College Football Bowl Games
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50 free College Football Bowl Games trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
College football ends its season like no other sport: with dozens of bowl games, each with its own city, trophy and peculiar history. Some are more than a century old and decide championships. Others are named for snack foods and lawn equipment, and fans love them because they are a little ridiculous. This quiz covers the whole bowl season. You will find the oldest games and where they are played, the comebacks and coaching gambles fans still argue about, record-setting days by future pros, and the odd traditions, sponsors and one-off venues that give bowl week its character. A few questions reach back to the earliest postseason games, and a few follow the bowls into the playoff era. It is written for fans getting ready for bowl season, hosts who need a ready-made round for a watch party or trivia night, and anyone who wants questions and answers they can trust. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the set.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01After a 49–0 rout in the first Rose Bowl game in 1902, which event replaced football at the Tournament of Roses?
Chariot races
Chariot races, along with ostrich races, filled the bill for the next 13 years because the first game had been so lopsided. Football did not return to stay until New Year's Day 1916.
Q 02After Pearl Harbor, the 1942 Rose Bowl between Duke and Oregon State was moved from California to which city?
Durham
Durham stepped in because officials feared a Japanese attack on the West Coast, and Duke offered its own home stadium. Oregon State made the cross-country train trip and won 20–16.
Q 03Which Ohio State coach was fired the day after punching a Clemson player during the 1978 Gator Bowl?
Woody Hayes
Woody Hayes struck Charlie Bauman, who had just intercepted a pass and been pushed out of bounds at the Ohio State bench with two minutes left. The punch ended his 28 seasons in charge.
Q 04Which snack brand's Orlando bowl game introduced the first edible mascot in 2023, eaten by players on the field?
Pop-Tarts
Pop-Tarts Bowl organizers lowered a giant strawberry pastry mascot into an oversized toaster, and an edible replica came out for the players to eat. A fan vote chose the lead mascot's flavor for the next game.
Q 05Which Ivy League university's stadium inspired the Rose Bowl's design and gave postseason games the word bowl?
Yale
Yale opened its bowl-shaped stadium in 1914, and it became the prototype for many American football stadiums. The Rose Bowl stadium borrowed both the shape and the name a few years later.
Q 06In the 1929 Rose Bowl, what did California center Roy Riegels famously do after scooping up a Georgia Tech fumble?
Ran the wrong way
Riegels ran the wrong way until teammate Benny Lom caught up with him near his own goal line. The punt that followed was blocked for a safety, the margin in an 8–7 defeat.
Q 07Which Notre Dame quarterback ate chicken soup in the locker room, then erased a 34–12 deficit in the 1979 Cotton Bowl?
Joe Montana
Joe Montana was fighting the flu and hypothermia on an icy day, so team doctors warmed him with bouillon and blankets. He returned to beat Houston 35–34 with a touchdown as time expired.
Q 08Which late-night talk show host put his own name on the LA Bowl at SoFi Stadium in 2021?
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel announced the deal on his own show, remarking that it was the first bowl game named for a living person. Former NFL star Rob Gronkowski took over as the bowl's host in 2023.
Q 09The Pinstripe Bowl, first played in 2010, takes place each winter in which Major League Baseball ballpark?
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium in the Bronx gave New York City its first bowl game since the 1962 Gotham Bowl. That earlier game was played in the original venue of the same name.
Q 10The Rose Bowl game moves to January 2 whenever New Year's Day falls on which day of the week?
Sunday
Sunday has been off limits since 1893, when parade organizers did not want to disturb horses hitched outside church services. The football game follows the parade to the next day.
Q 11The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl is played at Boise State's stadium on artificial turf of which unusual color?
Blue
Blue turf went down in 1986 because the athletic director reasoned that a new surface might as well earn the school some national notoriety. Fans nicknamed it Smurf Turf.
Q 12Which fruit's name was dropped from a New Year's Six bowl from 2006 to 2013, when it was simply the Chick-fil-A Bowl?
Peach
Peach had been in the title since the first game in 1968, which was created as a fundraiser for a Lions Clubs foundation serving blind people in Georgia.
Q 13After Hurricane Katrina damaged the Superdome, which city hosted the January 2006 Sugar Bowl instead?
Atlanta
Atlanta gave Georgia what amounted to a home game in the Georgia Dome, yet West Virginia stunned the Bulldogs by opening a 21–0 lead in the first quarter.
Q 21Which Nebraska coach went for two and the win, not a tying kick, against Miami in the 1984 Orange Bowl?
Tom Osborne
Tom Osborne passed up a kick that would have tied the score at 31, and Miami's Kenny Calhoun broke up the pass. The Hurricanes, heavy underdogs on their own field, won 31–30.
Q 22What did Miami's players change into on the flight to the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, a showdown billed as good versus evil?
Military fatigues
Military fatigues played up the warfare theme, with Miami cast as the villains. Penn State then intercepted Heisman winner Vinny Testaverde five times to take the national title.
Q 23Which school's Dicky Maegle was tackled by an Alabama player who ran off the bench in the 1954 Cotton Bowl?
Rice
Q 14Which Texas city has hosted the Sun Bowl since 1935, making it one of the oldest bowl games after the Rose Bowl?
El Paso
El Paso matched two high school teams in its first game, and colleges only took over a year later. The Sugar and Orange bowls also date from 1935, so the three share second place by age.
Q 15The Cotton Bowl Classic left its namesake Fair Park stadium in 2010 for the home of which NFL team?
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys' new retractable-roof stadium in Arlington lured the game away as part of a bid by bowl officials to join the BCS. The old stadium had been its home since 1937.
Q 16Which island capital became home to the Bahamas Bowl in 2014 at the 15,000-seat Thomas Robinson Stadium?
Nassau
Nassau staged the first major bowl played outside the United States and Canada by two American teams since New Year's Day 1937.
Q 17The Liberty Bowl, a Memphis fixture since 1965, was founded in 1959 in which northeastern city?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia hosted the first five games before the bowl spent one year indoors at a convention hall on the New Jersey shore. It then moved south to much larger crowds.
Q 18Which Florida city is home to the Gator Bowl, traditionally played around New Year's Day and first held in 1946?
Jacksonville
Jacksonville gave the game up only once, in December 1994, when it moved to Gainesville while a replacement stadium was being built. Four local backers put up $10,000 to underwrite the first one.
Q 19Which foreign capital hosted the Bacardi Bowl, where Auburn and Villanova tied 7–7 on New Year's Day 1937?
Havana
Havana staged the game seven times, beginning in 1907 with LSU against the local university. The 1937 tie was the first bowl appearance in Auburn's history.
Q 20Orlando's Citrus Bowl was known by which other fruit's name from its first game in 1947 until 1982?
Tangerine
Tangerine gave way in 1983 after the Florida Citrus Commission paid $1.25 million for a new name. In its early years the game matched small-college teams instead of major powers.
Rice was awarded a 95-yard touchdown anyway, with its runner flat on his back at the 42-yard line. The referee ruled the tackle a palpably unfair act.
Q 24Which BYU quarterback threw a Hail Mary on the final play to beat SMU 46–45 in the 1980 Holiday Bowl?
Jim McMahon
Jim McMahon rallied BYU from 45–25 down with four minutes left, and the extra point after his last-second heave won it. Fans still call the game the Miracle Bowl.
Q 25Which Heisman-winning Navy quarterback lost a No. 1 against No. 2 showdown with Texas in the 1964 Cotton Bowl?
Roger Staubach
Roger Staubach completed 22 of 34 passes, but Texas won 28–6 to claim its first national title. He was still a junior, having won the Heisman only weeks earlier.
Q 26Which famous Notre Dame backfield played together in the 1925 Rose Bowl win over Pop Warner's Stanford team?
Four Horsemen
The Four Horsemen had been given their name less than three months earlier, in a newspaper report on a 13–7 win over Army. Knute Rockne coached them against Stanford.
Q 27From 1947, the Rose Bowl traditionally matched the West Coast's champion against the champion of which conference?
Big Ten
The Big Ten, then known as the Big Nine, signed an exclusive deal in 1946 after eight years of negotiating over payments, rules and tickets. The pairing lasted, with exceptions, until 2023.
Q 28Which team, coached by Fielding Yost, beat Stanford 49–0 in 1902 in the game later counted as the first Rose Bowl?
Michigan
Michigan finished that season having outscored its opponents 550–0. Stanford's captain asked to end the game with eight minutes still on the clock.
Q 29Which Alabama quarterback was named outstanding player of the 1965 Orange Bowl despite losing to Texas?
Joe Namath
Joe Namath threw for 255 yards in the first Orange Bowl played at night, then signed a record contract with the New York Jets the following day.
Q 30Which Alabama coach won his final game at the 1982 Liberty Bowl, four weeks before his death?
Bear Bryant
Bear Bryant retired with 323 victories after beating Illinois 21–15. His farewell made the game one of the most heavily covered of that season.