Talk:Florida Gators football/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: AHeneen (talk · contribs) 01:25, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm claiming this review, which I should get around to either tomorrow (May 5) or, because of lack of time, Sunday or Monday (May 8 or 9).

Not well written (particularly layout issues, GA criteria 1b)

As an initial matter, the lead does not adequately cover the entire article (see MOS:LEAD) and the "overview" section does not have any inline citations.

The notes in the "Conference division championships" section are not formatted properly. Either include those notes in the main notes section or use a separate notelist at the bottom of the table.

I think that there are far too many notes. It's hard to go through the entire list and explain which ones should be incorporated into the prose, but overall the notes section is way too long. Examples:

• "Beginning in 1972 freshmen were now allowed to play on southeastern teams" + Note 41: "For the first time since 1921" is poor quality prose (first GA criteria)...could be "Beginning in 1972, for the first time since 1921, freshmen were permitted to play on southeastern teams..."
• "Most of Florida's 1996 offensive players were returning upperclassmen, who set dozens of team scoring records as they began the season with a 10–0 record." + note 46 "During this stretch, Spurrier became the Gators' all-time winningest coach, surpassing Ray Graves' 70 career wins." Why place this statement in the notes section?? It is much more appropriate in the prose.

In my view, the excessive number of notes reflects poor quality prose (GA criteria #1...it's not concise).

Images (GA criteria 6a)

There are many photographs which probably are still copyrighted:

• File:Fleming Field 1920s.jpg - Florida state law allows universities to hold copyright; "University of Florida Archives, Special Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries" is the source of the image, not the author
• File:Defensive back Richard Fain.jpg - I nominated this image for deletion on Commons, see commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Defensive back Richard Fain.jpg. The Florida Memory page states: "Additional Corporate Creator: Associated Press" and that the photo is part of the Mark Foley collection. The information page about the collection does not say anything to suggest that copyright has been relinquished. It says "Foley retired from the Associated Press in 2002". The AP (as his probable employer) almost certainly holds the copyright in this photo.

The following images have the copyright statement: "Copyright expired because the work was published without a copyright notice." It is very unlikely that the yearbook was published without a copyright notice. The notice can be anywhere in the yearbook (most likely in the first few pages or near the end); it doesn't have to be beside the photo.

• File:Edgar Charles Jones (Florida).png
• File:Raymond "Bear" Wolf.png
• File:Bob Woodruff (1951 Seminole).png
• File:Victorious "Gator Ray" Graves.png
• File:Steve Spurrier vs. Georgia.png
• File:Carlos Alvarez (1971 Seminole).png
• File:Doug Dickey (1971).png

The following images do not have complete fair use rationales

• File:Dale Van Sickel.png
• File:Gatorsfergie.jpg
• File:1984Gatorsceremony.jpg

This image does not have correct copyright info. Either it is the official logo of UF athletics and thus copyrighted by the school or it is made up by the uploader:

• File:Florida Athletic Logo.jpg

This image is suspicious, but I can't prove that it is a copyright violation using a reverse image search. It is the only file ever uploaded by the uploader "Hungry McGrouchypants" and was taken with a decent camera:

• File:Percy harvin.jpg

Inline citations (Verifiability, GA criteria 2)

There are many sentences that lack an inline citation (GA criteria #2), eg.:

• "The 1905 football season was a lost one, since university president Andrew Sledd ruled several players ineligible for academic reasons.[note 5] The state university's football team began varsity play when the Gainesville campus opened in September 1906.[note 6]"
• "Florida finished the see-saw season with a 4–3 record, and Pyle left to become athletic director of West Virginia."
• "Kline's first year saw an improved, 6–3 overall record but a 1–3 conference record. He upgraded the team for his second season, bringing in five players "from the University of Oklahoma and the western states."[note 12]"
• " The 1928 team was considered the best Florida football team until at least the 1960s by many sports commentators. After the 1932 season, the Gators joined other prominent southern programs to establish the Southeastern Conference."
• "The 1930s and 1940s were difficult for the Gators. After posting a six-win season in 1934, Florida did not win more than five games in a season until 1952."
• "Lieb's best season was probably his first, in 1940, when the Gators defeated Georgia, Georgia Tech and Miami."
• "As a former Tennessee football player and disciple of Volunteers coach Robert Neyland, he emphasized defense, field position and the kicking game over an open offense; however, during Woodruff's first season in 1950 the Gator offense posted record numbers.[note 31] With victories over Auburn and Vanderbilt, it was the Gators' first season since 1940 with two SEC victories. The 1951 Gators again won two SEC games (against Vanderbilt and Alabama in Tuscaloosa), in addition to inter-sectional victories against the Wyoming Cowboys (13–0) and Loyola Lions (40–7)."
• "The Gators won the Gator Bowl again in 1962, upsetting ninth-ranked Penn State.[note 37] Florida began its 1963 season with a 1–1–1 record.[note 38] The season highlight followed: a 10–6 upset of the Joe Namath-quarterbacked, third-ranked Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa, one of only two home losses in Denny Stadium during Bear Bryant's twenty-five years at Alabama.[note 39] The Gators won their last three games—against Georgia (21–14), Miami (27–21) and FSU (7–0)—to finish with a 6–3–1 record."
• "and Florida quickly integrated black players into the team."
• "Although he helped build Florida's football program, a public scandal and NCAA sanctions crippled it after his departure."
• "Georgia radio announcer Larry Munson's call of the play gave the game its nickname: "Run Lindsay Run.""
• "The greatest player during Hall's tenure was All-American running back Emmitt Smith, who set school and conference rushing records from 1987 to 1989.[note 44] The Gators began the 1988 season with a 5–0 record, and were ranked as high as 14th. During an October game against the Memphis State Tigers, Smith injured his knee and was unable to play for a month. Florida lost that game and the next three, with the Gator offense unable to score a touchdown while Smith was sidelined."
• "The 1992 Gators won the first of five consecutive SEC Eastern Division titles. They lost the first SEC Championship Game to eventual national champion Alabama, 28–21."
• "and Oklahoma Sooners head coach Bob Stoops. After both turned him down, Foley decided on New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator and former Gator assistant Ron Zook as Spurrier's replacement."
• "They defeated Georgia (its only loss of 2002) and upset LSU in 2003 on its way to the BCS Championship, but lost to both SEC Mississippi schools and twice to Miami. The Gators lost six games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, one more than they had in 12 years under Spurrier."
• "the first African-American head coach at Florida and the second in SEC history."
• "and a number-13 final ranking, but Tebow's record-setting season earned him the Heisman Trophy; he was the first sophomore to receive the honor."
• "'Meyer finished his six years at Florida with two BCS national championships, two SEC championships, a 5–1 bowl record (.8333), and an overall win-loss record of 65–15 (.8125)."
• "Florida finished with a top-10 ranking."
• "McElwain, the first Gator coach to win more than nine games in his first year at Florida, finished his first regular season with a 10–2 record."
• The "Jerseys" section has just one reference in the middle. The entire section needs inline references.
• The "Rivalries" section needs references. Just because there's a separate article does not mean that these sections are excluded from the verification section.
• The "Conference affiliations" section has no citations
• The "Bowl games" section has no references in the table (ref after sentence at top of section does not support the content of the table).
• Several issues in the "Individual award winners" section. I added relevant cleanup tags in this section.
• Lots of notes lack an inline citation.

Length (GA criteria 3b)

The article is currently 70kb "readable prose size", which is quite long. See WP:LENGTH: articles ovre 60kB "probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)". About half this article is about the history of the program and ought to be split from this article (see Wikipedia:Summary style) into its own article, eg. History of the Florida Gators football program.

Reference style (GA criteria 2a)

Finally, the references do not use a consistence format. They are a mix of regular (full) citations and short citations ("5. Kabat, pp. 23–33") that have a full citation in the "Bibliography section". Use one style or the other, not both!

Result

This article does not meet GA criteria at this time and there are far too many issues with this article to place it on hold for a short period of time for those issues to be fixed. The lack of inline citations for a substantial amount of content, problems with the images, and inconsistent reference format will require a lot of time to fix. I also strongly believe that the history of the program should be split off into a separate article.

AHeneen (talk) 15:19, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the criticism Heneen. Harsh but necessary. I am trying to clean up the notes section right now, and will start to fix the sourcing issues at least in the history section in the coming days and weeks. Cake (talk) 22:33, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Note the prior discussion as to whether the history section should be split into a separate article: Talk:Florida Gators football#Article size. Cbl62 (talk) 13:32, 12 May 2016 (UTC)