LSU Trivia
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This LSU trivia quiz has 48 free questions with answers and covers everything a Tiger fan argues about on a Saturday night in Baton Rouge: the four football national championships, the three Heisman winners, the Chinese Bandits, the Earthquake Game and the Bluegrass Miracle. It also digs into the parts of LSU that get less airtime, from Skip Bertman's baseball dynasty and Warren Morris's walk-off to Pete Maravich's scoring records, Kim Mulkey's 2023 title and the gymnastics team's first national championship. There is campus history too: William Tecumseh Sherman as the school's first superintendent, Huey Long and the dormitories built inside Tiger Stadium, the live oaks, the 1893 game where the colors were supposedly chosen because the green ribbon had sold out, and every live tiger from Mike I to Mike VII. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopedic source, so you can settle tailgate arguments with confidence. Geaux Tigers.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Louisiana city is LSU's main campus located?
Baton Rouge
LSU's main campus is in Baton Rouge, on a 650-acre plateau beside the Mississippi River just south of downtown; the school moved there in the 1920s from the old garrison grounds where the State Capitol was later built.
Q 02Which LSU quarterback won the Heisman Trophy in 2023?
Jayden Daniels
Jayden Daniels won the 2023 Heisman Trophy, throwing 40 touchdown passes and rushing for 1,134 yards in his second season at LSU after transferring from Arizona State.
Q 03What is the nickname of LSU's Tiger Stadium?
Death Valley
Tiger Stadium's nickname is Death Valley. Bear Bryant called Baton Rouge 'the worst place in the world for a visiting team,' saying it was 'like being inside a drum.'
Q 04How many football national championships does LSU claim?
Four
LSU claims four national championships, from 1958, 2003, 2007 and 2019; the 2007 team was the first two-loss team to win the BCS title.
Q 05Which LSU quarterback won the Heisman Trophy in 2019?
Joe Burrow
Joe Burrow won the 2019 Heisman Trophy and then led LSU to a 15-0 season, beating Clemson 42-25 in the national championship game.
Q 06Who was LSU's first Heisman Trophy winner, in 1959?
Billy Cannon
Billy Cannon won the 1959 Heisman Trophy, the same autumn his 89-yard punt return on Halloween night beat No. 3 Ole Miss 7-3 in Tiger Stadium.
Q 07How many College World Series titles had LSU baseball won through the 2025 season?
Eight
LSU had won eight College World Series titles through 2025: 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2009, 2023 and 2025. The first two ended with wins over Wichita State.
Q 08Which Civil War general served as the school's first superintendent when it opened in 1860?
William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman, the seminary's first superintendent, resigned in early 1861 as Louisiana left the Union; he later gave LSU two cannons that had been fired on Fort Sumter.
Q 09According to legend, why did LSU end up with purple and gold as its colors in 1893?
The green ribbon for Mardi Gras had sold out
The first team wore makeshift uniforms with purple and gold ribbons for a 34-0 loss to Tulane in New Orleans, the only game LSU played that year.
Q 10What is the seating capacity of Tiger Stadium?
102,321
Tiger Stadium's official capacity is 102,321, reached when the 2014 south end-zone expansion added nearly 10,000 seats to the previous 92,542.
Q 11Which coach led LSU to its 2003 national championship before leaving for the Miami Dolphins?
Nick Saban
Nick Saban, hired from Michigan State in late 1999, won the 2003 BCS title with a 21-14 Sugar Bowl win over Oklahoma, then left for the Miami Dolphins after the 2004 season.
Q 12Which coach's second-string 1958 defensive unit was nicknamed the 'Chinese Bandits'?
Paul Dietzel
Paul Dietzel's three-platoon system rotated whole units: the White Team, the Go Team and the Chinese Bandits, whose third-down stops helped LSU go 11-0 and win the 1958 national title.
Q 13The 1988 LSU-Auburn 'Earthquake Game' got its nickname because the crowd's roar registered on what?
Q 21Where does LSU play its home baseball games?
Alex Box Stadium
Alex Box Stadium is named for Simeon Alex Box, a 1942 LSU letterman and Distinguished Service Cross recipient killed in North Africa in 1943; the ballpark that replaced the original opened in 2009.
Q 22In 2023, which two LSU teammates became the first pair from one school to go 1-2 in the MLB draft?
Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews
Skenes, a transfer from Air Force, went first to Pittsburgh and Crews second to Washington, weeks after they had won the College World Series together.
Q 23Which pitcher was the first LSU player taken first overall in the MLB draft, in 1989?
Ben McDonald
A seismograph in a campus geoscience building
The demonstration seismograph sat about 1,000 feet from the stadium in the Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex and was there for school groups. The winning play was a Tommy Hodson touchdown pass to Eddie Fuller.
Q 14The 2002 'Bluegrass Miracle' was a last-second LSU touchdown against which team?
Kentucky
Marcus Randall's heave was tipped by a Kentucky player into the hands of Devery Henderson, who scored as time expired. Kentucky's players had already doused their coach with Gatorade.
Q 15Which LSU guard averaged 44.2 points a game over three varsity seasons from 1967 to 1970?
Pete Maravich
Pete Maravich scored 3,667 points at LSU from 1967 to 1970, averaging 44.2 a game with no three-point line or shot clock; his men's record stood when Caitlin Clark passed the overall mark in 2024.
Q 16LSU's 2023 women's basketball national title came with a 102-85 win over which team?
Iowa
LSU beat Iowa 102-85 in the 2023 final, the highest-scoring championship game in tournament history to that point; Angel Reese was named Most Outstanding Player.
Q 17Who coached LSU's women's basketball team to that 2023 national championship?
Kim Mulkey
Kim Mulkey, hired from Baylor in 2021, won the 2023 title in her second LSU season, becoming the first women's Division I head coach to win national championships at two schools.
Q 18In which year did LSU's women's gymnastics team win its first national championship?
2024
LSU gymnastics won its first national championship in 2024 under coach Jay Clark, edging California, Utah and Florida in the final; Haleigh Bryant also won the all-around title that year.
Q 19Whose walk-off home run beat Miami 9-8 in the 1996 College World Series final?
Warren Morris
With two outs and LSU trailing 8-7 in the bottom of the ninth, Morris swung at the first pitch and lined the ball inches over the right-field fence.
Q 20Which coach won five national titles with LSU baseball between 1991 and 2000?
Skip Bertman
Skip Bertman, hired away from Miami before the 1984 season, won five College World Series titles (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000) and later served as LSU's athletic director from 2001 to 2008.
Ben McDonald, the 1989 Golden Spikes Award winner, went first overall to the Baltimore Orioles; he had pitched for the gold-medal US team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics the year before.
Q 24Which opponent did LSU beat 56-0 in its first game outside the United States, in 1907?
University of Havana
LSU beat the University of Havana 56-0 on Christmas Day 1907 in Havana, Cuba, in a game later remembered as the first Bacardi Bowl.
Q 25How was the first Mike the Tiger paid for in 1936?
Twenty-five cents collected from each student
The $750 raised bought a tiger originally named Sheik from the Little Rock Zoo. He was renamed for athletic trainer Mike Chambers, and handlers found he would still roar when someone called 'Sheik!'
Q 26Which rival school's fans kidnapped Mike I in the 1950s and returned him sprayed green?
Tulane
He and his cage were found in New Orleans painted Tulane green before the game. The LSU-Tulane series was the program's defining rivalry for most of the 20th century.
Q 27What happened on the morning of November 28, 1981, involving Mike IV?
He escaped after pranksters cut his cage locks
Mike IV escaped early on November 28, 1981, after pranksters cut the locks on his cage; he roamed for hours and was cornered in the track stadium before three tranquilizer darts brought him home.
Q 28By legend, what did Huey Long have built inside Tiger Stadium in 1936 to fund seats through the back door?
Dormitories
Huey Long had dormitories built beneath new stands in 1936, so money earmarked for student housing paid for the seats above them; the expansion raised Tiger Stadium's capacity to about 46,000.
Q 29How many seats did Tiger Stadium have when it opened in 1924?
12,000
Tiger Stadium opened in 1924 with 12,000 seats in two sideline grandstands; it grew to a 67,720-seat bowl when the south end zone was enclosed in 1953.
Q 30Which Garth Brooks song is played at every LSU home football game?
Callin' Baton Rouge
'Callin' Baton Rouge,' written by Dennis Linde and first recorded by the Oak Ridge Boys in 1978, became a Tiger Stadium singalong after Garth Brooks's 1993 version.