Penn State Football Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
5correct to beat the crowd
48 free Penn State Football trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Penn State football is a program of plain uniforms and loud traditions: a 106,000-seat stadium that was literally moved across campus, a student section that turned white in 2004 and never looked back, and a nickname, Linebacker U, that a dozen NFL careers have earned. This quiz runs from the disputed 1881 game against Bucknell and the original pink-and-black colors, through Rip Engle, the 1982 and 1986 championships and the 2016 Big Ten title, to the 12-team Playoff run and the 2025 coaching change. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so it works just as well for a tailgate as for a quiet test of how well you really know Happy Valley.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Before joining the Big Ten in 1993, Penn State football had spent a century as what?
An independent
An independent: Penn State answered to no conference for a hundred years, then needed only two seasons in its new league to win the title, going 12–0 in 1994.
Q 02Penn State sealed its 1986 national title by upsetting which top-ranked team in the Fiesta Bowl?
Miami
Miami: the Hurricanes outgained Penn State 445 yards to 162, but Heisman winner Vinny Testaverde threw five interceptions and the Lions won 14–10.
Q 03Penn State's first recorded game, in 1881, was against which school?
Bucknell
Bucknell: the 1881 match in Lewisburg was scored 9–0 in goals, not points, and Penn State then went five years without fielding a team at all.
Q 04George Hoskins, Penn State's first head coach, left in 1896 to coach which future arch-rival?
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh: Hoskins took charge in 1892 after Penn State had played its first seasons with no coach at all, then crossed the state to lead its future rival for a year.
Q 05What were Penn State's original school colors before blue and white?
Pink and black
Pink and black: the story goes that sun and laundering bleached the pink to white, and in 1890 the Athletic Association switched to dark blue and white, which the students then approved.
Q 06Penn State's Nittany Lion mascot is what kind of big cat?
Mountain lion
Mountain lion: the animals roamed central Pennsylvania until the 1880s, and in 1907 the student who dreamed up the mascot used a campus humour magazine to urge his classmates to take it up.
Q 07Student H. D. 'Joe' Mason invented the Nittany Lion in 1904 on a trip to which university?
Princeton
Embarrassed that Penn State had no mascot, he made one up on the spot and declared it would easily beat the Princeton Bengal tiger.
Q 08Hugo Bezdek, who coached Penn State to a Rose Bowl, spent three summers managing which baseball team?
Pittsburgh Pirates
Pittsburgh Pirates: he ran the club from 1917 to 1919 between football seasons and lifted a losing team to fourth place, and years later he coached the NFL's Cleveland Rams too.
Q 09Rip Engle arrived in 1950 with his young assistant Joe Paterno from which Ivy League school?
Brown
Brown: Paterno had been Engle's quarterback there and meant to go on to law school, but he followed his coach to Penn State and never left.
Q 10Which 1950s Penn State halfback became a Hall of Fame star with the Baltimore Colts?
Lenny Moore
Lenny Moore: injuries cost him games in two straight seasons, but he came back in 1964 to score 20 touchdowns and be named the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year.
Q 11Which Penn State building is named for the Paternos?
The library
The library: in 46 seasons as head coach he gave millions to Penn State's academic side, and when the university took down his statue in 2012 it kept the family name on the building.
Q 12Joe Paterno's 409th win in 2011 broke which coach's Division I record?
Eddie Robinson
Eddie Robinson: the Grambling coach's 408 wins fell with a 10–7 home win in late October, and eleven days later Paterno was fired; the NCAA then struck 111 of his wins and restored them in 2015.
Q 13Joe Paterno won his first national title by beating Herschel Walker's top-ranked Georgia in which bowl?
Sugar Bowl
Q 21How did Penn State score the winning touchdown in its 2016 upset of No. 2 Ohio State?
Blocked-kick return
Blocked-kick return: Marcus Allen leapt to block a field goal try and Grant Haley ran it back 60 yards, lifting a team that had trailed 21–7 into the rankings for the first time since 2011.
Q 22Penn State ended the 2017 season by beating which team 35–28 in the Fiesta Bowl?
Washington
Washington: Saquon Barkley's 92-yard touchdown run put the Lions 28–7 up in the second quarter of his last college game, but the Huskies fought back and Penn State had to hold on to win by seven.
Q 23Who did Penn State beat 53–39 in the Cotton Bowl to finish the 2019 season 11–2?
Memphis
Sugar Bowl: the 27–23 win in New Orleans finally gave Paterno a championship, after three of his unbeaten teams had been passed over for the title in the final polls.
Q 14Who became Penn State's interim head coach after Joe Paterno was fired in November 2011?
Tom Bradley
Tom Bradley: 'Scrap' had been on the staff since 1979, but after he went 1–3 as caretaker the university looked outside the program for its next coach.
Q 15Bill O'Brien came to Penn State in 2012 from which NFL job?
New England Patriots offensive coordinator
New England Patriots offensive coordinator: he walked into heavy NCAA sanctions, still went 8–4 and was named national coach of the year, then left for the NFL's Houston Texans after two seasons.
Q 16The NCAA's 2012 sanctions on Penn State included a $60 million fine and a four-year ban from what?
Bowl games
Bowl games: the NCAA lifted the ban after only two seasons, and in 2015 it also gave back the 14 years of wins it had struck from the record books.
Q 17James Franklin was hired from which school in January 2014?
Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt: in three seasons there he took a program that had never played in bowls two years running to three in a row, and won the last two.
Q 18Penn State's 2014 Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium was an overtime win over which team?
Boston College
Boston College: the Eagles led by 14 in the third quarter and scored first in overtime, but missed the extra point, and Sam Ficken's kick won it 31–30.
Q 19Penn State's 2015 opener was a loss to which in-state team for the first time since 1941?
Temple
Temple: Penn State led 10–0 after a quarter and never scored again, as the Owls ran off 27 straight points to end a 74-year wait.
Q 20Whom did Penn State beat in the 2016 Big Ten Championship Game after trailing 28–14?
Wisconsin
Wisconsin: the Badgers led 28–7 in the second quarter before Trace McSorley threw four touchdown passes and Penn State won 38–31.
Memphis: the Tigers kicked six field goals, a Cotton Bowl record, but Journey Brown ran for 202 yards and Penn State won what was then the highest-scoring Cotton Bowl ever played.
Q 24Penn State's first 0–5 start, in 2020, began with an overtime loss on a two-point conversion at which school?
Indiana
Indiana: Michael Penix Jr. scored and ran in the tying two-point try with 22 seconds left, then ran in another in overtime to win 36–35, the first of five straight defeats.
Q 25In October 2021 Penn State lost an NCAA-record nine-overtime game 20–18 to whom?
Illinois
Illinois: under a rule new that season the teams traded two-point tries from the third overtime on, and both failed five times running before the Illini finally won it in the ninth.
Q 26Penn State capped its 11–2 2022 season by beating which Pac-12 champion in the Rose Bowl?
Utah
Utah: an 87-yard run by Nicholas Singleton and an 88-yard catch by KeAndre Lambert-Smith, then the longest scoring pass in Rose Bowl history, gave Penn State its first win there in 28 years.
Q 27Whom did Penn State beat at Beaver Stadium in its first College Football Playoff game, in December 2024?
SMU
SMU: sixth-seeded Penn State returned two interceptions for touchdowns inside the first 17 minutes and won 38–10, giving James Franklin his 100th victory at the school.
Q 28Which team ended Penn State's 2024 Playoff run with a late interception in the Orange Bowl?
Notre Dame
Notre Dame: with the score 24–24 Drew Allar tried to throw the ball away and was intercepted with 33 seconds left, and the Irish kicked the winning field goal with seven seconds to play.
Q 29James Franklin was fired in October 2025 the day after a one-point home loss to which team?
Northwestern
Northwestern: the 22–21 defeat came a week after a loss at previously winless UCLA, and Franklin was dismissed the next day with a 104–45 record at Penn State.
Q 30Which head coach did Penn State hire in December 2025 to replace James Franklin?
Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell: he left Iowa State as its winningest coach, taking over a team that interim Terry Smith had pulled from 3–6 to bowl eligibility by winning its last three regular-season games.