defensive end Reggie White from his senior year at Tennessee into the NFL?
Minister of Defense
Minister of Defense suited a pass rusher who had been ordained as a Baptist minister at 17. He went on to record 198 sacks in the NFL.
Q 10What name is given to the fleet of fans' boats that docks beside Neyland Stadium before Tennessee games?
Vol Navy
Vol Navy began in 1962, when broadcaster George Mooney tied up his runabout by the stadium to dodge game-day traffic. Many fans arrive days early to socialise on the water.
Q 11Tennessee's Peyton Manning never beat which SEC rival, coached throughout his college years by Steve Spurrier?
Florida
Florida won all four meetings of his career. Sports Illustrated had planned a Manning cover after the 1995 game, but the Gators rallied from 30–14 down and it ran Danny Wuerffel instead.
Q 12Which Michigan defensive back beat Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning to the 1997 Heisman Trophy?
Charles Woodson
Charles Woodson was the first primarily defensive player ever to win the award, which made Manning the fourth Volunteer to finish as its runner-up.
Q 13Which future Colorado Rockies star was Tennessee's quarterback until a 1994 injury let Peyton Manning take over?
Todd Helton
Q 21Which future NFL tight end arrived at Tennessee as a defensive end and considered transferring when coaches moved him?
Jason Witten
Jason Witten was switched to offence midway through his first season, when injuries thinned the tight ends. He went on to catch 1,228 passes in the NFL, nearly all of them for the Dallas Cowboys.
Q 22Which running back left Alabama for a Kansas junior college, then starred for Tennessee and the New Orleans Saints?
Alvin Kamara
Alvin Kamara redshirted at Alabama behind a recruiting class that included Derrick Henry, then spent 2014 at Hutchinson Community College. He was the NFL's top offensive rookie in 2017.
Q 23Which Tennessee safety won the 2009 Jim Thorpe Award and later returned to the NFL after beating Hodgkin's lymphoma?
Todd Helton had only become the starter when a senior tore knee ligaments in the opener, then hurt his own knee three weeks later. He went on to win a batting title in 2000.
Q 14Which quarterback replaced Peyton Manning and led Tennessee to an unbeaten national championship season in 1998?
Tee Martin
Tee Martin had spent two years as Manning's backup, then went 13–0 as the starter. Along the way he completed 24 passes in a row across two games, a new NCAA record.
Q 15Which bowl hosted the first BCS title game, won 23–16 by Tennessee over the Seminoles after the 1998 season?
Fiesta
The Fiesta Bowl crowned the Vols at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Receiver Peerless Price was its offensive MVP, with 199 receiving yards and a 79-yard touchdown catch.
Q 16Which unbeaten opponent's quarterback stumbled and fumbled late, letting Tennessee save its perfect 1998 season?
Arkansas
Arkansas led 24–22 and needed one first down to run out the clock when Clint Stoerner dropped the ball. Billy Ratliff recovered, and Travis Henry scored the winner with 28 seconds left.
Q 17Which former Tennessee offensive guard coached the Volunteers from 1992 to 2008 and won the 1998 national title?
Phillip Fulmer
Phillip Fulmer first took charge as an interim in 1992, while Johnny Majors recovered from heart surgery, and was given the job outright at the end of that season. He went 152–52.
Q 18Until 1997 the Kentucky–Tennessee winner took home which trophy, painted half blue and half orange?
A beer barrel
A beer barrel changed hands from 1925 and was once keg-napped by Tennessee students, so Kentucky students dog-napped Smokey in reply. It was retired after a fatal alcohol-related crash.
Q 19Robert Neyland was hired in 1926 with orders to even the score with which in-state rival of Tennessee?
Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt had gone 19–2–3 against the Vols between 1892 and 1927. Neyland reversed the rivalry so completely that Tennessee went on to build a commanding lead in the all-time series.
Q 20Johnny Majors won a national championship in 1976 at which school before coming home to coach Tennessee?
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh capped a 12–0 season with a Sugar Bowl win under Majors. Twenty years earlier, as a Tennessee tailback, he had finished second in the Heisman voting.
Eric Berry
Eric Berry was diagnosed in December 2014, went through chemotherapy that offseason, and came back in 2015 to make the All-Pro team and win Comeback Player of the Year with the Chiefs.
Q 24Tennessee quarterback Joshua Dobbs, later nicknamed the Passtronaut in the NFL, majored in which subject?
Aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering was his major at Tennessee, and he later took an internship at NASA's Kennedy Space Center while he was an NFL player.
Q 25Which receiver caught Joshua Dobbs's 43-yard Hail Mary as time expired to beat Georgia 34–31 in 2016?
Jauan Jennings
Jauan Jennings had been a quarterback in high school, and it showed years later: he threw a touchdown pass, as well as catching one, for the San Francisco 49ers in a Super Bowl.
Q 26Which Tennessee quarterback, the 1993 SEC Player of the Year, later served three terms in Congress for North Carolina?
Heath Shuler
Heath Shuler went third overall to Washington in the 1994 NFL draft. As a congressman he ran against Nancy Pelosi for the leadership of the House Democrats in 2010.
Q 27Which Tennessee receiver and world-class hurdler won a Super Bowl with the Bears and made a Winter Olympic bobsled team?
Willie Gault
Willie Gault qualified for the 1980 US Olympic track team that boycotted the Moscow Games, then was picked as an alternate for the 1988 bobsled squad while still playing in the NFL.
Q 28Which Tennessee quarterback, nicknamed the Artful Dodger, became the SEC's first Black starter at the position in 1972?
Condredge Holloway
Condredge Holloway had been picked fourth overall by baseball's Montreal Expos out of high school. The NFL drafted him only as a defensive back, so he went to Canada and won two Grey Cups.
Q 29Hendon Hooker, the 2022 SEC Offensive Player of the Year at Tennessee, began his college career at which school?
Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech was his team from 2017 until he transferred in 2021. His Tennessee career ended abruptly in November 2022, when he tore an ACL in a loss at South Carolina.
Q 30Which Tennessee running back, SEC Freshman of the Year in 1997, later rushed for 2,066 yards in an NFL season?
Jamal Lewis
Jamal Lewis did it for the Baltimore Ravens in 2003, a season in which he also ran for 295 yards in one game, then an NFL record. He had won a Super Bowl with them as a rookie.