NCAA Football Coaches Trivia Quiz

Answer: Brigham Young (BYU)

LaVell Edwards was appointed head coach of BYU in 1972 after a decade as an assistant coach. During his tenure, the Cougars dominated the Western Athletic Conference, winning 18 conference titles between 1974 and 2006. In 1984, they had a 13-0 record, including a victory over Michigan in the Holiday Bowl, as a result of which they were voted National Champion in the AP poll. Edwards retired after the 2000 season and the school renamed Cougar Stadium as LaVell Edwards Stadium in his honor.

Answer: Vanderbilt

Bear Bryant was a student at Alabama in the 1930s, and was an end in the team which won the 1934 national title. After a number of assistant coaching jobs, his first shot as head coach came at Maryland in 1945. After a number of fallouts with the university president, he left after just one season and took over as head coach at Kentucky, leading them to the SEC title in 1950. He left after the 1953 season, feeling that the school's gridiron squad would always be in the shadow of their basketball team.

Bryant's next head coaching job was at Texas A&M, where he remained for four years, before moving on to his most famous tenure, at Alabama. In 25 years in charge of the Crimson Tide, he led them to 14 SEC titles and six national crowns. He retired after the end of the 1982 season and sadly passed away just weeks later. Bryant was a line coach at Vanderbilt in the early 1940s but was never head coach there.

Answer: Grambling State

Grambling State University was founded in 1901 in Lincoln Parish, Louisiana. Eddie Robinson was hired as the school's head coach in 1941, and, over the next 56 years (there was a two-season hiatus during World War 2), won an amazing 408 games, 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) titles, and nine Black college football national championships.

As well as all that, he even doubled as head coach of the school's basketball team between 1943 and 1956. Grambling renamed their football stadium Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium in his honor.

Answer: Joe Paterno

Joe Paterno (commonly known as JoePa) was an assistant coach at Penn State between 1950 and 1965 before being appointed head coach in 1966. Over the next 46 seasons, he recorded 409 victories and won two national crowns, in 1982 and 1986, as well as three Big Ten titles (the Nittany Lions had played as an independent school prior to 1993).

He also set NCAA records with 37 bowl appearances and 24 bowl victories.

Answer: Chicago

Amos Alonzo Stagg was one of the biggest names in the formative years of college sports. A football and baseball player at Yale, he was appointed head football coach at the University of Chicago in 1892. He held the position for 40 years, winning two national crowns and seven Big Ten titles. He also had stints as head coach in basketaball, baseball and track.

Stagg left Chicago after the 1942 season and spent the next 14 years as head coach at the University of the Pacific. He has a number of stadiums named after him as well as the annual Division III national title trophy and the Big Ten championship trophy.

Answer: Bobby Bowden

Bobby Bowden was briefly a quarterback at Alabama before transferring to Howard College (later known as Samford). After sixteen years as an assistant coach at various schools, he was appointed head coach at West Virginia in 1970. After leading the Mountaineers to victory in the 1975 Peach Bowl, he took over as head coach at Florida State.

In 34 seasons in Tallahassee, he led the Seminoles to 12 Atlantic Coast Conference titles and two national crowns, in 1993 and 1999. He won 389 games in total during his career, but the NCAA later vacated 12 of these due to an academic scandal.

Answer: Saint John's (MN)

John Gagliardi was appointed to his first head coaching role at Carroll College in Montana in 1949, aged just 22. After winning three conference titles in four years with the Fighting Saints, he moved to Collegeville to take charge of Saint John's University.

He would be in charge there for an amazing 60 seasons, winning 27 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles and four national crowns, two at NAIA level and two at NCAA Division III level. He would finally retire following the 2012 season aged 86.

Answer: Bill Snyder

Bill Snyder took over as head coach of Kansas State in 1989. When he arrived, the Wildcats had suffered more losses in Division 1-A history than any other team during their 93-year existence. Within four years, he had turned them into regular winners, with annual bowl appearances. He led them to a first-ever Big 12 Conference title in 2003, before retiring (for the first time) in 2005. The school renamed their home stadium the Bill Snyder Family Stadium in his honor.

Snyder was rehired in 2009, and spent a further 10 seasons in Manhattan, leading them to a further eight bowl appearances, and a second conference title, in 2012. Snyder retired for a second time in 2018

Answer: Pittsburgh

Pop Warner is regarded as one of the great innovators of college football in the early 20th century. A guard at Cornell, he began his head coaching career at Georgia the year after graduating. He coached at a number of schools before arriving at Pittsburgh in 1915. He led the Panthers to 29 straight victories, winning the National Title in 1915, 1916 and 1918.

Warner left the Steel City after the 1923 season to take over at Stanford, and won a national crown there in 1926. He moved back to Pennsylvania in 1933, spending the last six seasons of his coaching career with Temple.

Answer: Lou Holtz

Lou Holtz was a linebacker at Kent State before embarking on a coaching career. After a number of assistant coach roles, he became head coach at William & Mary in 1969, leading them to the Tangerine Bowl the following year. From 1972 until 1975, he was head coach at North Carolina State, winning the ACC title (in 1973) and reaching a bowl game in all four seasons. After a brief, unsuccessful spell in the NFL with the New York Jets in 1976, Holtz returned to the college game with Arkansas, sharing the 1979 SWC title in 1979, and reaching a bowl game in five out of six seasons in Fayetteville.

Next stop for Holtz was Minnesota, and a trip to the Independence Bowl in 1985. The following year he began an 11-year stint at Notre Dame, whom he led to a National Title in 1988, along with nine straight bowl appearances between 1987 and 1995. Holtz' last head coach role was at South Carolina, whom led to back-to-back Outback Bowl appearances in 2000 and 2001. He would retire from coaching at the end of the 2004 season.