50 free Rutgers trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Rutgers is older than the United States, was named after a Revolutionary War colonel who donated a bell, and once had a rooster for a mascot that its own football coach called a chicken. This Rutgers trivia quiz covers the whole story: the 1766 charter from Benjamin Franklin's son, the first classes in a tavern, the 1869 game against Princeton that started college football, the campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden, and the move to the Big Ten. You will also find questions on the people who passed through: Paul Robeson, Milton Friedman, Selman Waksman and streptomycin, Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the law faculty, James Gandolfini, Ray Rice and the Pandemonium in Piscataway. Difficulty runs from easy questions any Scarlet Knight can answer to expert-level details about the Cannon War, the alma mater rewrite and Adam Korsak's punting records. Every answer was checked against university histories and encyclopaedic sources before publishing, and each question is cited. Good for alumni gatherings, tailgates and New Jersey trivia nights.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Under what name was Rutgers originally chartered in 1766?
Queen's College
It honoured Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. King's College was the original name of Columbia.
Q 02New Jersey's last royal governor, who signed the 1766 charter, was the son of which Founding Father?
Benjamin Franklin
William Franklin stayed loyal to the Crown during the Revolution, unlike his famous father.
Q 03The college was founded by ministers of which denomination to train future clergy?
Dutch Reformed
That connection survives in the university motto, which is adapted from Utrecht University's in the Netherlands.
Q 04Rutgers is one of how many 'colonial colleges' chartered before the Revolution?
Nine
The others include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth and William & Mary. Rutgers and William & Mary are the only two that are now public.
Q 05Where were the college's first classes held in 1771?
In a tavern
The Sign of the Red Lion tavern was abandoned when the British began suspecting taverns of harbouring rebels, and classes moved into private homes.
Q 06Who was Henry Rutgers, for whom the college was renamed in 1825?
A Revolutionary War colonel
The trustees said he 'epitomized Christian ethics'. A year later he gave a $200 bell that still hangs in Old Queens and a $5,000 bond that saved the college's finances.
Q 07Which two gifts from its namesake did the newly renamed college receive in 1826?
A bell and a $5,000 bond
The bond was worth about $142,000 in 2025 dollars and put the school on sound financial footing after years of closures.
Q 08Rutgers became New Jersey's land-grant college in 1864 under which federal law?
The Morrill Act
That created the Rutgers Scientific School, with departments of agriculture, engineering and chemistry.
Q 09In which decade was Rutgers designated the State University of New Jersey by the legislature?
1940s
Acts of 1945 and 1956 made it public, though it retains some private rights as successor to the 1766 college.
Q 10In what year did Rutgers College first admit women?
1970
The board of governors voted on September 10 that year. Women had been served since 1918 by the New Jersey College for Women, later Douglass.
Q 11Rutgers' historic core, including Old Queens, sits in which New Jersey city?
New Brunswick
The College Avenue Campus is close to downtown and the train station. Busch and Livingston lie across the river in Piscataway.
Q 12Which river separates the College Avenue campus from the Busch and Livingston campuses?
The Raritan
The alma mater is 'On the Banks of the Old Raritan'. The Camden campus sings a nearly identical version about the Delaware.
Q 13Which sponsor's name did the Rutgers Athletic Center (RAC) take in 2021?
Jersey Mike's
The trapezoidal building is home to the men's basketball team and is famous for its noise.
Q 21Which future star of a 1950s family sitcom was Rutgers' quarterback from 1924 to 1926?
Ozzie Nelson
He was also an early arts editor of the student humour magazine Chanticleer, the source of the mascot's name.
Q 22Rutgers is 'the birthplace of college football' thanks to a game on November 6 of which year?
1869
Rutgers beat Princeton 6–4 at home. The rules, based on England's 1863 Football Association code, made it closer to soccer.
Q 23How many players did each side field in that first 1869 game against Princeton?
25
No throwing or running with the ball was allowed. Teams played ten 'games', each ending with a goal, and the side with more goals won.
Q 14Rutgers' northern campus was formed in 1946 when it absorbed what?
The University of Newark
Rutgers–Camden followed in 1950 with the College of South Jersey and South Jersey Law School.
Q 15In 2011, Governor Chris Christie tried to merge Rutgers–Camden into which other school?
Rowan
Campus protests and pushback from Camden faculty, students and alumni killed the plan.
Q 16Who became the first sitting US president to speak at a Rutgers commencement, in 2016?
Barack Obama
It was part of the university's 250th-anniversary celebrations, which culminated on November 10, 2016.
Q 17What was changed in the Rutgers alma mater in 2013?
A line about fathers sending sons to become men
'My father sent me to old Rutgers, and resolved that I should be a man' became 'From far and near we came to Rutgers, and resolved to learn all that we can.'
Q 18Rutgers' only official school colour is what?
Scarlet
Students had pushed for orange in honour of the Dutch heritage, but the Targum argued for a striking colour whose ribbon was easy to buy. Trustees made it official in 1900.
Q 19What was Rutgers' mascot from 1925 until 1955?
A fighting rooster
It came from the medieval fable of Reynard the Fox, but the association with 'being chicken' made it a punchline.
Q 20Which football coach dismissed the rooster mascot as 'a chicken' and bought the first knight costume in 1955?
Harvey Harman
The knight won a campus-wide vote over 'Queensmen', 'Red Lions' and 'Flying Dutchmen'. Today's costumed knight is called Sir Henry.
Q 24What did the Rutgers players wear in the 1869 game to tell themselves apart from Princeton?
Scarlet turbans and handkerchiefs
The habit stuck: it is the origin of the school colour that trustees made official in 1900.
Q 25Before the 1869 game, Rutgers and Princeton students had feuded for years over what object?
A Revolutionary War cannon
Princeton finally encased it in several feet of concrete on its campus, then crushed Rutgers 40–2 at baseball. The football challenge was revenge.
Q 26What was Rutgers' first intercollegiate athletic event, in 1866?
A baseball game lost 40–2 to Princeton
Rowing had been the first organised sport at Rutgers two years earlier, with six-mile races on the river.
Q 27Rutgers and Princeton staged the first intercollegiate contest in what sport in 1972?
Ultimate Frisbee
Rutgers won again, 29–27.
Q 28Rutgers men's basketball reached the Final Four once. In which year?
1976
They lost to Michigan in the semifinal and to UCLA in the consolation game, finishing ranked fourth in the country.
Q 29Rutgers officially joined which athletic conference on July 1, 2014, alongside Maryland?
Big Ten
Before that it played in the Big East from 1991 and, for a single season, the American Athletic Conference.
Q 30What name did Rutgers' Piscataway football stadium take in a 2019 sponsorship deal?
SHI Stadium
The Busch campus is also home to the golf course and the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.