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1990s College Football Trivia: A Nostalgic Test

A 1990s college football trivia test from the Bowl Eligible bank: all ten Heisman winners of the decade, the champions, draft-night history, and what the final AP polls say about the era.

The 1990s were the last decade of the old sport: no playoff, split titles, tie games early on, and bowl matchups decided by contracts instead of committees. This test is built from the Bowl Eligible trivia bank, plus a closing section computed from the final AP polls of 1990 through 1999, the same final-poll data behind our Poll Position game. Thirty questions first. Then the receipts.

The Heisman run, 1990–1999

Ten questions, ten winners, no misses allowed if you lived through it.

  1. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1990? Ty Detmer (BYU)
  2. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1991? Desmond Howard (Michigan)
  3. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1992? Gino Torretta (Miami (FL))
  4. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1993? Charlie Ward (Florida State)
  5. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1994? Rashaan Salaam (Colorado)
  6. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1995? Eddie George (Ohio State)
  7. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1996? Danny Wuerffel (Florida)
  8. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1997? Charles Woodson (Michigan)
  9. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1998? Ricky Williams (Texas)
  10. Who won the Heisman Trophy in 1999? Ron Dayne (Wisconsin)

Who won it all?

The bank's champion questions cover eight of the decade's ten seasons. The two gaps, 1991 and 1997, are the split-title years, when the polls could not agree and two schools hung banners. The final AP poll's No. 1 for those two years is in the closing section below.

  1. Which school won the college football national championship in 1990? Colorado
  2. Which school won the college football national championship in 1992? Alabama
  3. Which school won the college football national championship in 1993? Florida State
  4. Which school won the college football national championship in 1994? Nebraska
  5. Which school won the college football national championship in 1995? Nebraska
  6. Which school won the college football national championship in 1996? Florida
  7. Which school won the college football national championship in 1998? Tennessee
  8. Which school won the college football national championship in 1999? Florida State

Name his school

  1. Peyton Manning played college football at which school? Tennessee
  2. Emmitt Smith played college football at which school? Florida
  3. Brett Favre played college football at which school? Southern Miss
  4. Marshall Faulk played college football at which school? San Diego State
  5. Randy Moss played college football at which school? Marshall

Draft-night archaeology

  1. In which year was Emmitt Smith drafted? 1990
  2. In which year was Brett Favre drafted? 1991
  3. In which year was Marshall Faulk drafted? 1994
  4. In which year was Ki-Jana Carter drafted? 1995
  5. In which year was Peyton Manning drafted? 1998
  6. In which year was Randy Moss drafted? 1998
  7. In which year was Kevin Faulk drafted? 1999

The decade in final polls

Now the part you cannot get from memory, because nobody memorizes final polls. These are computed from the ten final AP Top 25s of 1990–1999.

Eight schools finished a 1990s season at No. 1 in the final poll. Florida State (1993, 1999) and Nebraska (1994, 1995) did it twice each. Colorado (1990), Miami (FL) (1991), Alabama (1992), Florida (1996), Michigan (1997), and Tennessee (1998) did it once. That is the answer to the two missing champion questions above, by the way: the final AP poll topped out at Miami (FL) in 1991 and Michigan in 1997.

Only five schools appeared in all ten final Top 25s of the decade: Florida State, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, and Tennessee. Florida State did them one better and finished in the top 10 in all ten, the decade's only perfect attendance record where it matters most. Miami (FL), Penn State, and Texas A&M each made nine of the ten.

Staying power at the very top was nearly as rare. After Florida State's ten top-10 finishes, the next best marks belong to Florida with eight, then Tennessee and Nebraska with six each, and Michigan with five. Behind them, Colorado, Miami (FL), and Penn State each managed four top-10 finishes, and Notre Dame matched Colorado with seven final-poll appearances in ten years. The decade's reputation is a handful of dynasties taking turns, and the final polls agree: eight schools shared the ten No. 1 finishes, and six of them did it exactly once.

Across the decade, 67 different schools appeared in a final Top 25 at least once. The sport felt smaller then, ruled by a short list of powers, and the top of the poll backs that up. But the bottom of the poll kept rotating: 16 of those 67 schools appeared in exactly one final Top 25 all decade, one-year guests like Army, Tulane, Utah, and Wyoming, which is why the decade produced so many one-year wonders for trivia banks to feed on.

Keep going

Poll Position hands you one of these final polls, scrambled, and asks you to rebuild it from memory, all 25 spots. Gridiron Trivia pulls questions from every era, but now you know where the 1990s ones live.

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