University of Florida
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50 free University of Florida trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The University of Florida is one of the best-known public universities in the United States, and its Gators are a fixture of autumn Saturdays. Behind the game-day noise is a long story: a school pieced together from older colleges, moved to Gainesville in the early 1900s and grown into a major research university. This quiz covers the whole of UF: how the university was founded and where its landmarks came from, the coaches and players behind its national championships, the cheers, songs and mascots of a home game, discoveries made in its labs, and the athletes, writers, broadcasters and politicians who studied there. It is written for students, alumni and Gators fans, and it suits a UF trivia night, a tailgate, an orientation icebreaker or a trivia team warming up. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which sports drink did a University of Florida research team led by Robert Cade create for its football players in 1965?
Gatorade
Gatorade was tried out on ten Florida football players in practices and games that season, and the tests were judged a success.
Q 02Florida Gators football's home, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, got which nickname from the team's head coach in 1992?
The Swamp
The Swamp was chosen because swamps are where alligators live. The stadium had opened in 1930 as plain Florida Field.
Q 03Which Florida Gators quarterback became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, college football's top award?
Tim Tebow
Tim Tebow took the 2007 award after becoming the first major-college player to both run and pass for at least 20 touchdowns in one season.
Q 04Which Gainesville-born rock star's song have Florida Gators crowds sung at every home game since his death in 2017?
Tom Petty
Tom Petty died in October 2017, and five days later the stadium first played I Won't Back Down, which now follows the third quarter at each home game.
Q 05Florida Gators bands accompany the Gator Chomp arm gesture with the theme from which film?
Jaws
Jaws supplies the two-note motif, played while fans clap outstretched arms together like an alligator's mouth. The university band began the gesture in 1981.
Q 06Which Florida Gators running back left for the Dallas Cowboys and became the NFL's all-time leading rusher?
Emmitt Smith
Emmitt Smith ran for 18,355 NFL yards, passing Walter Payton's record in 2002. He went back to Florida in his off-seasons and finished his degree in 1996.
Q 07The University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History keeps the global database of attacks by which animals?
Sharks
Sharks are the subject of the museum's International Shark Attack File, which grew out of a research panel the U.S. Navy set up in 1958.
Q 08Which school did the Florida Gators beat in both the football and men's basketball national championship games of 2007?
Ohio State
Ohio State lost 41–14 in football that January and 84–75 in basketball in April, making Florida the first Division I school to hold both titles at once.
Q 09Which Florida city has hosted the Florida–Georgia football rivalry game in almost every season since 1933?
Jacksonville
Jacksonville became the game's regular neutral site in 1933. The rivalry left town in 1994 and 1995 while the old Gator Bowl stadium was demolished and replaced.
Q 10Which two colors do University of Florida teams wear, a pairing thought to blend the colors of two predecessor schools?
Orange and blue
Orange and blue probably combine the orange and black of the East Florida Seminary with the blue and white of Florida Agricultural College.
Q 11Before its 1906 move to Gainesville, the college then called the University of Florida stood in which town?
Lake City
Lake City lost a head-to-head contest with Gainesville to host the newly merged university, and classes opened on the new campus in September 1906.
Q 12Which 1905 Florida statute merged the state's colleges into three schools, creating the modern University of Florida?
Buckman Act
The Buckman Act took its name from legislator Henry Holland Buckman, who is also remembered by Buckman Hall, one of the first two buildings finished on the Gainesville campus.
Q 13The 1905 shake-up that made the University of Florida a men's school put the state's women's college in which city?
Tallahassee
Q 21Which 1966 Heisman Trophy winner returned to coach the Florida Gators to six league titles and a national title?
Steve Spurrier
Steve Spurrier, nicknamed the Head Ball Coach, took the job in December 1989 and became the winningest coach in the program's history.
Q 22Which quarterback won the 1996 Heisman Trophy while leading the Florida Gators to their first national title?
Danny Wuerffel
Danny Wuerffel threw a nation-leading 39 touchdown passes that season, and also took the Draddy Trophy as college football's top scholar-athlete.
Q 23Which head coach led the Florida Gators to football national championships in both the 2006 and 2008 seasons?
Urban Meyer
Tallahassee's Florida Female College later became the Florida State College for Women and, eventually, Florida State University.
Q 14Which University of Florida landmark, begun in 1953 for a founding anniversary, holds a carillon of 61 bells?
Century Tower
Century Tower had no money for real bells when it was finished in 1956, so an electronic system chimed instead until student fees bought the first cast set in 1976.
Q 15Which University of Florida campus wildlife area lets visitors watch alligators from the shore?
Lake Alice
Lake Alice nearly lost part of its shore in the late 1960s, when planners wanted a cross-campus road and a 2,000-car parking lot there. Campaigners led by Marjorie Harris Carr defeated the plan.
Q 16The University of Florida campus is home to the world's largest occupied houses built for which animals?
Bats
Bats, an estimated 450,000 to 500,000 of them, live in the two houses, and visitors gather every evening to watch the colony pour out at dusk.
Q 17The University of Florida's McGuire Center holds one of the world's largest research collections of which creatures?
Butterflies and moths
Butterflies and moths fill the center's drawers in a collection that rivals the Natural History Museum's in London, and live ones fly in its Butterfly Rainforest.
Q 18Which architectural style did William A. Edwards choose for many of the University of Florida's original buildings?
Collegiate Gothic
Collegiate Gothic halls form the heart of the campus historic district, which joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
Q 19Which name did the Florida Gators give the live alligator that first appeared at football games in 1957?
Albert
Albert was a real reptile on the sidelines until 1970, when a costumed version took over the job. A partner, Alberta, joined him later.
Q 20Ben Hill Griffin Jr., whose name is on the Florida Gators' football stadium, made his fortune in which industry?
Citrus
Citrus magnate Griffin was an alumnus and major benefactor, and the university put his name on the stadium in 1989 after nearly six decades as Florida Field.
Urban Meyer came to Gainesville from the Utah Utes in 2005, and later joined the short list of coaches to win major national titles at two universities.
Q 24Which coach led Florida Gators men's basketball to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007?
Billy Donovan
Billy Donovan kept his whole starting five for the second run: all of them chose to return to Gainesville instead of leaving early for the NBA draft.
Q 25Which Florida Gators center, son of a French Open tennis champion, was Most Outstanding Player of the 2006 Final Four?
Joakim Noah
Joakim Noah, whose father Yannick won the 1983 French Open, led the 73–57 win over UCLA that gave the school its first basketball title.
Q 26The University of Florida was one of thirteen charter members that formed which college sports league in 1932?
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, when thirteen Southern Conference schools west and south of the Appalachians broke away together.
Q 27Which Florida Gators forward spent his entire 20-year NBA playing career with his hometown Miami Heat?
Udonis Haslem
Udonis Haslem went undrafted in 2002 and played a season in France before signing with Miami, where he won three NBA championships.
Q 28Which former Florida Gators quarterback starred on The Bachelor in 2004 and became the show's permanent host in 2021?
Jesse Palmer
Jesse Palmer was the first professional athlete to lead the dating series and, as a Canadian, its first non-American star.
Q 29The Florida Gators clinched their first football national title by winning which postseason game after the 1996 season?
Sugar Bowl
The Sugar Bowl was a rematch: Florida won 52–20 over the only team that had beaten it during the regular season.
Q 30Which team did the Florida Gators edge 65–63 to win the 2025 men's basketball national championship under Todd Golden?
Houston
Houston's narrow defeat capped a 36–4 Florida season and delivered the program's third national title, its first in 18 years.