Big Ten Conference
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50 free Big Ten Conference trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Big Ten is the oldest major conference in American college sports, older than the NCAA itself, and it has never been very good at counting. The name has stayed put while the membership grew from a handful of Midwestern universities into a league that now stretches from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. This quiz covers what fans argue about on autumn Saturdays and winter weeknights: school nicknames, mascots and colors, the fight songs and marching band traditions, the odd trophies that rivals play for, Heisman winners and famous coaches, and the basketball stars and title teams the league has produced. A few questions step outside football and basketball to track, hockey and the business of running a conference. It suits alumni, tailgate hosts and anyone who has picked a side in a Midwestern rivalry. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with a story for the next watch party.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which school's arrival in 1990 led the Big Ten Conference to hide the number 11 in its logo?
Penn State
Penn State made it eleven members, but the Big Ten kept its famous name. Designers tucked an 11 into the negative space of the lettering, where it stayed until 2011.
Q 02Which Disney character is the University of Oregon's mascot based on, thanks to a handshake deal with Walt Disney?
Donald Duck
Donald Duck became the Oregon mascot when athletic director Leo Harris met Walt Disney and sealed the deal with only a handshake. Student cartoons had already been copying the character for years.
Q 03Which future US president played center for Michigan's unbeaten national champion football teams of 1932 and 1933?
Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford was good enough to draw offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. He turned both down and ended up at Yale, where he earned a law degree.
Q 04Which Big Ten school packed 92,003 fans into its football stadium for a women's volleyball match in 2023?
Nebraska
Nebraska swept Omaha 3–0 on what was billed as Volleyball Day, drawing one of the largest crowds ever recorded for a women's sporting event.
Q 05Iowa football fans turn after the first quarter to wave at patients in which building beside the stadium?
A children's hospital
A children's hospital opened overlooking the east stands in 2017, and a fan's Facebook suggestion started the wave. ESPN called it college football's coolest new tradition.
Q 06Which Ohio State sprinter set five world records and tied a sixth within an hour at the 1935 Big Ten championships?
Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens did it in about 45 minutes in Ann Arbor while nursing a lower back injury. A year later he won four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics.
Q 07Which color did Iowa coach Hayden Fry paint the visitors' locker room to put opposing football teams in a passive mood?
Pink
Pink still covers everything in the room, right down to the lockers and urinals. It survived a 2005 protest by faculty and students who called the color scheme demeaning.
Q 08Which animal, extremely rare in the state itself, gives the University of Michigan's teams their nickname?
Wolverine
Wolverine sightings are so scarce that a 2004 photograph was the first confirmed one in Michigan since the early 19th century. The state has long been called the Wolverine State all the same.
Q 09Which sportswear company was founded as Blue Ribbon Sports by a University of Oregon runner and his coach Bill Bowerman?
Nike
Nike grew out of experiments like the one in 1971, when Bowerman used his wife's waffle iron to mold a lighter rubber sole that would still grip the track.
Q 10Floyd of Rosedale, the trophy Iowa and Minnesota play football for, is a bronze statue of which animal?
A pig
A pig named Floyd was the original stake. In 1935 Minnesota's governor bet Iowa's governor a prize hog on the result, and the loser walked the live animal into the winner's office.
Q 11Which 1979 Fleetwood Mac single features the USC Trojan Marching Band, recorded at Dodger Stadium?
Tusk
Tusk got its brass after Mick Fleetwood asked for the USC band, and a mobile studio was set up at Dodger Stadium to record all 112 members.
Q 12Which founding member, a football power under Amos Alonzo Stagg, is the only school to leave the Big Ten for good?
Chicago
Chicago chose to de-emphasize varsity sports just after World War II and withdrew, which is why the league spent a few years known as the Big Nine.
Q 13Michigan and Minnesota play football for which trophy, a 30-cent water container left behind after a 1903 visit?
Little Brown Jug
Q 21Which USC rallying song did dental student Milo Sweet compose for a 1922 student spirit competition?
Fight On
Fight On has since been borrowed by high schools across the United States, usually with modified lyrics.
Q 22Which bronze statue of a terrapin do University of Maryland football players touch for good luck before games?
Testudo
Testudo was first cast in bronze as a gift from the Class of 1933. Decades later Maryland made the diamondback terrapin its official state reptile.
Q 23Which song do Wisconsin football crowds celebrate to between the third and fourth quarters at Camp Randall Stadium?
Jump Around
Jump Around, the 1992 House of Pain hit, is so tied to Wisconsin that the university's credit union prints the song's title on its debit and credit cards.
The Little Brown Jug is the oldest trophy game in top-level college football. Michigan's student manager bought it because coach Fielding Yost feared the home fans might tamper with his team's water.
Q 14Which nickname did Purdue's teams take from an 1891 newspaper headline about a 44–0 football rout of Wabash College?
Boilermakers
Boilermakers began as "Burly Boiler Makers" in a Crawfordsville paper. Rivals then claimed Purdue was hiring workers from the nearby Monon railroad yards to play football.
Q 15Which nickname do Indiana University's teams share with the people of the state of Indiana?
Hoosiers
Hoosiers is simply the demonym for people from the state, and the teams carrying it have won national titles in men's soccer, swimming, basketball and football.
Q 16Which horse, ridden by a costumed Trojan warrior, has appeared at USC home football games since 1961?
Traveler
Traveler arrived with a Hollywood touch: USC used its film industry connections to dress the first rider in the costume Charlton Heston had worn in Ben-Hur two years earlier.
Q 17Which colors did a three-student committee choose for Ohio State after learning Princeton already used its first pick?
Scarlet and gray
Scarlet and gray was the committee's second recommendation. Some references still list Ohio State's original colors as orange and black, the pair Princeton had claimed.
Q 18Which University of Michigan fight song did student Louis Elbel write on a train home after an 1898 football win?
The Victors
The Victors won over John Philip Sousa, who performed it in Ann Arbor days after its 1899 premiere and praised its harmony as the work of a master of counterpoint.
Q 19Which 1960s hit did the Ohio State marching band adopt before it became Ohio's official rock song?
Hang On Sloopy
Hang On Sloopy was named the state rock song by a resolution of the Ohio legislature in 1985. It helped that the McCoys came from the Dayton area.
Q 20Which marching band formation ends with a sousaphone player dotting the letter i before Buckeyes home football games?
Script Ohio
Script Ohio saves its dot for a fourth- or fifth-year sousaphone player, who high-fives the drum major and then struts out to the top of the i.
Q 24Which Big Ten school calls itself the birthplace of college football after hosting Princeton in the first game in 1869?
Rutgers
Rutgers won that first meeting 6–4 in New Brunswick, under rules so close to soccer that carrying or throwing the ball was not allowed.
Q 25Which Big Ten school hosted the first NCAA men's basketball championship game in its campus gym in 1939?
Northwestern
Northwestern staged the final at Patten Gymnasium in Evanston, where Oregon beat Ohio State 46–33 to finish off a tournament of just eight teams.
Q 26Which nickname belongs to Michigan Stadium, the University of Michigan's football home since 1927?
The Big House
The Big House got its nickname in the 1980s, with broadcaster Keith Jackson credited for making it stick. It is the largest stadium in the United States, officially seating 107,601.
Q 27Which Ohio State running back is the only player to win the Heisman Trophy twice, in 1974 and 1975?
Archie Griffin
Archie Griffin fumbled on his only carry in his first college game. He recovered well enough to start four Rose Bowls and lead the Big Ten in rushing three years running.
Q 28Which Illinois halfback, nicknamed the Galloping Ghost, scored four touchdowns in 12 minutes against Michigan in 1924?
Red Grange
Red Grange opened with a 95-yard kickoff return, then ran 67, 56 and 44 yards for scores. It all happened at the grand opening of the new Memorial Stadium.
Q 29Which Ohio State coach was fired the morning after punching a Clemson player during the 1978 Gator Bowl?
Woody Hayes
Woody Hayes had won 205 games and 13 Big Ten titles in 28 seasons. He swung at Charlie Bauman after the Clemson nose guard's interception ended at the Ohio State sideline.
Q 30Which Michigan quarterback, taken 199th in the 2000 NFL draft, went on to win seven Super Bowls?
Tom Brady
Tom Brady made his college debut in 1996 at the tail end of a 35–3 lead over UCLA. His draft slot later earned him a reputation as the NFL's biggest steal.