Army-Navy Game
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Army-Navy Game trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Army and Navy first met on a football field in 1890, and the game has outgrown the sport ever since. Presidents attend, both student bodies march in, and for one Saturday in December the rest of college football steps aside. This quiz covers the whole rivalry: the early years and the long breaks in the series, the national-title showdowns of the 1940s, the Heisman winners on both sides, the mascots and their kidnappings, the songs and ceremonies around the game, and the stadiums that have hosted it. The questions start with facts most football fans will know and work up to deep cuts for academy graduates and die-hards. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the set works for a watch party, a tailgate, a classroom or a pub quiz.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which city, a neutral site between the two academies, has hosted the Army-Navy Game most often?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, about halfway between West Point and Annapolis, first staged the game in 1899, when a local surgeon talked both academies into reviving their suspended series.
Q 02Which animal became Navy's mascot after one named El Cid appeared at the 1893 Army-Navy Game?
A goat
A goat named El Cid, a gift from the officers of USS New York, watched Navy win that day. The mascot was later named Bill, after a commandant's pet.
Q 03Which animal became Army's mascot in 1899 because it had hauled the service's gear for generations?
A mule
A mule was the idea of a supply officer who wanted an answer to Navy's mascot. The first official one, a retired Army pack animal named Mr. Jackson, arrived in 1936.
Q 04Which television innovation, now standard in sports, made its US debut at the 1963 Army-Navy Game?
Instant replay
Instant replay was so new that when an Army touchdown was rerun at full speed, the announcer told viewers that Army had not scored again.
Q 05Which Navy quarterback beat Army in 1962 and 1963, won the Heisman and later led the Dallas Cowboys?
Roger Staubach
Roger Staubach did not reach the NFL until 1969, as a 27-year-old rookie: he first served out his Navy commitment, volunteering for a year in Vietnam.
Q 06Which president was the first to attend an Army-Navy Game while in office, at the 1901 meeting?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt came back for the 1905 game, the same year he summoned coaches to the White House to make an increasingly brutal sport safer.
Q 07Which service academy, founded in 1954, plays Army and Navy each year in a three-way series?
Air Force
Air Force has met both rivals every season since 1972, when a trophy was first put up for the three-way series, and it has carried that prize home most often.
Q 08Which California stadium hosted the 1983 Army-Navy Game, the only one west of the Mississippi?
The Rose Bowl
The Rose Bowl got the game after organizers in Pasadena promised to transport, house and feed more than 9,000 students and support staff from both academies. Nearly 4,000 local families put them up.
Q 09Who urged that the 1963 Army-Navy Game go ahead after the president's assassination put it in doubt?
Jackie Kennedy
Jackie Kennedy got her wish a week late, on December 7, and the stadium that staged the game was renamed for her husband the following year.
Q 10Which piece of gear is Navy's Joseph Reeves credited with wearing first, at the 1893 Army-Navy Game?
A helmet
A helmet was the price of playing: warned by a Navy doctor that one more kick to the head could kill him, Reeves had an Annapolis shoemaker make one out of leather.
Q 11Which network has been the exclusive television home of the Army-Navy Game every year since 1996?
CBS
CBS holds the rights through 2038 and has kept the game on free broadcast television, where it has been shown nationally every year since 1945.
Q 12Which prize, first given in 1972, goes to football's best among the three major service academies?
Commander-in-Chief's Trophy
The Commander-in-Chief's Trophy is named for the president, who has often handed it over in person. The prize stands two and a half feet tall and weighs 170 pounds.
Q 13Which nickname, coined by 1940s newspapers for Army's football team, became official in 1999?
Black Knights
Q 21Which Notre Dame coach skipped his own team's game in 1926 to watch Army play Navy in Chicago?
Knute Rockne
Knute Rockne went to write newspaper articles and pick an All-America team. Without him, Notre Dame lost 19-0 to Carnegie Tech, an upset that likely cost it a national title.
Q 22Which Army fullback, nicknamed Mr. Inside, became the first junior to win the Heisman Trophy?
Doc Blanchard
Doc Blanchard ran through the line while teammate Glenn Davis, his Outside counterpart, ran around it. In their three seasons together Army beat Navy every year and went 27-0-1.
Q 23Which Navy halfback scored three touchdowns against Army in 1959 and won the 1960 Heisman Trophy?
Joe Bellino
Black Knights is short for the Black Knights of the Hudson, a nod to the team's dark uniforms. Until 1999 Army's teams were just as often called the Cadets.
Q 14Which Navy fight song, written by the academy's bandmaster, debuted at the 1906 Army-Navy Game?
Anchors Aweigh
Anchors Aweigh was written by bandmaster Charles Zimmermann and a midshipman as a football march for the class of 1907, and Navy won 10-0 on the day it was first heard.
Q 15Which president ordered Army cadets to return Navy's kidnapped mascot days before an Army-Navy Game?
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower, himself a West Point graduate, backed the 1953 order to send the animal home, and the cadets who had smuggled it out in a convertible staged a mass protest.
Q 16The 2022 Army-Navy Game, a 20-17 Army win, was the first in the rivalry's history to feature what?
Overtime
Overtime ran to two extra periods before Army's Quinn Maretzki settled it with a 39-yard field goal. Seven earlier meetings had simply ended as ties.
Q 17Which TV comedy has an episode titled The Army-Navy Game, in which an unexploded shell hits camp?
M*A*S*H
M*A*S*H aired the episode in 1973, with a story by McLean Stevenson, the actor who played the camp's commanding officer, Henry Blake.
Q 18Which general wired Army's 1944 team that he had stopped the war to celebrate its win over Navy?
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur called them the greatest of all Army teams, and a trophy bearing his name now goes each year to college football's national champion.
Q 19Which future NFL coaching legend was an Army assistant under Red Blaik for five seasons from 1949?
Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi's first Army team beat Navy 38-0, and Blaik's stress on execution became a trademark of the sides he later coached to five NFL titles in Green Bay.
Q 20Which Chicago stadium was dedicated at the 1926 Army-Navy Game, which ended in a 21-21 tie?
Soldier Field
Soldier Field was dedicated that day as a monument to Americans who fought in World War I, and the tie was enough to earn unbeaten Navy a share of the national title.
Joe Bellino was the first Navy player to score three times in the rivalry, yet with years of military service owed he lasted until the 17th round of the NFL draft.
Q 24Which Army halfback won the 1958 Heisman Trophy, then became a Rhodes Scholar and a general?
Pete Dawkins
Pete Dawkins and Army finished 8-0-1 in 1958 after beating Navy 22-6. At Oxford he then won three Blues in rugby.
Q 25Which phrase for winning the Army-Navy Game comes from the order of the postgame alma maters?
Sing second
Sing second works because both teams stand together for the loser's alma mater first, facing its students, and only then turn to the winner's side.
Q 26Which Army-Navy pregame ritual returns students spending a semester at the rival academy?
The prisoner exchange
The prisoner exchange is only a brief reprieve: the exchange students watch the game with their own classmates, then go back to finish the semester at the rival academy.
Q 27Which venue hosted the 2020 Army-Navy Game, the first played on either academy's campus since 1943?
Michie Stadium
Michie Stadium, Army's home field, stepped in when pandemic crowd limits ruled out the planned host city, and Army marked the day with its first shutout of Navy since 1969.
Q 28Which president saw seven Army-Navy Games while in office, skipping one only for a vacation?
Harry Truman
Harry Truman skipped 1951 only because he was on vacation. His first visit as president, in 1945, was to a matchup billed in advance as the game of the century.
Q 29What are first-year students, the lowest class, called at both West Point and the Naval Academy?
Plebes
Plebes probably take their name from the plebeians, the common people of ancient Rome. At West Point they must memorize facts about the rivalry with Navy during basic training.
Q 30Which New York ballpark, home of baseball's Giants, hosted nine Army-Navy Games from 1913 to 1927?
Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds staged its first one in 1913, with President Woodrow Wilson and his cabinet in the stands, and no venue outside the usual host city has held more.