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Importance assessment -- any concerns?

I believe I've addressed all questions asked and concerns raised, regarding the proposed importance assessment. Does anyone have any further questions or concerns about this? If no one raises an objections within a week (by February 2), I'll start implementing this. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 18:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Cmadler, your importance assessment matrix looks good. Good work. Have at it. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Same here. I say we go for it. DeFaultRyan 05:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Moving ahead with this. The banner template that goes on talk pages is permanently full-protected, so I've requested the edit to allow importance assessment. Implementation steps after that will be:

• Update the template documentation.
• Create the importance categories.  Done cmadler (talk) 20:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Start assessing.

Is there anything else I'm not thinking of? cmadler (talk) 17:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

This WikiProject may be interested...

...in this discussion at WT:NFL. Eagles 24/7 (C) 23:00, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Problematic BLP

In checking importance assessments this morning, I came across Tommy Blake. It's problematic because it discusses his psychological problems at length, but it sourced primarily to four dead links. Perhaps someone can take some time to find archived versions of these sources or add other suitable sources; if not, I think this will probably need to be deleted. cmadler (talk) 13:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Articles by quality/importance matrix

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/College football articles by quality statistics (which is transcluded near the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Assessment). This matrix, sorting CFB articles by quality and importance, could form the basis of article improvement efforts; first priority for improvement efforts might go to top-importance stubs. cmadler (talk) 14:28, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

What to Split

I need help on Template talk:Louisville Cardinals football navbox I added the links Bowl games (takes you to Louisville_Cardinals_football#Bowl_history) and Head coaches (takes you to Louisville_Cardinals_football#Head_coaches) then Jrcla2 Undid revision 476913361 by Theworm777 and said WP:CFB consensus and WP:SPLIT and put these red links in there place Bowl games and Head coaches I dont see a guideline for WP:SPLIT on WP:CFB and dont think these 2 pages, need there own page. Can we make guidelines to add WP:CFB for spliting pages? Do these items need there own page? Theworm777 (talk) 03:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Worm, as of December 2011, WP:CFB collectively imposed a new standard format team navbox for college football teams. While several issues as to what should and should not be included remain unresolved, at present we are not including links to individual bowl games. There should, however, be a single link to an article/list of the Louisville Cardinals' bowl games. Last December, there was a discussion of whether there should be some team-specific flexibility as to the specific items to be included; one of the possible items to be discussed for flexible inclusion was a short list of bowl games—and by short, five or fewer games were mentioned for programs that had not yet participated in more bowls than that. This remains to be resolved in a future discussion regarding the uniform format of the team navboxes; however, I note that Louisville has already played 16 bowl games, and such an exception, as previously discussed, would not apply to it. There are already separate navboxes for Louisville bowl games and head coaches. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I also note that no one has yet created separate articles for List of Louisville Cardinals football head coaches and List of Louisville Cardinals bowl games which are currently linked in the team navbox. Here's an opportunity for a Louisville fan like yourself. If you're looking for an example of what these to-be-created list articles should look like, take a peek at the analogous list articles for the Alabama Crimson Tide----they are excellent examples. If you need help getting started, just ask. A lot of WP:CFB would be willing to help. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:22, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I was asking if they should be split?(moved to their own page) I dont think its enough info to have their own pages. They don,t take up much room and dont fit the size limits on WP:SPLIT to be split. The lists are already made Louisville_Cardinals_football#Bowl_history and Louisville_Cardinals_football#Head_coaches they would just need to be cut and pasted to the new page and links to them was on the navbox. I had these navbox Template:Big East Conference football coach navbox and Template:Big East Conference football venue navbox on team season pages but Jrcla2 removed them. Theworm777 (talk) 05:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding WP:SPLIT, with 16 bowl games and 21 coaches should be more than enough material to support separate Louisville Cardinals list articles, and there is ample precedent to support them within WP:CFB. For example, the List of Florida Gators head football coaches has 23 included coaches. The separate list articles usually include far greater detail than a brief list included within the parent team article.

Regarding the Big East navaboxes, you'll need to discuss that with Jrcla, but as a rule, only team navboxes are included on team pages, only coach navboxes are placed on coach pages, and stadium/venue navboxes would only be included on stadium pages, not team pages.

The Florida Gators football page is like 10 times as big as the Louisville Cardinals football so by size of the main page I dont see a reason or need for a split. I am getting so tired of all the politics(seems like you have to fight over every little thing here and anything you do it seem you have to go talk and debate about) here it takes to do anything I think I am going to quit editing anything very much at all anymore you can move me to inactive. Have fun and peace out Theworm777 (talk) 05:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

A solution that I often find helpful in cases like this -- where there probably will be articles eventually but aren't yet -- is to go ahead and create the new articles as redirects to the relevant sections of the main article. It avoids the redlinks now, and whenever the content gets spun out to the new articles the correct links will already be in place. cmadler (talk) 11:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

List of William & Mary Tribe football seasons

Since we're on the topic of assessment, can somebody assess how important my new article List of William & Mary Tribe football seasons is? Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 21:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I took a crack at it. The Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Assessment#Importance scale says that individual team seasons for a FCS team would be rated at "Low", and that lists are generally assessed at the level of items on that list. This seems about right, given that William & Mary Tribe football would be assessed at "Mid" importance, and that sub-topics are generally assessed at one level lower than the parent topic. DeFaultRyan 21:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

SIUE Cougars vs. SIU Edwardsville Cougars?

I would like active contributors here to weigh in at Talk:SIUE Cougars regarding the school nickname. I had moved "SIUE Cougars" over to "SIU Edwardsville Cougars" today because that's how all of our college sports WikiProjects have been referring to them (and the school itself had been using that naming convention). Another editor reverted my move and said to discuss the change over at its talk page. Upon further research, it does appear that "SIUE Cougars" is now how the school brands itself / they have shied away from the old standard of spelling out Edwardsville. My question, then, boils down to this: Should we argue to keep SIU Edwardsville because it is less ambiguous, or do we cede to the school's efforts in its abbreviated form? I'm on the fence about it. If we do think SIUE Cougars is correct (at this point), then all of the athletic categories will need to be renamed. Jrcla2 (talk) 04:53, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I've moved the article back to SIU Edwardsville Cougars per ESPN and the NCAA. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:50, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistencies at WP:GAC

Looking at 2011 Michigan Wolverines football team and 2011 Alabama Crimson Tide football team, which are new additions to the WP:GAC queue, neither looks complete compared to the other.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Importance assessment question

I'm looking for community input on how best to classify articles like Florida State Seminoles and Penn State Nittany Lions. My thought is that in an ideal Wikipedia these would be in a parent WikiProject called "College athletics"; they're no more a part of WP:CFB than, say, University of Michigan. Since that parent wikiproject doesn't exist, we should probably keep them in our project, but I think they should be assigned either NA-importance or Bottom-importance, basically indicating that they aren't really within this project but that we do keep an eye on them. The article of primary interest to this wikiproject is Eastern Michigan Eagles football, not Eastern Michigan Eagles. Thoughts? cmadler (talk) 16:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of these general college team pages tagged under WP:SPORTS. That might be a good place for them to remain until authors see fit to create a subproject/descendant project under WP:Sports for college sports. My vote is to remove them from CFB and reassign them to SPORTS. DeFaultRyan 19:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with that too. Really, I'm fine with anything that keeps such articles out of WP:CFB's higher-importance ratings (top, high, mid). cmadler (talk) 20:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC) I left a courtesy note at WT:SPORTS inviting them to this discussion. cmadler (talk) 20:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Guys, I agree the college sports program articles should all be tagged with WP:SPORTS banners, but I'm not under the impression that WP:SPORTS is terribly active in patrolling college sports program articles. Given the close relationship of these articles to CFB and CBB, and the prominence those sports usually have within the program articles, I would suggest that we continue to tag them with the WP:CFB and WP:CBB banners, too, but give them a relatively low importance rating. Obviously the primary team articles are of top or high importance to the projects, but we do have an interest in helping the sports program articles progress. It also makes our lives a lot easier when the "parent" sports program articles follow the same navbox and other formatting conventions as the CBB and CFB articles. I think we're the only ones watching a majority of the other college sports team articles for baseball, volleyball, women's basketball, etc. Jweiss, Jrcla, Strikehold and other CBB/CFB editors have been very active in creating standardized coach navboxes, infoboxes, category trees, etc. for other college sports. Unless and until other college sports subprojects become active, or other parent sports projects like baseball, golf and swimming take an interest in the college articles, we're left tending the store by default. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that WP:SPORTS should be the primary project for these articles. That being said, Dirtlawyer1 makes a good point. There's a bit of a management vacuum when it comes to these sports program articles. To some extent the same may be true about the conference articles. This project, and perhaps WP:CBB as well, has more participation and traction than WP:SPORTS, despite a narrower scope. Perhaps the time has come to establish a college sports taskforce within WP:SPORTS. That could be a great venue for us to formally codify and maintain many of the unified standards the have been cooking at WP:CFB and WP:CBB and may apply to other sports as well. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Interesting note, it looks like WP 1.0 bot treats bottom-importance articles as though they're removed from our project; see here. cmadler (talk) 15:22, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Review please

Been a while since I started some new articles for coaches. Please check List of Alderson–Broaddus Battlers head football coaches and the coach links associated and let me know if I've missed any standard changes to layout/templates/etc.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:28, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Cool list from a resurrected program I had not head of! I tweaked some of the formatting to incorporate comments made for coaches' lists that have come up during recent WP:FL reviews I have worked on. Hope this helps, and keep up the great work! Patriarca12 (talk) 15:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Importance assessment on older teams

I made the assessment table using current terms (AQ, FBS, FCS, etc.). However these have not always been in use. Obviously Division I-A = FBS and Division I-AA = FCS, so that is easy, but how to treat pre-subdivision, pre-numbered division (University/College), pre-division, and pre-NCAA teams? We have articles saying that University Division became Division I and College Division became Divisions II and III, but I don't think it's that simple. My sense is that most of the University Division schools are now the AQ schools ("major conference") and many College Division schools moved up fairly quickly to what are now non-AQ (e.g. MAC, Sun Belt, WAC, etc.) and FCS levels? I started into it with this edit but then realized I wasn't sure how best to treat them...thoughts? cmadler (talk) 15:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The College Football Data Warehouse has information about the historical NCAA classifications of teams, e.g. http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/mac/akron/index.php. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I know about that. (Aside: according to this, from this site, CFB Data Warehouse is wrong, and the College and University Divisions did not officially exist until 1968.) My question is: looking at the importance assessment chart, which I built using current (2011) divisions and subdivisions (AQ/FBS/FCS/Other), where would you put a College Division team from 1968, or Division II team from 1975? And what about pre-division (which, again, may have been as recent as 1967) and pre-NCAA teams? The reason I'm asking is that I'm not convinced that we can really draw a straight line from whatever categorization was going on in the 1930s, to College Division, to modern Division II/III. cmadler (talk) 23:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I'm still not being clear, so I will try to put it a different way. Today, the AQ teams are the top category, comprising about 65 schools. The next category is FBS non-AQ, comprising the next 60ish. The next category is FCS, comprising about 122. Obviously for pre-BCS seasons, the "big six" conferences + ND are the equivalent of AQ. Is there a simple way to define similar classifications (top 50-75, next 50-75, next 120ish) for pre-subdivision and pre-division seasons? That's what I'm trying to get at (and in doing so, noticing that our big-picture historical coverage is not good). cmadler (talk) 00:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

AFB game box

I have been incorporating AFB game box into season articles for Michigan lately. However, the template does not work effectively for older games that were played in halves rather than quarters. I've tried to adapt it at 1898 Michigan Wolverines football team#Week 2: Kenyon without success. If anyone has the technical expertise to create a fix, I'd appreciate the help. Cbl62 (talk) 16:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Check out Template:AFB Game Box Start 2 periods. I think that should work here. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

That looks perfect. Thanks. Cbl62 (talk) 18:39, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

2012 ACC Championship Game

2012 ACC Championship Game is up for deletion. Please comment here. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:49, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:College football winless seasons ?

I was thinking about creating Category:College football winless seasons. I think it would be a very interesting and useful category. If we have Category:College football undefeated seasons there's really no reason to not have its opposite too. Anyone disapprove before I make it? (edit: I'm not asking permission, but if there is a reasonable explanation as to why it shouldn't exist, I will consider that first.) Jrcla2 (talk) 19:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Jrcla2, I think it's a noteworthy and interesting bit of CFB trivia and probably deserves a category and its own "list of" article, but please, no navboxes! [Before anyone razzes me about my Florida Gators, I note for the record that the Gators have one more winless season (four—1916, 1918, 1946 and 1979) than they do national championships (three).] A "list of" article would be a nice counterpoise to the CFB undefeated seasons article, and a link should be included in the "see also" sections of the listed CFB season articles. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok I made the category. Feel free to add it to any season articles (or season redirect articles themselves) where the team failed to a win a game (if they tied, that's still ok to include them since they didn't win any games). Jrcla2 (talk) 21:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Conference season navboxes

In season articles, is there really a need for navboxes like {{2011 Southeastern Conference football navbox}}? Within each regular season article there is a standings template ({{2011 SEC football standings}}) with much of the same information, and the schedule box contains the majority of the info as well from the navbox. I realize all of the bowl games are not in either the standings template or the schedule box, but at the same time I do not think their exclusion will negatively impact potential readers of CFB season articles. I have created these types of navboxes myself in the past, but after reflecting on it do not think they are necessary and simply duplicate what is already in even the stubbiest of CFB season articles. I know others will disagree, but I thought I would bring it up here to see if anyone else feels the same way and whether or not TfD's are warranted. If not, that's cool too, just thought it was worth a discussion here. Patriarca12 (talk) 23:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of these templates. I agree that they don't add much value on season articles, and as I've stated before I really don't like them on bowl game articles. I don't feel they add much to aid navigation and wouldn't mind seeing them deleted. –Grondemar 23:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Grondemar. They seem redundant. Jrcla2 (talk) 04:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Template overkill to me.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

They seem like overkill to me too, but I know they have one big fan....roar! Jweiss11 (talk) 05:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• Per the discussion here I have nominated these templates for deletion; you can find the discussion here. –Grondemar 02:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Gabe Carimi

Hello. Please see this discussion on whether or not "The Bear Jew," a nickname for Gabe Carimi, should be included in the lead of the article. Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Greg Mathews (American football)

I am not sure where to ask for help on Greg Mathews (American football). The Arena Football League project seems inactive. I would like to update the text based on this, but 1.) I suspect that page will change and 2.) I don't understand what the Arena football roster move terms mean.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 08:48, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Albertson College / College of Idaho

I created Category:College of Idaho Coyotes football and Category:College of Idaho Coyotes football players yesterday. The school used to be known as Albertson College of Idaho until the name change, and they now compete in the NAIA. If anyone wants to tackle finding the head coaches to create/fill that subcategory, that'd be great. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to make conference timelines more consistent

I noticed that conferences in List of NCAA conferences have articles, usually including a membership timeline. While some of the decisions made for each conference make some sense, there is a wide variety of styles for the various timelines, particularly involving color choices, but also other matters of style that could be more consistent.

for example, a school with a yellow bar means:

• An associate member in one sport (if part of the BE)
• A former member of the conference (in the SEC)
• A future member of the conference (in the SEC and Big West)
• A football only member (in the Sun Belt)
• A team that has moved to another conference (in the WAC, NEC)
• A full member of the Big Sky

Some graphs have captions, some do not, and none are centered. To see the variety of styles, review Current conference timelines

I think it would be worth discussing how best to provide some measure of consistency, recognizing that there may be legitimate reasons for some differences from a standard presentation (for example, some conference show the name of the new conference for former members. In some cases, this makes sense, in other, it may not.)

I've produced a draft of how the timelines would look with some consistency added. Please see Draft proposal of conference timelines.

I propose a discussion to see if there is consensus on improving the consistency.

Because it would not be practical to have this discussion on each and every conference talk page, I suggest centralizing this discussion here.

It is critical to achieve consensus, but we do not have to agree to make every aspect of the timelines exactly the same. I will create some subsections, so people can weigh in on each one.

Caption

Some timelines have captions, some do not. There is some attempt to center the captions, but most are just approximations. The proposal shows captions, all centered.

I can imagine three options, although there may be more:

1. All timelines should have captions
2. No timelines should have captions
3. Editors at each conference should separately decide whether to include a caption.

(a minor decision is whether conferences should use the full name or the abbreviation. I prefer the full name, but that may differ by conference.) Option 1

• Support SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Overall size of the graphic

Most timelines were 800 pixels in size, but some were larger some smaller. I see two options:

1. Standard size
2. Size determined by consensus at each conference.

Option 1

• Support SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Of course, even if we agree that the size should be standard, we need to determine the standard. I selected 800, as it seemed common and worked well.

• Support 800px as standard size. cmadler (talk) 16:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Display count of schools

Many displays showed the number of schools, some suppressed it. I think it is useful, for example, in the SEC to see the count of 17, and easily see that there are 12 current, three former, and two incoming.

I see three options:

1. Always show the count
2. Never show the count
3. Decide by consensus at each conference.

Option 1

• Support SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Option 2

• Support cmadler (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Color choices

This may well be the most contentious, as editors may be closely associated with one conference, and may be "used" to the color choice for that conference. However, we should recognize that readers may look at one conference and then another, and it is confusing to have different color schemes for each conference.

I'm not an expert on color, but I do know that simply choosing colors at random produces a colorful, but sometime jarring impression. There is a concept called Color theory, which deals with how colors should be chosen. I am far form an expert, but I used this site for help, and picked a set of colors with the following attributes:

• Not too dark, as we want the team name to be embedded and easily seen.
• Qualitative (rather than sequential or diverging) See the link for more discussion)
• Complementary, which is what the site selects, given a count and other parameters

Ignoring the decision by two conferences to use team colors, and the decision by two conferences to distinguish current from prior members, I needed six colors:

1. Full members
2. Full members (non-football)
3. Associate members (football only)
4. Associate member (some sports)
5. Other Conference
6. Other Conference

(The two needed for other conferences is to distinguish when a team moves from one other conference to another.)

The draft shows the colors I selected. I chose the Full member color to be close to the powderblue used in most graphs. I picked the lightest color to correspond to the tan used to denote other conferences in many timelines.

I see three options

1. Colors should be consistent across conferences, and these are fine
2. Colors should be consistent across conferences, but I have another suggestion
3. Let each conference pick its own colors

Option 1

• Support SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Legend

The timeline has a legend option. None of the conferences used it, and I did not figure it out. I built my own, and included the colors used in each case.

I see two options

1. The legend looks fine
2. Someone should figure out how to do the legend code

Option 1

• Support SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Special Notes

If the color scheme and legend is acceptable, there is no need to break the Great West into two separate timelines. Other may have a different opinion.

I tried to follow the existing timeline faithfully, but I don;t know all the conferences, and may have missed something. Obviously, even if the change is made, editors familiar with each conference should check to ensure that it is correct. For example, one conference talks about "football status" I interpreted that as meaning "football only", but I might have misread it. SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Implementation

While I support BRD in some cases, I have no intention of making any changes until there is a consensus that some changes are warranted, and we are in agreement on which aspects should be consistent, and which should be up to each conference. I will leave the proposal in draft form, and reflect such changes as are proposed by a consensus of editors. SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, it would still not be consistent. Some conference timelines include past/future (i.e. Big East Conference conference affiliation in the article but some don't in their timelines. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 15:53, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I'm looking for more consistency, but don't want to pursue that to a fault. I did note this very point in an early parenthetical comment—some conferences specifically identify the name of the new conference when a team moves to a new conference, others do not. For some conferences it would be unwieldy if we tried to enforce that all should have it, so that's the type of decision that I think should be left to the individual conference editors. The BE and WAC (and others) do include that information, but it might detract from the main point if added to the Southern conference. The America East has opted to include the information, but as footnotes—I think it is worth checking to see if it would be better to incorporate it into the graphic. I recommend that we agree the inclusion of bars for new conferences is a conference specific decision.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to see how it would look, I added an America East alternative (Go to "America East Alternative" in proposed) , where the new conferences are denoted by bars, rather than by footnotes. It's a bit of a kludge for Central Connecticut, because of so many changes, but it shows how it might look if they decided to denote change in conference as does some others.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:06, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I think giving the name of the new conference for each team would be incredibly valuable for the Southern Conference, because it would make clear that the 1932 departures became the SEC, and the 1953 departures (plus 1937 departure Virginia) became the ACC. I think that it would also be better to order teams first by year joined, second by year departed, and third alphabetically. So, Southern Conference would look something like the following (just a start). cmadler (talk) 13:49, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Southern Conference, collapsed for space here

Convenience break for editing

Nice work. I agree, it does provide some useful information. For example, you wouldn't know that GW was independent 1970-1976 by looking at the A-10 timeline. (As an aside, I don't know what to make of this page, suggesting GW played in the Southern conference in 1975. Maybe just an error?)--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I made a copy, and labeled it Southern Alternative. Still need to finish a couple, for example, Davidson in 88-91--SPhilbrick(Talk) 13:07, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

This makes me wonder if there's a good way to expand such charts in the other direction, to show a member school's previous conference. That way, the SEC chart, for example, would show that all the founding schools split off from the Southern Conference. cmadler (talk) 14:30, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why not, I think it could be vary useful for the Western Athletic Conference and the Mountain West Conference. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 15:13, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like an intriguing idea. I hope you won't mind if I urge that we take a two-step approach - get the graphs using a consistent schematic, then look into supplementing to show the history. I agree that it would be interesting to see an existing conference and where all the schools came from.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:45, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

After a week for discussion, I've seen no objection, so I am going to begin replacing the old format with the proposed format.

The main (minor) open issue, is whether the count should be displayed. Cmadler was opposed, so I'm going to defer to that position. I will add a comment:

#> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<#

so that if any particular conference wants to do it differently, they can make the change easily.

I was originally concerned about the suggestion that adding the new conferences would be visually a problem in some cases, but that doesn't seem to the a problem, so I'm going with the alternative, which does contain the useful information indicating where a team has gone when they change conferences.

I'm intrigued by Cmadler's suggestion "to expand such charts in the other direction, to show a member school's previous conference". I think it is a good idea, but it can be done by interested volunteers once the copying is done, as the template should now be easier to use.

I trust the template is obvious, but just in case, rather than use the canned colors, I defined a color for each of the options, and created a variable for each one. Rather than needing to remember the name of the color for each category, one can simply use one of the following:

• Full value Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports
• FullxF Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football
• AssocF Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only
• AssocOS Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote)
• OtherC1 Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference
• OtherC2 Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two

Request for Comments: Team infobox practices

Your comments regarding team infobox practices are solicited: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College Basketball#Request for Comments: NCAA Sweet Sixteen phantom appearances. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:00, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

C. J. McNaspy

When I saw his article, I thought that he was the Louisiana–Lafayette baseball, football, and basketball head coach as well its first athletic director. Then I noticed his date of birth, and realized it couldn't possibly be the same person. Can anyone help me out? Cbl62 I'm looking at you! :) Jrcla2 (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Free HighBeam accounts

Hello all – free HighBeam 1-year accounts are being given out at Wikipedia:HighBeam/Applications. This might come in useful for this WikiProject's devoted editors. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

User:BCSBowls

This user has been creating useless season articles. See 1976 Vanderbilt Commodores football team, 1988 Texas Longhorns football team, and 1988 UTEP Miners football team. The Texas and UTEP articles were quite problematic as they were wildly inaccurate, and in fact, look like they had been copy/pasted from an entirely different article. Delete? DeFaultRyan 01:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

The Vandy article was incorrect as well. These articles should either be fleshed out correctly or deleted. I've left a note for BCSBowls on his talk page. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I've deleted all three per CSD A3 after Jweiss11 removed the incorrect information. Eagles 24/7 (C) 03:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

He's back at it again, but this time under another account: BCSBowls0. DeFaultRyan 14:42, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, while we're at it, it looks like his is at least his third account. See: Special:Contributions/TexasRealm. What is this person up to? It's certainly a bizarre editing pattern. DeFaultRyan 15:03, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Categories for renaming

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 March 21#TCNJ football categories and weigh in. Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:57, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

FCS team navboxes

Hi all (Seems like I've been starting new topics a lot here lately...) – a thought came to me today regarding FCS teams' navboxes' standardization. I wholeheartedly agree that they should be set up to include, and laid out like, the FBS navboxes' information. However, given the inherent difference in FCS playoffs versus FBS bowl game systems, I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on possibly incorporating playoff appearances as a standardized piece of info.
Truth be told, I'm not at all married to this idea, but the more I think about it the more it seems to make sense to me. My proposal would be to italicize the seasons in which the team had a playoff appearance akin to the way we currently bold the national championship seasons. That way, it wouldn't be taking up any extra space on the navbox but it would still be visually accessible and easy to navigate. Here is a mock-up I made of the W&M one:

Feel free to call this idea garbage, honestly, I won't mind. Thoughts? Jrcla2 (talk) 16:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Good job. Works for me. DeFaultRyan 19:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Jrcla2, I don't think this is a good idea. We're not denoting FBS conference championships or BCS bowl berths in the FBS navboxes, and those achievements are more significant than an FCS playoff berth. More to the point, we should be pushing against added adornment and more complex formatting for the navboxes. They are there to provide navigation between related articles in the simplest, clearest fashion. Nice job putting together List of William & Mary Tribe football seasons. That's one of the places where we should be driving home a summary of what happened in every season with special formatting as necessary. Another article we may want to think about creating is List of William & Mary Tribe football postseason games, essentially a blowout of the established "List of [School] [Fight Name]] bowl games" articles. This could contain two sections, one for the early bowl appearances and another for the NCAA playoff games. It would be nice to get this framed out because we'll need it to service other lower division teams with early bowl appearances (e.g. Delaware) and lower division teams that move up to FBS after NCAA playoff appearances (e.g. UMass). Plus, if FCS ever goes to a playoff format, we'll be ready. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:50, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Split the seasons into 2 groups "FBS Seasons" with the bar below National Championship seasons in bold Conference Championship seasons underlined Bowl appearances in italics and "FCS Seasons"with the bar below National Championship seasons in bold; Conference Championship seasons underlined then playoff appearances in italics If a team has played in both FCS and FBS just a idea Theworm777 (talk) 20:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Underlined the 1947 Conference Championship season for a example of what it will look like underlined Theworm777 (talk) 21:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no policy, guideline, or consensus on standardizing navboxes by any Wikiproject, let alone this one. No Wikiproject owns templates. Customization can occur and should be preserved to best serve the the categorical articles collected in the navboxes, which is the individual teams, not one of multiple possible Wikiprojects that the article falls under. This matter was previously listed for discussion around the holidays and did not get sufficient feedback and will have to be listed again. IMO, the foisting of the current "standardized" structure of CFB Wikiproject navboxes is unacceptable and William & Mary's navbox should be customized to best suit its particular football program. CrazyPaco (talk) 05:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

At the end of the day, I'm not worried about whether something should or shouldn't be included on a navbox (there are more important battles in real life to be picking), and I also threw the idea out there to get some feedback. I respect your opinion that there should be variation if it is warranted for that program, but I also think there's a lot of good in having a set standard on how they should be laid out and what should be included. It prevents random fanboy editors (whether registered or IP) from going in and making the team navbox look like the school's PR Department created it. By being able to point back at a conversation that led to consensus, it's a lot easier to show others that it isn't personal (nor does it fall under WP:IDONTLIKEIT), and that the decision was reached through numerous editors working together. Again, with respect to the W&M navbox, I can see already how italicizing playoff appearances is superfluous given that List of William & Mary Tribe football seasons exists – the main, branched off article is where the nitty gritty info can and should be found, not through an increasingly more convoluted navbox. Jrcla2 (talk) 02:02, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

CrazyPaco, you're right that we never finished the discussion back just before the new year. I think the idea was to wait until after the new year then open it up at an RFC? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I had a busy period for awhile and haven't been on Wikipedia much. We can do a proper RfC if you wish. CrazyPaco (talk) 00:14, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

My fault, CP. I volunteered to prepare the RfC on this topic, and I allowed myself to be consumed by other controversies. I will begin to prepare the RfC—should be ready in a week or so. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

No problem. It seems that we all got busy. I think we should be able to find some middle ground between customization to fit best individual programs and avoiding WP:PROMOTION. CrazyPaco (talk) 00:50, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Biographical article in need of creation

If any of you CFB regulars are in limbo about a biography article in need of creation, Andrew Rodriguez (American football) might be a good one. The senior at Army was this year's recipient of the William V. Campbell Trophy as well as the 2011 recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award. He appears on {{William V. Campbell Trophy}} and {{Sullivan Award winners}}. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:28, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

• Forgot to mention the Army source: http://www.goarmysports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/032012aab.html Jrcla2 (talk) 15:29, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Notability standards for regular season college football games

Gentlemen, there is an important AfD discussion taking place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2011 Michigan vs. Notre Dame football game, which involves the application of the notability standards to individual regular season college football games. Please share your insights on point. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:05, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Navbox style guide

I was going to start this discussion on the style guide talk page, but didn't want it to get buried and lie unresponded-to. Can we get a discussion/consensus for the dispute at Template:Arkansas Razorbacks football coach navbox? There is no documented style guide for navboxes as it relates to listing a head coach's tenure, but common sense would seem to indicate that, in the vast majority of cases the year in which a coach directed his final regular-season game is the year listed for the end of his tenure. (This avoids the "misleading January bowl" issue, which could cause a navbox to imply that a coach who was only at the helm through a January bowl game actually coached a portion of the following season.)

I believe that the Bobby Petrino situation, however, is a unique exception to that standard. We've had a dispute at the navbox page referenced above as to whether Petrino's coaching tenure should be listed as ending in 2011 or 2012. The "final regular season game" standard would dictate the 2011 date, but I think a date of 2012 is more accurate. Petrino was Arkansas' coach well beyond the end of the 2011 season, and performed significant coaching duties with an eye towards future seasons at Arkansas. He signed a new recruiting class in February, hired new football staff members in March, and directed the first half of Arkansas' spring practice in March and the first week of April. He was clearly involved with the program during the 2012 year, and it seems to me that the navbox should reference that fact.

(To be fair, this is really a minor quibble over a technical detail, and I'm trying not to be a jerk about it. I think it's important to establish a precedent, however, for the fact that extenuating circumstances could necessitate a departure from standard procedure in certain situations like this.) -Jhortman (talk) 20:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• Stick with current convention - My opinion on this is already known, but I'm formally putting it here. Spring practices and hiring staff members =/= being the head coach of the 2012 season. What would be misleading would be saying he "coached" into 2012, which he really didn't do. Furthermore, if the adopted standard were overturned now, think of the hundreds of navboxes that would have to be updated. Even more than that, how do we know which coaches at which programs were fired or quit sometime in the preceding spring of that season? (In other words, who's to say that Thomas Trenchard was or wasn't UNC's head coach until May 1916? We don't know, and there's no way to verify it. If we start changing coaching tenures now based on JHortman's rationale, we'd actually be creating inconsistent and unreliable coaching tenures). Jrcla2 (talk) 20:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Counterpoint - The Mike Price situation at Alabama is probably the closest contemporary correlation to the Petrino issue, and he is listed in Alabama's navbox with an explanatory note. Also, I don't understand why acknowledging exceptions in extraordinary cases with extenuating circumstances would automatically invalidate hundreds of existing navboxes. It's not against Wiki policy to have standards evolve, and Wikipedia is not a final draft, anyway. I think it's ok to have exceptions handled on a case-by-case basis. And when the extenuating circumstances are unclear or unverifiable (especially for the decades-old example you cite), you stick with the established standard notation. -Jhortman (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• Stick with current convention. When I saw this discussion, I immediately remembered the Mike Price situation at Alabama; sure enough, there is an asterisk and explanatory note similar to what we do for interim coaches. (Thanks, Jhortman, you beat me to the punch.) If we were to distinguish between Petrino and Price's situations, however, Price was hired by the university to be the full-time head coach, actually started the job, and was subsequently fired for his off-the-field issues (Pensacola lap dances, etc.), but he never actually coached in a regular season Crimson Tide game. As I recall (someone feel free to search the WP:CFB talk page archives), I believe this was discussed and the compromise was to acknowledge him with an asterisk and note, rather than just omitting him from the navbox completely. It was an extraordinary set of circumstances. Petrino, on the other hand, actually coached the Razorbacks for four seasons (2008–2011), and then got canned in the 2012 off-season. That's really not substantially different than getting fired in January after the bowl game season. Sucks to be Bobby; hope the tail was worth it. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• Stick with current convention. Jrcla2 brings up a really good point, which I also thought of earlier today. For consistency sake, it makes much more sense to go by actual season coached rather than by calendar date of tenure because the accessible historical records inform the former and not the later. It's true that Wikipedia is imperfect, but consistency is still a virtue worth striving for. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Consistency between articles is not a policy of Wikipedia. However, WP:Source is. How the NCAA and/or Arkansas ultimate list his coaching tenure is what matters here, as they are the highest authorities on this particular record should ultimately be listed. As it is perhaps too early to determine how they might record that, I agree that with you that his tenure should likely be stated as through 2011 for now, per CBl62. An asterisk can be used to designate when he was fired as a compromise, but I believe using 2011, with or without an asterisk, will be the most accurate representation of his tenure as he will not have coached a game in 2012. My guess is that is ultimately how the NCAA and/or Arkansas will list it as well. CrazyPaco (talk) 02:37, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

• Use the calendar year. He was the head coach for more than 25% of 2012, during which time he signed a recruiting class, hired staff members, and ran a significant portion of the spring practices. Throw an asterisk on it if you like -- in fact, I think regardless of which way he's listed he'll need an asterisk -- but it's misleading to only list him through 2011. cmadler (talk) 19:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
• Football season. I would understand the years in the navbox to refer to the football seasons when the person coached. It's a shorthand to let the reader know who was the coach in a particular season. More precise information can be put in the article. If Coach X were hired on December 17, 2009 and fired on February 17, 2011, I think it would be misleading to show 2009-2011 as his coaching tenure. He did not coach the 2009 team or the 2011 team. What the reader wants to know when viewing such a template is who was the coach in a particular football season. Cbl62 (talk) 21:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Western Kentucky

Apparently all of Western Kentucky's articles have been moved from Western Kentucky Hilltoppers to WKU Hilltoppers without any discussion. (If I missed the discussion, I apologize.) I don't agree with all the moves. All of the major news outlets refer to them as Western Kentucky, not WKU. See ESPN.com. What do you think? -AllisonFoley (talk) 20:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm neutral on the Western Kentucky naming issue, but might I suggest organizing an RfC at a central place such as the category page in order to reach consensus? See Category talk:Connecticut Huskies for a similar RfC resolving the use of "Connecticut" versus "UConn". –Grondemar 02:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

There's also a similar discussion above on Southern Illinois University Edwardsville vs SIUe. Billcasey905 (talk) 11:36, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the argument for the move was made based on an internal directive at Western Kentucky University ("Per 2010-11 WKU Athletics Annual Report, all teams are to be referred to as WKU, not Western Kentucky"). I agree that the key determinant should be major news outlets, followed by the NCAA, then relevant conferences, then the school itself. I'll support a move back to Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Jweiss11 (talk) 13:49, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI, the archived discussion regarding the category names is here. DeFaultRyan 19:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Are Kentuckians embarrassed to be from Kentucky? First, Kentucky Fried Chicken changes to KFC, and now this ;) Cbl62 (talk) 21:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Jweiss11 likes this. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I also support the move back to Western Kentucky. That appears to be how it's still referred to by major news outlets. The move should not have been based on an internal directive, and it should not be based on other schools that actually are referred to by initials in the news, such as UCLA. BlueGold73 (talk) 12:00, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

It appears there is consensus to make the move back to Western Kentucky. What is the next step? -AllisonFoley (talk) 01:19, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

• Keep WKU Impose a temporary moratorium to review the issue - The original editor who created the redirect, User:NThomas, referenced the 2010-2011 WKU Athletic Department annual report in his edit summary. That document is here (fair warning: 10MB PDF file), and it states on page 2: "Please refer to Western Kentucky University as WKU as much as possible in your daily conversations and correspondences. Nationally, while there are many universities with “Western” in their name, there is only one WKU and this will help us develop our unique branding name." In addition, all the logos and graphics in that document and at the official website use WKU, not Western Kentucky. Given that the athletic department now exclusively uses the WKU terminology, I think that's what should be used here. -Jhortman (talk) 05:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

• Per Dirtlawyer1's comment below, I now support a cooling off/review period to review whether the name change is warranted or not. -Jhortman (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• Move back to Western Kentucky unless the name of the school is changed to WKU we should use Western Kentucky the real name of the school for at-least the title of the pages. Wikipedia is not the place to "develop our unique branding name". Theworm777 (talk) 06:26, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
• Keep WKU – There's plenty of precedent of schools' abbreviations being used on Wikipedia instead of their full name. See BYU, LSU, SMU, TCU, and others.  –Nav  ^{talk to me or sign my guestbook} 08:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
• Keep "WKU"- If a school's directors wish to be referred to in a specific way within reason, shouldn't we do as such? If we're doing the ESPN/google test here, it's worth noting that if you narrow it down to the past year where the school started to ask for the name change, then you'll find that ""ESPN" "WKU"" gives 18 thousand results, and ""ESPN" "Western Kentucky University"" gives less than half that. (Note, that if you do the same, without the year stipulation, it gives "WKU" only 300 thousand to "Western Kentucky University"'s almost 2 million. I think that demonstrates that ESPN (the leading sports reporting figure) is adopting the change, and we should aswell.) Kramada (talk) 09:28, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

• Thats cause no one calls them "Western Kentucky University" try "ESPN" "Western Kentucky" you get About 1,970,000 results and About 212,000 results in past year WKU is used mostly in scores like most schools are shortened in. Theworm777 (talk) 11:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

• Western Kentucky per Theworm777--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 13:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
• WKU per Jhortman. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:53, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
• Move back to Western Kentucky per my original argument. Wikipedia's primary name reference should be the same as the major news outlets. ESPN uses LSU, TCU, UTSA, etc. ESPN does not use WKU as the primary name reference. They use Western Kentucky. Kramada's claim that ESPN is adopting the name change doesn't make any sense. ESPN's primary reference is Western Kentucky. Even their own Sun Belt Conference uses Western Kentucky as the primary reference in their schedules and standings. The articles were moved without reaching consensus and thus should be reverted. -AllisonFoley (talk) 06:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• Websites aren't perfect, going off UTSA, take Sports Illustrated for example, they have UTSA basketball referred to as such, but still have UTSA football referred to as Texas-San Antonio; also note that the URLs for both use tx-san antonio. ESPN articles also use texas-san antonio in articles and on television occassionally, Rivals uses "TSA" (Texas-San Antonio) instead of UTSA in it's urls, and Scout uses UT San Antonio. Somewhat related, I sent SI an email days ago about the football page not having "UTSA" and it's still not changed, which at least somewhat shows that even the bigger guys in the industry aren't always up to date.
  Shouldn't a school have the right to brand itself however it desires, just like if they were to completely rename their school? In their own documents, they state they don't even want to be referred to as "Western Kentucky" specifically ever (page 4). I see the argument that we don't want wikipedia to just be used as a tool for organizations to flaunt their brands, but I think specifically changing all the articles away from their exact desired persona is bad enough, but to turn them to a name they've spelled out that they don't want to be known as is a bit over the top. Texas State University-San Marcos for example is adamantly against being called "TSU", but should they be categorically called such just because we as some independent group think the school's own intentions and desires are silly?
  If we're going to force a school to be called something it's directors and decision makers have specifically pointed out they desire to not be called, I'd like to ask that we at least have a criteria for which we decide that a school's decisions about itself should be just completely ignored. Kramada (talk) 08:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Why is this discussion being held here and not on the article's Talk page where all interested parties can participate? ElKevbo (talk) 07:41, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Kevbo, that's easy: because many more editors who are knowledgeable about Wikipedia naming practices and notability will see and participate in the discussion here rather than there. I have placed a notice and link to this discussion on the Hilltoppers talk page to address your concern. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 08:14, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Also because this discussion is relevant to multiple articles: not just the main athletics article but also football team, football seasons, basketball team, basketball seasons, etc. Better to have such a discussion one time on a reasonably centralized page than to re-argue the matter article-by-article. cmadler (talk) 13:10, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Then the discussion needs to be properly labeled and advertised. If you want to have a broad-reaching RfC affecting multiple articles, including many not under the purview of this project, do so. It's shady to have this discussion without giving everyone who is interested a chance to participate. ElKevbo (talk) 16:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I have followed this discussion for the last week, and I still don't have a strong opinion one way or the other. Both sides have made good points, which seem to distill down to two basic arguments: (1) the Western Kentucky athletic department appears to be in the middle of a rebranding transition from "Western Kentucky Hilltoppers" to "WKU Hilltoppers"; and (2) most media outlets are still referring to the teams as the "Western Kentucky Hilltoppers," and not the "WKU Hilltoppers" at this time. I have a suggestion. Why don't we have a five-month moratorium on moving these categories and article names until at least August or September 2012, or maybe January 2013, and let's see where this is actually going. If the university and its athletic department are really rebranding, and they are using the "WKU" brand consistently, then I think we should, too. The university has the right call its teams the Greenbellied Dodos if it wants to do so, and nobody, including ESPN, can or should say boo about it. The university's effort to consistently rebrand, however, is not yet fully apparent; individual university webpages are still using "Western Kentucky" and "WKU." Given the conflicting evidence, there appears to be no ideal solution at this time. Why don't we just show a little patience, let this percolate a while, and I suspect that the correct answer will be crystal clear in the next 4 to 8 months. We sure as heck don't need to have an edit war or even a heated dispute over this. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Waiting to see how this rebranding effort pans out sounds like a good plan.

However, I must register my objection to the idea that we must follow the branding efforts of this university or any other entity. That is a direct contradiction to WP:COMMONNAME. If you disagree with that policy, please take it up in the proper venue. Until that widely-accepted policy is modified, we should follow it and not allow others to dictate our article titles. ElKevbo (talk) 16:29, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• I think a temporary moratorium to let the issue percolate is a great idea. I've changed my position above to reflect that idea. -Jhortman (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

• I generally agree with AllisonFoley and Dirtlawyer1 on this. The school is free to try to rebrand themselves in any way they like, but we should generally follow the common convention. It seems that ESPN and the like have not (yet) made a switch from "Western Kentucky Hilltoppers" to "WKU Hilltoppers", so we should not (yet) make such a change. I suggest that, per WP:BRD, the articles should be returned to their longstanding titles("Western Kentucky Hilltoppers") and that we should revisit this issue in January 2013, to examine whether media have accepted the university's change. cmadler (talk) 16:34, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Tense in articles on specific years

Following links from today's featured article 2009 Orange Bowl, I found that the articles for both competitors, 2008 Cincinnati Bearcats football team and 2008 Virginia Tech Hokies football team, had the same problem: Their lead sections were written in the present tense. I think they were written in 2008 (at least the Hokies article was), so it made sense at the time, but no one seems to have gone back and cleaned it up. Just a heads-up in case there's anyone interested in looking through other similar articles, or maybe establishing some sort of guide to help editors avoid the problem. --Trovatore (talk) 02:04, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, I've already corrected those two articles, but here are the permalinks so you can see what they said before my correction: [1] and [2]. --Trovatore (talk) 02:12, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Team season link use

I am doing a WP:HOCKEY WP:GAC review. I am being told that I am the only WP editor that uses team season links. I am trying to figure out if other sports writers use them. In a sentence like "In season YYYY-YY he led the team to a playoff victory over TEAM X" Should you link to TEAM X or YYYY-YY TEAM X season (piped of course)?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:09, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

With piped links, the key thing to balance against whatever expository convenience the pipe gives you is, how much does it harm the reader's ability to easily predict the content at the end of the link, without actually following it or hovering over it?

You don't want the reader to follow the link and think WTF? How did I wind up at this article, and you also don't want him to skip the link if he would have followed it had he known what article it was.

The first possibility is not very likely in this case, but the second could certainly happen (I see a link to San Francisco Giants, remember that I looked at the Giants' article recently, and pass on by, whereas I really might have wanted to know something about the 1984 squad). Against that you have to balance how useful the year-specific articles are, and how hard it would be to reword the sentence so that there are clues in the text itself helping the reader predict the outcome of the link. --Trovatore (talk) 18:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

When writing about a particular match in a particular season, I find it preferable to link to an article about that season, if one is available. cmadler (talk) 00:04, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I am told that virtually no GA or FA articles use team-seasons except those I have reviewed or written. Is this true?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Don't know. Don't care that much. I think it would be preferable. If, for example, I'm reading our article about the basketball movie Glory Road, it seems reasonable that I might want to read about the actual teams involved, and indeed, there's a (hard-to-find) link to 1965–66 Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team but not one to 1965–66 Texas Western Miners basketball team. In my ideal version of this article, both those team seasons would be clearly linked in the lead. cmadler (talk) 14:04, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

A good example is my most recent article Drake Dunsmore. He had notable performances against both the 2009 and 2010 Iowa Hawkeyes football teams, but the 2009 team had a half dozen guys in the 2010 NFL Draft. The 2010 team was a bit different.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Article for discussion: DeWayne Lewis

The following article has been nominated for deletion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DeWayne Lewis. Your informed participation is solicited. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

TfD of interest—Template:College sports rivalry

WP:CFB project members may wish to participate in this TfD discussion: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 May 1#Template:Infobox college sports rivalry. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Standardize Won/Loss Colors

Please see Template_talk:Table_cell_templates#Standardize_Won.2FLoss_Colors. --ben_b (talk) 19:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Rivalry?

Louisville–West Virginia rivalry: No trophy, not named/branded, has only been played 13 times, has no future games scheduled, and is not really ever discussed in the media as a rivalry outside of routine coverage. It seems to fail Notability in my opinion. At a minimum it could use some third-party citations that are of the non-routine variety. Thoughts? CrazyPaco (talk) 06:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Agree--non-notable rivalry.--GrapedApe (talk) 11:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
• Delete – There was a past discussion about deletion of quite a few of these "rivalry" articles. Off the top of my head, I think Boston College–Virginia Tech rivalry, Miami–Virginia Tech football rivalry and Kentucky–Mississippi State football rivalry could be zapped for failing WP:NOTE as well. Patriarca12 (talk) 01:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
• The ultimate test of WP:NOTE is whether is has been independently covered in reliable sources. Has there been coverage of a Louisville/West Virginia rivalry in multiple news sources that count as reliable sources apart from simply reporting a game? My guess is no, though I haven't researched it. -Jhortman (talk) 02:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Club rugby

Has anyone else noticed that a new editor is systematically adding club rugby sections to the Division I sports program articles? (See here.) I am certain that few, if any, of these university rugby club teams would satisfy the notability standards for inclusion as stand-alone articles on Wikipedia. How do you guys feel about this? What should be done? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

• Meh. WP:N only applies to stand-alone articles, not subsections. Club rugby teams are probably OK for inclusion-GrapedApe (talk) 03:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
  • WP:N only applies to stand-alone articles, but WP:UNDUE is relevant and demands reliable sources. Personally, I think this would be fine if it were reliably sourced. cmadler (talk) 14:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
• Since Rugby sevens has been added as an Olympic sport for 2016, I think it's probably just as appropriate as other Olympic sports that are mentioned in athletics articles. As GrapedApe said, Notability spplies to articles as a whole, and not necessarily to every topic in the article. (Though it's important to also note that all content does require reliable sources, which is obviously not the same thing as notability. A link to an official University page discussing the club team could be a reliable source, but isn't enough to establish notability.) I'd think that it's ok at this point if properly sourced. -Jhortman (talk) 15:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The difference is that club sports will not necessarily have an official university page (you're probably doing good if you can find a listing like this) and have varying degrees of noteworthiness. For example, Kentucky's men's ice hockey club probably merits mention in Kentucky Wildcats; I believe they've won a national championship in their division, and for many years they were UK's #4 sport by attendance, behind football, men's basketball, and women's basketball, and ahead of baseball. But Eastern Michigan has 18 club sports, including dodgeball, paintball, ultimate frisbee, and Muggle Quidditch. A bigger issue is that university club sports are often organized as part of a "Student Organizations" or "Student Affairs" department, not as part of the athletic department. As such, they'll also often choose a different mascot and different colors from the official athletic teams (e.g., I think EMU's Muggle Quidditch team calls themselves the "Flying Squirrels"). cmadler (talk) 19:25, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

User:IndoorFB63

User:IndoorFB63 has created a number of football bio stubs that I'm not really sure meet notability. They include Donta Abron, Chinedu Achebe, Nakia Jenkins, Greg Hadley, Alli Abrew, Eric Abrams, Gerald Abraham (American football), Toran James, Jonathan Jackson (linebacker), Chrys Chukwuma, Rickey Brady, Chris Bayne, and Jon Blackman. In fact, the only article he created that readily meets notability standards is Mike Crawford (American football) because he played for the Miami Dolphins in a few games his rookie year. I'm not going to nominate any of the aforementioned bios for deletion out of laziness and bigger priorities on Wikipedia, but they seem questionable and I thought I'd at least mention them here in case anyone wants to nominate them. Jrcla2 (talk) 03:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• Most of these players played at least one game in the CFL, XFL, and/or Arena Football League, which makes them notable per WP:NGRIDIRON. Of course, that doesn't make the articles any good (which they're generally not). Greg Hadley is the sole exception, and while he's not notable for his football pursuits, he is a researcher working in the area of CTE research, and a quick Google search on his name turned up results in Time magazine and CNN.com, so I suspect he meets WP:GNG. -Jhortman (talk) 12:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• The most specific notability guidelines applicable to professional football players are embodied in WP:NGRIDIRON; it states that any player who appeared in a regular season game in the NFL (and its predecessors, the AAFC and AFL), CFL, USFL and Arena Football League is presumed to be notable for purposes of a stand-alone article on Wikipedia. (For the record, the presumption of notability does not include XFL players.) While I vehemently disagree with the presumption of notability for Arena Football players (I don't believe it qualifies as a "top-level league"), that's what the guideline currently says. The presumption of notability for Arena Football players was inserted by a notorious sock puppet who was banned within days of the insertion in 2007, but I doubt we could remove the Arena Football language now, almost five years later. That having been said, all articles must still be properly sourced, and are subject to being deleted if independent, reliable sources do not exist. WP:NGRIDIRION grants a presumption of notability, but it does not guarantee inclusion if there are no existing reliable sources to support the article. This, of course, demonstrates one of the problems with many Arena Football player articles; there are many players who have appeared in multiple regular season arena games for whom no significant coverage exists, and we are left with snippets from routine game and transactions coverage to support these articles. Worse yet, WP:NGRIDIRON, as currently phrased, grants a presumption of notability to any player who merely appeared in a single regular season arena game—good luck finding any meaningful coverage for those one-and-done arena players. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:45, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• I 100% agree that it's probably a poor policy... I wasn't trying to make a qualitative judgement as to the policy in my reply, just referencing the policy itself. And I guess I was basing my XFL comment on the presumption that the XFL was at least on par with the Arena League, and if the Arena League was a "top league," then XFL surely must be, as well. I see your point, though, that either way, the article must still be properly sourced, and if there are no reliable sources, there shouldn't be an article. Maybe what we really need is to reach consensus to change the WP:NGRIDIRON policy. -Jhortman (talk) 14:05, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Standardize conference pages' facility sections

See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College baseball#Standardize conference pages' facility sections. Kithira (talk) 17:43, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Retired Numbers style guide

User:MDSanker has been creating graphical templates for listing retired numbers for CFB teams at Georgia Bulldogs football, Ole Miss Rebels football, LSU Tigers football, Kentucky Wildcats football, and Tennessee Volunteers football. As far as I can tell, there is no explicit style guide here that addresses how to display a CFB team's retired numbers, but the general convention has been to use a bulleted list such as the following:

• #1: Player name (optional description)
• #2: Player name (optional description)
• etc.

Personally, I think the large graphics he's using detract from the look of the article, and a graphical display is simply not necessary. Not only that, but the graphics that he uses at those pages (especially Tennessee Volunteers football#Retired_numbers) make the numbers virtually illegible, even on my 1440x900 desktop monitor. Can we get a consensus decision on whether or not to use these graphical displays for CFB articles? The editor doesn't appear to be familiar with WP:BRD, and will probably start an edit war otherwise. -Jhortman (talk) 17:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

UPDATE: Permalinks to the versions of the pages with graphical lists are here (UT), here (LSU), here (UGA), here (Ole Miss), and here (UK). -Jhortman (talk) 17:59, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Jhortman, I endorse your basic set-up; simpler is usually better. I suspect that the other editor's graphics are going to violate multiple Wikipedia policies against unnecessary decorative graphics. Generally speaking, graphics and colors that are merely decorative are to be avoided. This is why many of the CFB navboxes have been switched to default blue in the past year. One further caveat per WP:MOS, MOS:NUMBERSIGN states that the use of the number sign (#) should be avoided in text, and that "No." should be used instead for poll rankings, jersey numbers, tournament seeds, etc. WP:CFB has traditionally ignored this for poll rankings in the season record tables and other space-limited infoboxes, presumably because the content of such tables and infoboxes is not prose. That having been said, it is better to use "No." regarding jersey numbers whenever space is not a significant issue. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think they need to have graphics like the MLB has I can make them smaller is size if that is the real issue here. I can dumb them down to a simple graphic. MDSanker 18:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Having graphics at all in this situation is dumbing down. What about blind people using screen readers? Who actually benefits from using these graphics apart from those who think they look good? Wikipedia is a predominantly text-based medium and we emphatically do not use icons for decoration like this. --John (talk) 18:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Dirtlawyer1 and John. Not only do they not "need to have graphics", the graphics detract from the quality of the articles. cmadler (talk) 20:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• I am okay with just a box and the info no graphis. To each thier own I guess. MDSanker 21:09, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• Actually, it's use in these ways could be seen to violate WP:ICONDECORATION. They should be removed. CrazyPaco (talk) 02:15, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• I agree that these should be remove. They add nothing to the article, and as said by other users, they might in fact detract from it.  –Nav  ^{talk to me or sign my guestbook} 07:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

• No strong view either way, but I note that it's common in the major sports to have similar little doo-dads for players with retired numbers. See, e.g., New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, Oakland Athletics, Green Bay Packers, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bears. There's even a template for such things at the MLB project: Template:MLBBioRet. Cbl62 (talk) 22:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
• There seems to be a consensus here, and there's not been any further discussion for a few weeks, so I'm going to go ahead and take all of these out. -Jhortman (talk) 18:14, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Notable?

Hey, just stumbled across Georgia–South Carolina football rivalry, which I've tidied up a little. Didn't really strike me as being notable, but college football isn't my area of expertise, so I thought I'd ask here before PRODing/AfDing. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 01:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Non-notable--GrapedApe (talk) 02:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
• I'm fairly certain this passes the low bar of the reliable sources test, though I will have to look the sources up myself at another time. For now, I'd hold off. -Jhortman (talk) 02:23, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
• Based on the sources currently in the article, not notable. The only source in the article that even calls it a rivalry of sorts is an article from Bleacher Report. Even that source acknowledges that S. Carolina is not one of UGA's three traditional rivalries, but notes they've played some good games in the last decade. Not enough IMO to support a "rivalry" article. 01:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgia–South Carolina football rivalry. The Bleacher Report blog isn't enough to substantiate notability here.--GrapedApe (talk) 11:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

College of Idaho

The College of Idaho is reinstating its football program. Victory Sports Network.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Paul, thanks for the heads-up. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

AfD: The Battle for the Butter

Here is an AfD discussion that may be of interest to CFB project editors: [3]. Once again, it involves the notability standards applicable to individual regular season CFB games. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Similar discussion going on for the Battle for the Bones going on here. Not sure why, but it didnt get tagged as a football AfD (only basketball). Rikster2 (talk) 13:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

An open invitation

For those of you who don't know, I'm the guy responsible for about 90% of the uniform images depicted on CFB articles. Over the past few days, I've come to a decision regarding the future of my work on college football uniforms for Wikipedia. Unfortunately, my work conflicts with Wikipedia's rules, since the rules regarding copyrights require me to compromise the quality of my work, which I'm just not willing to do. I want to continue my work but in a way that won't bring me and the NFC enforcement people into conflict. It's likely that I'll be starting from scratch since my uniform template has been superseded by JohnnySeoul's template. I'm working on an independent website that will serve as an archive of college football uniforms, similar to the Gridiron Uniform Database and I'm looking for contributors who would be willing to help out. Creating a website depicting just one year of 100+ teams' worth of uniforms is a Herculean task for just one man. I've already contacted other contributors on here who've helped me with CFB uniforms and I'd like to see if anyone else is up for participating. If you're up for it, please leave a message on my talk page. Thanks. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 22:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

(Relatively) new article

For those who are interested, there is a relatively new article about Yale Bulldogs head coach Tony Reno. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 03:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Categories overlap?

Just saw that the following categories exist, which I presume to be duplicates of each other:

• Category:Missouri Valley Football Conference football standings templates and Category:Missouri Valley Conference football standings templates
• Category:Missouri Valley Football Conference templates and Category:Missouri Valley Conference football templates

Additionally, "Category:Missouri Valley Conference football standings templates" has a parent category that says it's an FBS template by conference, whereas "Category:Missouri Valley Football Conference football standings templates" says it's an FCS template by conference. The Missouri Valley Conference football categories are totally out of whack and I will let one of the WP:CFB regular determine how you want this fixed. Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

This is not incorrect. The Missouri Valley Conference no longer sponsors football, but once did at the I-A (now FBS) level. The Missouri Valley Football Conference is another entity, originally called the Gateway Football Conference, that sucked up the football programs from the Missouri Valley Conference after it stopped sponsoring football in 1985. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:45, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

AFD: Lou Holtz Coach for Life Tribute

See: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lou Holtz Coach for Life Tribute. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:06, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Class bumps for pages

When should we begin bumping players classes on their respective pages? DMC511 (talk) 15:00, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I recommend doing it as soon as spring camp starts. —Ute in DC (talk) 15:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Navbox for deletion discussion

In case this project is interested, there is a deletion discussion here regarding Template:Wolverine–Hoosier Athletic Conference navbox. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:27, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Abbreviations for positions

I am currently reviewing "2011 Michigan Wolverines football team" for GA status. The article uses abbreviations throughout the text to describe individual players' positions, with wikilinks. The article "1997 Michigan Wolverines football team" uses full position names. "2010 Michigan Wolverines football team" uses mainly abbreviations (with wikilinks). While these abbreviations may be well-known to North American readers, outsiders (such as myself) may not be familiar with them. I need to click on each wikilink to find out what the abbreviation means.

WP:ABBR includes the statement: "Always consider whether it is better to simply write a word or phrase out in full, thus avoiding potential confusion for those not familiar with its abbreviation. Remember that Wikipedia does not have the same space constraints as paper." In my opinion, it would be better to spell out the positions, similar to the "1997 Michigan Wolverines" article, at least on the first instance if not all instances.

I would appreciate a consensus view from the WikiProject, followed by a note in the style guide. Thank you. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

• I think that abbreviations should not be used in the body of an article. Clearly not for OT, DT, LB, S, CB, and WR, but I think they should be avoided even for terms like QB and TD. Cbl62 (talk) 13:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

• I have begun removing those abbreviations from the 2011 Michigan article. Cbl62 (talk) 02:44, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Sports Jargon. Concur wholeheartedly with Cbl. I know that some days our little corner of Wikipedia may feel like a sports blog, but we are actually building an encyclopedia. Using sports jargon like QB, WR, TD and PAT in article main body text is not appropriate. We are writing for a general audience, not college football fans, and our college football articles should be as easily understood by an Australian housewife as they are by a recent graduate of the University of Alabama. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:53, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
• Agree 100% with both Cbl62 and Dirtlawyer1. Abbreviations should not be used like this in the body of an article. Patriarca12 (talk) 03:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
• I concur with Cbl62, Dirtlawyer1, and Patriarca1. These abbreviations are okay in tables and boxes, but not in the prose of an article. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
• What all y'all said. (Somebody's got to bring the southern jargon into it, right?) -Jhortman (talk) 13:55, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
• Agree with all of the above; keep the sports jargon out of the article body. Mdak06 (talk) 14:27, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. We seem to have a consensus. Perhaps you could add a note to the style guide? Axl ¤ [Talk] 17:31, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Penn State & Sandusky

It seems odd that virtually all of the articles associated with Penn State, Penn State athletics, and the football team make no mention whatsoever of Sandusky. They certainly don't need to go into significant detail but an incident that triggered riots on campus, the firing of the head coach and university president, and the conviction of a former coach of 45 counts of child molestation should be mentioned. I wasn't entirely sure where the best places in those articles would be, particularly the football team's article, so I'm opening a discussion here so we can figure out the best place to mention this and the appropriate weight to give it in the relevant articles. ElKevbo (talk) 03:31, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

• I think there's already a lot of coverage of Sandusky, et. al, at Penn State sex abuse scandal. There's good coverage of it Pennsylvania_State_University#Modern_era, taking up half of the Pennsylvania State University#Modern era section--GrapedApe (talk) 03:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

But what about Penn State Nittany Lions football? The article has no history section which is where it would best fit but it should be mentioned in a sentence or two.

It sounds like the coverage in the main Penn State article should probably be trimmed, too, but that's an entirely different discussion for a different venue. ElKevbo (talk) 05:07, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

• The Penn State Nittany Lions football article has virtually no historical information in it at all, aside from citation of records, statistics, and a discussion of rivals. It definitely needs some work as a whole. I think a cursory mention of the Sandusky scandal with a wikilink is appropriate, since it directly led to the firing of the entire coaching staff. -Jhortman (talk) 17:23, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
• I agree with all of Jhortman's comments. Mdak06 (talk) 18:26, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Notability of Bluffton Beavers football

Hi folks, I'm not too familiar with standards around here, but Bluffton Beavers football has an old merge request with no articulated discussion associated with it. What do you think? Do Division III programs typically get their own page, or should this be merged to Bluffton University? I suspect that might be the best course of action, since the school's athletic program in general doesn't have its own article. Thanks, BDD (talk) 18:09, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, apparently we have 192 such articles. Mackensen (talk) 21:25, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for pointing me that way. Not all of those actually have articles, though. I checked out the University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins University as tests; the former redirects to #Athletics on the school's main page, and the latter redirects to the school's athletics page. So the project doesn't have specific criteria for D3 football notability? --BDD (talk) 21:36, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

FYI-Normally we establish redirects to assist with searching/etc. If an enthusiastic editor creates the page, they are free to do so provided they find some good sources (which, even for a Div III program isn't too hard to find most of the time).--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:55, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

• Re: Mackensen. Those are not articles, those are categories, which is entirely different. They're used for categorizing players and coaches of Division III schools who themselves meet WP:GNG; it is not fair to say there are 192 DIII football team articles because there aren't. Jrcla2 (talk) 21:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
  • My mistake; I assumed there would be a parent article. Mackensen (talk) 00:33, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the stale merge request tag and let the article stand. Others should feel free to propose a new merger, nominate for deletion, or take any other actions as appropriate. --BDD (talk) 17:01, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Roster

Would be great if someone would update the {{American football roster}} template to be on par with what is being used in a non-template manner for most teams. Additionally it should include features that exist in {{Baseball roster/Header}} such as looking up colors based on the school name. --ben_b (talk) 05:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Alabama-Florida Football Rivalry

Greetings, sports fans. I'm looking for reactions from you regarding the "Alabama-Florida Football Rivalry": is this a "rivalry game" by WP:CFB standards? As a Gators fan, I certainly appreciate the coverage and the game has become an important one in determining the SEC championship over the last 22 season, but I'm not sure that the series has the hallmarks of a traditional college football rivalry. For instance, the two teams have never played a regularly scheduled annual game, the two universities are not in-state or border state rivals, and neither publicizes the other university and its teams as rivals. Not a lot of rivalry-associated animosity here, either; student, alumni and fan reaction is mostly mutual respect and the expectation of a difficult game. When a Gators fan thinks of Florida's rivals, one thinks of Florida–FSU, Florida–Georgia and Florida–Tennessee, and for us old-timers, Auburn–Florida and Florida–Miami. From a Wikipedia notability standpoint, coverage in newspapers and books is also light on substantial coverage of the series as a "rivalry." I think this really goes to the core of what WP:CFB is going to deem to be a "rivalry" for purposes of creating and maintaining stand-alone rivalry articles. What do y'all think? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:01, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Quick question: what is the projects stance on series articles, as opposed to rivalry articles? I agree that calling Bama-UF a rivalry is a bit of a stretch, but there was a lot of talk a few years ago about the series as a whole, IIRC (and I'm not sure where I personally stand on a series article). Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 15:31, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I notice that there are literally no sources for the article right now. WP:GNG has not been established. I have no opinion as to whether or not this is a rivalry. If there are sources to be found, then it should stay. If not, then it should be deleted. The baseline for rivalry articles should be newspapers discussing the game as a "rivalry" to establish notability. Any article that does not use that magic word is just discussing the series history. —Ute in DC (talk) 15:34, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

As an Alabama fan, I do not consider Florida a "rivalry" game. I will say that it has been a "big" game for us Bama fans since the inaugural SEC Championship Game in 1992. Most Alabama fans would agree our rivals are Auburn, Tennessee and LSU to a lesser extent. Something needs to be established as far as standards for what constitutes a "rivalry." Otherwise, anyone could dig up enough sources to create a "rivalry" article for ANY pair of opponents, i.e. Alabama-Kentucky, Auburn-Vanderbilt, Arkansas-Florida, Georgia-Mississippi State, etc. Patriarca12 (talk) 01:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Which is exactly why I asked my question about series articles (So "Florida-Alabama football series" or something similar). With no idea of the sources available, I would guess that this series might be notable, especially given the recent history (Tebow/Saban years, etc.), but I don't know that series articles are really accepted. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 01:18, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

NL, you're jumping ahead, but your point is well taken. Almost certainly this "series" could satisfy the WP:GNG general notability guidelines, but, if this series does, so could virtually every other regularly played series between two Division I FBS teams. If you remove the "rivalry" element as a requirement, however we define it, we will literally be overrun by half-assed CFB "series" articles. To my way of thinking, the effort that goes into something like this Alabama–Florida rivalry article should be channeled into the respective team season articles and the relevant SEC Championship Game articles. If we accept "series" articles, I believe we are letting an evil genie out of the bottle. This WikiProject and the larger Wikipedia community are not bound to accept every subject that nominally satisfies GNG for inclusion as a stand-alone article if that subject is better addressed as an element of other articles or lists, and we as a project can propose other specific requirements/guidelines for rivalry articles for inclusion in the sports notability guidelines. That's one of the reasons why I started this discussion . . . Reactions? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I do not consider Alabama to be a rivalry game. I don't think it deserves an article. ~ Richmond96 t • c 02:22, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Dirtlawyer that "series" articles should be discouraged. And rivalry articles should be limited to true rivalries. For Michigan, there have been four true football rivalries over the last 60 years (Michigan State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Minnesota). Minnesota hasn't been competitive of late, but the Little Brown Jug is the oldest trophy in college football, so it qualifies. Articles could be written about Michigan's "series" against Penn State, Iowa, Wisconsin, and now Nebraska, but I don't favor that. Generally speaking, if a school's fan base purports to have more than 3 or 4 "rivalry" series, they're likely stretching the meaning of a true rivalry. Cbl62 (talk) 02:30, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

That (series articles are generally frowned upon) was my gut feeling as well; I just wanted to make sure the wider CFB community agreed with me before I began applying that. With that in mind, I don't think Bama-UF has a place as either a rivalry article or a series article. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 03:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Based on the direction this discussion is going, I'm going to put a WP:PROD tag on the article. Anyone is allowed to removed the tag over the next 7 days, but they should at least add some sources before they do. If no one adds sources, the article will be deleted. —Ute in DC (talk) 04:13, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Dirtlawyer and the "evil genie" argument. Let's nip this one in the bud now. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:30, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Also for your consideration

The same editor created Alabama–Penn State football rivalry back in the fall, and it survived an AfD. Maybe it ought to get re-nominated now that there is a stronger CFB consensus on these types of articles? Jrcla2 (talk) 16:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I saw that, but it looks like it survived the AfD because there were a few reliable sources using that magic word "rivalry." Unfortunately, I think the journalists in that instance used the world rivalry a little looser than I would like, but I don't know a principled way to say that something isn't a real rivalry when national news organizations have called it such. —Ute in DC (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Walter J. Zable question

I've seen a whole bunch of sources saying that Walter J. Zable was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. One even said he was inducted in 1981. But, here's the funny thing - I can't find him on the HOF website, nor any official CFBHOF entry. Either someone in the journalism field erroneously said that he was inducted and then a bunch of lazy reporters regurgitated that fact, making it seem more plausible than it actually is, or I'm just being a dolt and cannot find his entry. Anyone care to help me figure this out? Thanks in advance. Jrcla2 (talk) 18:21, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I found no listing at the College Football Hall of Fame: [4]. I searched by name and William & Mary; I got four results, none were Zable. Is it possible that he was inducted into the W&M HOF, and this was conflated into the CFBHOF? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:57, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Sure, enough. "Walt Zable (1937)" is a member of the William & Mary Hall of Fame: [5]. And then there's this small matter of Zable Stadium: [6]. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:04, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

That's what I think happened too, because he is in the W&M HOF, and somehow that was misinterpreted. Once a reputable newspaper said he was in the CFBHOF, it spiraled from there, and now there are numerous reputable sources reporting an entirely incorrect fact. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:06, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I also note that the W&M website article on the stadium history states that Zable was recipient of the "National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame Gold Medal" in 1980, and received the "Theodore Roosevelt Award" from the NCAA in 1987, which is "presented annually to a distinguished citizen of national reputation and outstanding accomplishment who has earned a varsity award in college." Zable apparently received plenty of real awards to confuse a less than knowledgeable member of the media. I've also read a couple of his obits, including one from Williamsburg's The Virginia Gazette, which properly cites the CFHOF Gold Medal, but not that he was inducted into the CFBHOF. Given the paper's close ties to W&M, I would expect they would get their facts right (or at least properly regurgitate a well-sourced release from the W&M SID). I can't find a contemporaneous 1937 newspaper source for the "honorable mention All-America" honors in Google News Archive, however. No obit seems to provide the Alll-America selector organization. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:26, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: the All-America selection; I'm not sure of the selector either, but since even W&M says that he was an Honorable Mention All-American, I included it in his article, but I left it vague on purpose since I can't delve any deeper than what I've already gotten. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:57, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

List of media markets and college football listed for deletion

Giving you a heads up: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of media markets and college football. Morgan Wick (talk) 05:37, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Bowl-conference ties, and preserving that information

I hope this is the right place to put this discussion (I tried on the page in question and have yet to receive a response, so I thought it would be appropriate here). There is a page called Automatic bids to college bowl games that lists the ties between bowl games and conferences. It is a helpful page that not only lists the ties by bowl game (e.g. GoDaddy.com Bowl -- Sun Belt #2 vs. MAC #1) but also lists the ties by conference (e.g. for the Sun Belt: #2 -- The GoDaddy.com Bowl will host the second selection from the Sun Belt.).

The problem that I see is that bowl-conference ties change, and since there is no page for every year regarding these bowl-conference ties, the information is simply lost (as far as Wikipedia is concerned). I know there are pages that give what I'll call a "recap summary" of the bowl games each year (at least the ones that have already been created), e.g. 2011–12 NCAA football bowl games. Those pages list the teams that participated in the bowls, but they don't actually list the bowl-conference ties (and sometimes bowls have alternative ties, so one cannot know for sure whether or not the teams that participated are the primary bowl ties or not).

I think that we should try to preserve the information, and either (1) create a separate "Automatic bids to bowl games" page for every year, or (2) include the information on the bowl game "recap summary " pages for each year. My preference would be for a separate page for the ties for each year, since it is very convenient to be able to see the bids listed both by bowl and by conference, and including all of that information on the "recap summary" pages would (in my opinion) detract from those pages. I would probably suggest a name similar to the "recap summary" pages, e.g. 2011-12 NCAA football bowl game affiliations. Thoughts? Mdak06 (talk) 12:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Mdak06, thanks for the post. This is certainly a good place to discuss this item. I think creating a separate page for the bowl game affiliations for each and every year is not a good idea. This yearly information can be more efficiently included in the yearly bowl game summary articles, e.g. 2011–12 NCAA football bowl games. We might also want to think about a history section for the Automatic bids to college bowl games article that summarizes the affiliations by bowl and conference over the years. I agree that all this information should be preserved as it changes. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:11, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

I think one article for all affiliations, or one section of an article, is enough. Something following this format:

• ABC Champion: BCS (2006-present)
  • Reno Bowl (2002-2005)
  • Siesta Bowl (1998-2001)
• ABC #2: Pomegranate Bowl (2010-present)
  • Idontknow.com Bowl (2005-2009)
  • Windy City Bowl (2000-2004)
  • Hollywood Bowl (1998-1999)

The question also occurs to me, "What do you do with BCS At-Large teams who were second or third in the conference?", and "What about traditional but not official tie-ins?" For example, the Sugar Bowl traditionally hosted a strong SEC team before the tie-in was official, and the second-best team in the SWC would often play in the Sun or Bluebonnet Bowl pbp 05:21, 17 June 2012 (UTC)And for the record, I did enjoy making up the example bowl games

I like the suggested format (and love the bowl names). Perhaps what could be done is that for each conference, there could be two sections: "Contractual Ties" and "Traditional Selections." There could also be notes throughout that explain BCS at-large selections and other non-standard things.

An example:

• Contractual Ties
  • ABC Champion: BCS AQ -- Clam Chowder Bowl (2006-present)
    • No Soup For You Bowl (2001-2005)
  • ABC #2: Java Bowl (2003-present)
    • Tea & Crumpets Bowl (2002)
    • Note: BCS at-large bid superseded bowl ties in 200X, 200Y and 200Z
  • ABC #3: Weedwacker Bowl (2003-present)
    • Nuclear Power Plants of Springfield Bowl (1993-2002)
  • ABC #4: Toilet Bowl (1997-2007)
    • Note: ABC #6 was an alternative selection for the Toilet Bowl from 1997-2003 if the primary bowl ties were not available.
• Traditional Selections
  • ABC Champion
    • Tastes Great Bowl (13 of 16 selections, 1983-1998)
    • Less Filling Bowl (5 of 7 selections, 1976-1982)
  • ABC #2
    • Mosquito Bowl (10 of 16 selections, 1983-1998)
    • Badger Badger Badger Bowl (4 of 7 selections, 1976-1982)
    • No Stinking Badgers Bowl (3 of 7 selections, 1976-1982)

This could end up being a long page. I think I agree that it's preferable that it is all kept in one page, but perhaps if it becomes too long the page could be split up into a page for each conference. Mdak06 (talk) 16:17, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

• Having seen no additional comments, I am going to attempt to go ahead (whenever I find the time) and start implementing the above changes to the Automatic bids to college bowl games page. I will post a comment on that page's talk page about the changes (and reference this discussion). I'll start by using the references that are already listed on that page, but if anyone has any good suggestions on where to find historical information, I would greatly appreciate it. Mdak06 (talk) 18:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I've been working on a possible setup for this page. I decided that tables may be the best way to go, so here are some sample tables of the format I'm using. The two historic ACC bowls are obviously fake but I haven't done the research yet and wanted to put something in place. These are sample tables for one conference and one independent.

---

Begin samples 

---

Atlantic Coast Conference

The ACC currently has nine bowl tie-ins.

Current

Pick	Bowl	First Season	Last Season	Notes	References
#1	Bowl Championship Series / Discover Orange Bowl	?	2013	champion is normally selected for the Discover Orange Bowl (unless BCS standings force changes)
#2	Chick-fil-A Bowl	1991	2013
#3	Russell Athletic Bowl	2001	2013	charter affiliate
#4	Hyundai Sun Bowl	2010	2013
#5	Belk Bowl	2002	2013	charter affiliate
#6	Franklin American Mortgage Company Music City Bowl	2005	2013
#7	Advocare 100 Independence Bowl	2010	2013
#8	Military Bowl	2008	2013	charter affiliate
#9	Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl	2003	2013	selects ninth ACC bowl-eligible team if one is available and if one of the primary partners for the bowl cannot provide a bowl eligible team

History

Bowl	First Season	Last Season	Appearances	Notes	References
Bowl X	1975	1982	6	ACC champion selected
Bowl Y	1973	1991	16	ACC runner-up selected

Navy (FBS Independent)

Navy has been independent in football since it began playing in 1879. It is scheduled to join the Big East as a football-only member in 2015.

Current

Bowl	First Season	Last Season	Notes	References
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl	2012	2012
Armed Forces Bowl	2013	2016	agreements for 2013 and 2016
Poinsettia Bowl	2014	2014
Military Bowl	2015	2015

History

The Midshipmen have appeared in 17 bowls throughout their history, and been involved in 14 different bowl games. The only games at which they have appeared multiple times are the Cotton Bowl (1958 & 1964) and the Poinsettia Bowl (2005, 2007 and 2010).

The table below lists bowls for which the Navy had an agreement that the bowl would invite the Naval Academy to play if they had become bowl-eligible. It does not necessarily mean that the Naval Academy appeared in these bowls.

Bowl	First Season	Last Season	Appearances	Notes	References
Military Bowl	2008	2011	1	agreements for 2008 and 2011
Poinsettia Bowl	2005	2010	3	agreements for 2005, 2007 and 2010

References

---

End samples

---

Unless anyone has any better suggestions, this is the format I will use when I update the "Automatic bids to college bowl games" page. Mdak06 (talk) 15:21, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

AfD: List of West Virginia Mountaineers significant football games

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of West Virginia Mountaineers significant football games. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Athletic conference overview maps and their lack of consistency

Each collegiate athletic conference on Wikipedia that has its own "overview map" (a map of the entire USA with the states that have conference teams shaded in some color) in its InfoBox. On the List of NCAA conferences page, there is a list of the conferences divided into FBS, FCS, D1 non-football, ice hockey, D2, and D3 sections, as well as single-sport conferences for D1 and D2. Most of the conferences (other than the single-sport ones) have an overview map displayed.

There is a wild lack of consistency between how these maps are set up. These are the things that I've noticed (I might have missed some):

• The Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC all have location markers (dots) that identify where the universities are. All of the dots are are at least one of the colors of the university they represent. None of the other maps (any division/sport) have the location markers.
• The SEC, Conference USA and the CAA have different shades of states for their football divisions. The ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and MAC do not.
• The Big East has different colors between full football-playing members and full non-football members.
• The Mountain West has a different color for its football-only member.
• The Great West and the PSAC (D2) have different colors for full members and associate members. No other maps that I saw indicate associate members at all, other than the MPSF (for which nobody is a full member).
• The D2 Independents map has different colors for football independents vs. all-sport independents.
• The Western Athletic Conference has two different colors, depending on whether or not a state's teams are sticking around after June 30, 2013.
• The Hockey East, WCHA and Independent (ice hockey) maps has different shades for states that have both men's & women's ice hockey teams, only men's teams, or only women's teams.
• None of the single-sport conferences (other than the ice hockey conferences and the MVFC) have maps at all.
• There is a wide variety of colors on the maps (which is not a bad thing in and of itself).

I think it would be helpful to find a consensus as to how the maps should be designed. My suggestions are below - essentially, these are based on the idea that the overview maps are designed to show a conference's geographic region, not specific details of the conference ...

• Location markers (dots) for schools should not be used. There are more detailed maps on the pages of each conference showing the locations of the schools.
• Divisions should not be shaded differently. Generally, divisions are not used by all sports within a conference (in some cases, only a couple of sports use them).
• Full member states should all be shaded the same, regardless of whether they are a football-playing member or not.
• Given the financial importance and public profile of college football, any states with football-only members (that don't have full members) should be shaded black.
• Other sports associate/affiliate member states should not be shaded (unless the entire conference is associate members, e.g. the MPSF). Some conferences have none, some have a few, some have a lot.
• The color used for shading states should be one of the primary colors used in the conference logo.
• Future member or departing member states should not be identified. The map should simply display the states containing current members. Additional information is always available on the conference's page.
• Any map identifying schools independent in football (but not other sports) should have those states shaded black. If there are also schools that are not affiliated with a primary conference they should be a different color (perhaps the blue used in the NCAA logo).
• For single-sport conference maps there should be one color used, regardless of whether or not a state has just men's teams, women's teams, or has both.

FYI, this has been posted on the Project College Football talk page because this project appears to have more members than the other project college sports pages, but notices of this discussion have been (or will be) posted on several other sports project talk pages, on the conference pages and on the List of NCAA Conferences page.

Please let us know your opinion. Mdak06 (talk) 21:57, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

• This is a tough one but I do believe is that all items need to be uniform for sake of readers not familiar with the Conference pages or maps. I do like the location markers but can see the other argument for simplicity.--Craiglduncan (talk) 22:51, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
• I think uniformity is called for. I don't think that the location indicators used by the Big Ten, et al, are necessary because the articles have another map that is zoomed in and more detailed which includes the locations for each school, such as this one for the Horizon League and this one for the A10. On the more general maps, the dots are so small you can't really see what you're looking at unless you click on the picture. Plus, using multi-colored dots on various backgrounds presents issues for people with color blindness -- not to mention that even those of us who don't have color blindness have trouble seeing some color combinations. City boy77 (talk) 01:07, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
• Strongly agree with the need for normalizing these. I think shading is better than location markers, given your premise. I'm a little iffy on not including non-football affiliate members in the maps, but for the sake of simplicity, a representation of the conference's "true" geographic area, and the sanity of whoever revises the Great West map, I think that not including non-football affiliates is okay.

Also, I think that not including future or departure members is brilliant. People are on a hair trigger to change pages long before moves are official, and it'd be a lot more colors and, thus, a lot less simplicity. Thanks for proposing the guidelines! Kithira (talk) 01:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

While I agree that we need some uniformity. I cant agree that non-football affiliate members should be left out. Those affiliate members are apart of the conference regardless if they play football or not, college football is not a the only sport out there. As such here's what I think we should do. I have taking some of the points above and added my own twists.

1. Location markers are out. There not really needed as other images in the pages have the dots anyway.
2. Full members should be marked regardless of there football status ie. do they play football or not.
3. Associate/affiliate member should be marked as they are members off the conference even if they only play one or more sports in the conference there still a member.
4. Colors should be based on colors used in Conference logos. Full Members should be one color and Associate/affiliate should be another. An example of this would be as follows. If this was the Big 12, this is what Colors would be used Full Members would be this color and Associate/affiliates would be this color.

Keep in mind we don't have to use colors in the logo, but we do need to at least use a standard color for the shading. That's my two cents.--Dcheagle | ^{Thunder Up} 05:07, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

More food for thought -- these are affiliate-only member states that would be on a conference's map for 2013-14 (Division I):

• Big East: Idaho, California, Maryland
• Conference USA: Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee
• Mountain West: Hawaii
• Pac-12: Idaho
• MAC: Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, West Virginia
• WAC: California, Texas, Arizona, Utah, North Dakota
• CAA: Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Ohio
• Southern Conference: Illinois, Virginia
• Great West: California, Utah, Delaware, DC, New York, Colorado, South Carolina
• MAAC: Virginia, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Iowa
• WCC: Nebraska

The MAC and CAA nearly double their total number of states with affiliates. The Great West and MAAC more than double their total. None of the affiliate members of the C-USA, Pac-12, WAC, Great West, MAAC, or WCC are football affiliates.

If we shade all of the affiliate-only member states, I strongly think we should use black as a universal color for affiliate-only member states. Most (all?) multi-sport athletic conferences have at least one or two colors in their logo that are not black. For the conferences that have nearly as many or more affiliate-only member states as compared to full-member states, it may cause confusion if we use two colors that are both from the conference logo, and I think black is more likely to be recognized as a "non-primary" color for identification. Mdak06 (talk) 12:08, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm ... after playing around with various maps a bit, I think that that a dark gray (i.e. RGB values of 64) for affiliate-only member states might be a better option than black. Most of the standard state colors are a light gray with RGB values roughly around 192 (give or take a few), so RGB of 64 is clearly different without being as quite as intense as black. I created this image album to show what some maps might look like using either the dark gray or the black as the affiliate color. Mdak06 (talk) 13:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with standardizing these maps like has been proposed. However, I disagree about adding non-football affiliates to the maps. Other than football, those affiliate sports are not notable enough to be included in the map. I think all of the full members should be one of the conferences primary colors, football affiliates should be a different color (gray), and non-football affiliates should not be shaded. -AllisonFoley (talk) 15:45, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with adding all affiliates, including non-football affiliates, to the maps. Depending on the sport or region of the country, football is not the only major college sport for people. College basketball, hockey, and lacrosse are good examples of having strong followings in certain regions, to the extent that in some areas they are bigger than college football. For the most part, only schools at the FBS level make money on college football, but smaller schools make money on men's basketball (example UConn which lost money on football in 2011 when they went to the Fiesta Bowl), lacrosse (example Johns Hopkins which plays D1 lacrosse but all other sports at D3), and ice hockey (schools like Boston University, New Hampshire, etc). To those schools, while the sports aren't cash cows, they are as important or more so to the alumni and students than college football. Superman7515 (talk) 20:41, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not aware of any conferences that have men's basketball or women's basketball affiliate members. I am not aware of any non-hockey-only conferences that sponsor ice hockey. In my opinion, Lacrosse affiliate membership is not relevant enough to be included in a conference's map. You won't find many people looking up a conference to see the conference footprint of lacrosse only member schools. Moreover, if you go to the conference's website, do they list they list the affiliate members? The Mountain West lists Hawai'i (football-only affiliate), but the WAC doesn't list any of the affiliate members, thus they are not notable for the map. Noting the affiliate membership in the article should be an adequate way to note the affiliate membership. My stance is that that only full members states and football affiliate states should be included in the maps. -AllisonFoley (talk) 00:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Non-hockey-only conferences that sponsor ice hockey: SUNYAC, MASCAC, NESCAC, Northeast-10, WIAC (starting 2012), Big Ten (starting 2013). Powers ^T 13:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

There are still no Division I conferences that currently sponsor ice hockey. Of those conferences that you listed, only the MASCAC appears to have a hockey-only member from a different state (New Hampshire). When you go to the MASCAC website, it does not list Plymouth State (New Hampshire) as one of their members. Moreover, the conference's logo just has the State of Massachusetts on it with no New Hampshire. This supports my stance that non-football affiliate members should not be included in the conference maps. -AllisonFoley (talk) 16:27, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I am all for standardizing the maps, however, I think highlighting the affiliates is of little use. I think this only becomes an issue because of the weird alignments in FBS football. If everyone else feels highlighting affiliates is warranted then I support it. Also, a few years back I tried to do colors that matched the conference, but when I got to DII all the schools were ending up the same few colors so I started using none conference colors. Bullshark44 (talk) 22:45, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I also am all for standardization, though I think it's important for hockey-only conferences to color men's and women's states differently. See, for example, WCHA, where there are very significant differences between the men's and women's states. It clearly shows how Ohio is a women's outlier, and how there are no women's teams in Michigan, Colorado, or Nebraska. Powers ^T 13:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I think standardization can be over-done. There are cases where worthwhile information can be sacrificed to slavish consistency. This hockey situation is a perfect example. I think that the most significant story about the WAC right now is the fact that most of the teams are leaving it, and I have no problem with treating the WAC as a special case in this regard. As to the affiliates, just look at the level of the national coverage. You sometimes see football affiliation given primary billing with the conference for the rest of their sports given second billing (e.g. 'Boise joining Big East' was the headline, not 'Boise considering Big West for most sports') and a change in the affiliation of a school's water polo or lacrosse teams gets no attention whatsoever. Like it or not, football is the only sport for which affiliate status merits designation, not because of whether they make money, nor because of local popularity, nor alumni support, but because it is the only one given that level of weight by the media. Agricolae (talk) 00:20, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe I remember creating the first map of this type long ago for the Southeastern Conference article. I made many after that and I also believe I created the first map for the bowl seasons. Its great to see the Wiki community adopt one of your ideas and consider it important enough to be debated over. Mdak06 makes good points and I agree with him mostly. I really liked the location markers (I didn't invent those; they first appeared on the Big Ten's map, I believe), but I see the argument for standardization as well as supplemental maps make them unacceptable or redundant. I personally think divisions should be left portrayed in maps, if possible, even if divisions are only used in football. Black isn't the color I'd choose for football-only. For this type of map, black doesn't have the je ne sais quoi aesthetically. Maybe green, like a football field? Or green with white stripes! That would be snazzy, but maybe not. I agree with the colors-from-logo idea. That's what I'd always done using MS Paint.--Porsche997SBS (talk) 19:51, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Lombardi Bowl

FYI someone left this article out to dry, in case anyone is interested in adding in info about the 2012 game. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:56, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Bowl Victory Drought List

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Colslax/Sandbox

I figured I would pass this along, not sure if it is of interest to the community, I have compiled a list most recent bowl victories by season (aka the last time each FBS school won a 'major' bowl). Should this become a page and what can I do to improve it? -Colslax (talk) 19:22, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I find this stuff interesting, but I don't think it can become a page on the mainspace (where it will likely be deleted.) As original research, it probably would not survive an articles for deletion review. Just enjoy it in your personal space and hope that anyone else interested is able to find it. —Ute in DC (talk) 20:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Ute, it isn't appropriate as a stand-alone article. CrazyPaco (talk) 00:12, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Colslax, I generally agree with Ute in DC here. I think a better idea would to compile a list of bowl records by program. That list could, perhaps, include a column for most recent bowl win, effectively integrating your list into a more comprehensiveness one that better parallels lists in reliable, published record books. Also, as point of style with the references, putting individual footnotes on every specific piece of data in a table makes it much less readable. You could have one reference at the bottom of the table noting that one section of NCAA record book. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

There's actually a list of bowl records: List of NCAA football bowl records. I'll leave it open whether or not it needs a column for last bowl win. —Ute in DC (talk) 13:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

CFB article naming issue

Gentlemen, here's a college football article naming controversy on which you may want to weigh in: Talk:Deep South's Oldest Rivalry#Requested move. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Penn State vacated wins

With the NCAA vacating Penn State's wins from 1998 to 2011, multiple articles will need to be updated. Paterno will also need his win-loss record adjusted on the bio article and at List of college football coaches with 200 wins. This is likely to be controversial with Penn State fans, but the NCAA records are the official records that should be used by Wikipedia. Pre-vacating records can be referenced by footnote but official records should be reflected in the main space of such articles. Cbl62 (talk) 13:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• My math shows a net reduction of 111 wins to Paterno's record. Can someone verify? Cbl62 (talk) 13:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:CFB needs to restate its consensus policy as to how we are going to deal with this, consistent with recent precedent. The 111 Penn State football victories from 1998 to 2011 have been vacated; they were not forfeited. Penn State wins disappear from the record; they do not become losses. Opponent losses do not become victories. I believe this is consistent with how the NCAA and WP:CFB have handled recently vacated Alabama, FSU and USC football victories. This is not just a problem for how we handle Penn State football articles; it's going to be a challenge for every team and season article where Penn State was an opponent in one of the past fourteen seasons. Already this morning, I've reverted attempted changes to the Texas A&M football article that characterized two bowl game losses to Penn State (1999, 2007) as forfeits, not vacated wins. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

This, drafted following the OSU vacations, may be useful. JohnInDC (talk) 16:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Dirt is right. They should be removed from win totals and records are as if the games never happened, but the history should not eliminated--the games were played.--GrapedApe (talk) 23:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• When we decide what to report, be sure to make changes at List of college football coaches with 100 losses.--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• Good God, what a shit storm. This is creating a major mess all around the college football neighborhood here on Wikipedia. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Question: what's the proper way to note this for individual games like the 2007 Alamo Bowl? Mackensen (talk) 12:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The result - win and loss both - are stricken from the record. See WP:WikiProject College football/Vacated victories (which I note now has a dead link to the NCAA policies, which I'll try to fix). JohnInDC (talk) 12:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Link fixed. The short rule is, for regular season games the penalized team's wins and ties (but not the other team's losses or ties) are removed from the record. For bowls, it's as if the game hadn't been played. JohnInDC (talk) 12:59, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

John, the WP:CFB essay on point states: "In the case of regular season games, the penalized team's win is removed from its official NCAA record. The losing team, however, retains the loss . . . ." The results of tournament games are vacated for both the penalized team and the opponent, but Division I FBS bowl games are not the equivalent of NCAA "tournament" games in Division I FCS football or any other NCAA-sponsored sport. The linked NCAA policy on vacated wins does not specifically mention bowls. Looks like WP:CFB needs to specifically address the treatment of FBS bowl games. To my way of thinking, FBS bowl games are closer to regular season games than NCAA tournament games because they have no official standing as part of an NCAA-sponsored championship tournament, but I'll let smarter editors than me figure that one out. I raise the issue here for your consideration. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:08, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

So you'd read "tournament" literally, to mean some kind of series of games to determine a champion, something like that. That's fair. I took the broader reading, I think, from one or another of the articles that were floating around about the time of the Ohio State voluntary vacancies. Also while "bowl games" didn't quite match "tournament", they really didn't seem like "regular season" games. That's not to say that it is right but that there is - or may be, depending on how reliable my memory is - another interpretation floating around. Maybe there's an answer lurking somewhere else in the NCAA vaults. JohnInDC (talk) 13:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Question Win/loss/tie/win percentage: How do vacated wins affect these statistics--specifically "Win Percentage" ? How do they affect the opponents?--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:57, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Paul, my interpretation is that the penalized team removes the vacated wins from its season and cumulative win-loss records (and the calculation of its win-loss percentages), but keeps its all of its losses for the same time period. Nothing changes for the penalized team's opponents; the opponents keep their losses and wins against the penalized team. (This gets messier for non-football sports that involve vacated NCAA tournament games.) That part is relatively easy. What gets really messy is what we do about the calculation of rivalry series win-loss records that are affected . . . my only thought is the vacated wins of the penalized team are not included in the series win-loss record, but the statement of the post-sanctions series record should, of course, be footnoted and explained. If someone else has a better suggestion, I'm all ears. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Uh oh I sense an article named List of vacated wins by head coach Joe Paterno coming in to play. And there might even be a strong argument or two to actually make the article...--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

FYI, the NCAA Official Records Book is now updated to reflect Penn State's vacated wins. (see http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2012/fbs.pdf) CrazyPaco (talk) 01:31, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

CFB Schedule Template

Is there any way to input a ref in the template it self.--Dcheagle | ^{Thunder Up} 06:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

TfD: Albany Great Danes football navbox

Please see: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 August 2#Template:Albany_Great_Danes_football_navbox. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 01:31, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Editing maps in Commons

I'm attempting to update some maps in Commons, but can't quite figure out how to do so. Someone else told me to download the image, edit it, then re-upload using the button "upload new version of this file" at the bottom of the image, except that button apparently doesn't exist on Commons. The maps I want to update are the conference overview maps on List of NAIA conferences. They should all be public domain or creative commons, as they are just maps of the US with different states colored in. Any help on this would be appreciated, thanks! Dafoeberezin3494 (talk) 03:13, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• First, make sure you are viewing the image on Commons, and not on Wikipedia. For example http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CSFL-USA-states.PNG . Download the image and edit it as you like. Look under "File history" for "Upload a new version of this file." How does that work for you?--GrapedApe (talk) 02:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, that worked! However, I took a second look and the maps I updated look fuzzy as if they have a lower resolution. Look at the list and compare Mid-South Conference, Mid-States Football Association, and NAIA independent football schools (the maps I updated) with the others in that table. Although the maps have a nice resolution upon opening the file as its own page. Any thoughts? Should I go with a different resolution or is this okay? Dafoeberezin3494 (talk) 17:36, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
    • It's probably an issue with how you saved the image. For example, File:MSC-USA-states.PNG went from 841 × 580 (27 KB) to 1,513 × 983 (67 KB), so that's probably adding fuzz and noise to the image. You might want to ask Commons:Village pump for help,--GrapedApe (talk) 02:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Alright I'll ask over there and see how it goes. Thanks for your help! Dafoeberezin3494 (talk) 04:12, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

new onside kick rule?

I was watching the UCLA-Nebraska game and at the end, they said that the receiving team can call a fair catch if it bounces once. Does anyone know anything about it? I didn't see it listed in the new rules on the 2012 NCAA Division I FBS football season page and just thought it was odd. DandyDan2007 (talk) 10:20, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I've always assumed that a player could in theory call a fair catch on an onside kick, but it doesn't seem all that practical when you have 7 guys running full speed at you. It would surprise me if in the past you weren't allowed to... In essence an onside kick is just a really a short kickoff. I don't think they have a separate set of rules. ~ Richmond96 t • c 15:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Third Saturday in October

Bt8257 moved Third Saturday in October without any discussion on the matter. I've been trying to fix it but I have no idea how to and I'm afraid I'm gonna fuck it up beyond repair. I'm asking anyone for help on this.--Daytona 500 15:04, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Bill Snyder

Just a reminder that people do notice vandalism on Wikipedia, as you can see here. AutomaticStrikeout 17:18, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

ASO, oddly, the IP user who inserted "God" was editing from the UCLA campus. Wonder what his dog in this hunt was? Thanks for your anti-vandalism diligence. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:02, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

List of college football head coaches with non-consecutive tenure

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of college football head coaches with non-consecutive tenure-GrapedApe (talk) 20:15, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Joey Halzle for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Joey Halzle is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joey Halzle until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 21:29, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for comment

There is an open request for comment at Talk:Third Saturday in October#RfC on page move for anyone interesting in participating on whether the article title should be Third Saturday in October or Alabama–Tennessee football rivalry. Altairisfar (talk) 06:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

QB rushing yards records

List of NCAA football records, West Virginia Mountaineers football and Pat White (athlete) disagree on Pat White's career QB rushing yards record total. With Denard Robinson chasing that record, we should know what it is.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Matt Scott (American football)

The article on Arizona Wildcats football quarterback, Matt Scott (American football), is about 99.9% plagiarised. DMC511 (talk) 00:08, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

May I help by adding player roster to a few Purdue seasons?

Please forgive my lack of knowledge, I hope this isn't a silly question.

Three members of my immediate family played Football for Purdue University: My father, brother and nephew.

I have a list of team players for each season my relatives played.

Is it in the scope of this project to add a player roster to a page that has few other details?

Unfortunately, I can't devote more than a few days to this project immediately. Perhaps in the future I could flesh out the page for a particular season.

Please let me know if adding the team roster is acceptable --- I'm hoping every little bit helps.

Best regards, A. Lougheed

UseYourHead33 18:15, 8 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Useyourhead33 (talk • contribs)

• Go for it WP:BOLD welcome aboard!--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

'Bama championships

Can someone more knowledgeable than I please take a look at this edit to Alabama Crimson Tide? It may be correct but I am dubious of any edit presenting an uncited "trailer myth" that says, in part, that the university's fans claim more championships than they have earned partially because those claims began in the 60s and 70s when "little fact checking happened." Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 14:39, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

ElKevbo, thanks for the heads up on this. Those edits are indeed dubious, unsubstantiated, and disruptive. They have been reverted and the responsbile IP address has already been blocked once. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Templates for Division I FBS independents football standings

A series of templates has been created and added to the corresponding team season articles (see Category:Division I FBS independents football standings templates). However, by definition, there are no official standings for independents. Does this violate WP:Original Research and is it appropriate? Does the NCAA officially recognize, track or publish such standings? If not, it seems as if it may be inappropriate since the embedding of these templates in team articles convey the inappropriate idea that these are somehow official or actual standings. I know some third party publications in the past have treated independents as one big conference, but this in neither official nor is it necessarily an accurate representation. Even if such templates would be deemed appropriate, it would seem to need to be completed back to 1869, which is virtually impossible to do in the pre-divisional era. In addition, should the conference wins-loss column, obviously blank in every instance, be eliminated as a unnecessary waste of space? Some work was put into creating these templates, which is not in itself reason to keep them, but if the information is supported by some third party WP:CITE, it could be moved to the article on NCAA Division I FBS independent schools or a subsidiary article with the appropriate textual presentation to adequately explain the unofficial nature of the data. But as it stands, their existence in team articles may mislead readers about their nature and may represent WP:OR. Thoughts? CrazyPaco (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's OR. Most college football almanacs and encyclopedias have published annual standings of major independents in their page(s) on the season...for example, my ESPN College Football encyclopedia has them from before 1936 to 2004 (it's a 2005 encyclopedia). Therefore, it's certainly not OR in that respect...if anybody brought up OR, you could just point to sources that track that. pbp 19:30, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. Ok then, if the data is not OR, then is it still appropriate to include the templates, as is, on all the independent's season articles since it is not actually a standing? There is no such thing as a standing for teams that aren't in a league together, whether third party publications want to bunch them together or not. No "championship of independents" has ever been awarded based on records. Unlike "mythical" national championships, there is no governing body the recognizes it. This year, Navy, Army, Notre Dame and BYU are not competing for anything against each other as determined by their individual team records, nor have the independents ever done so. Regardless if it is not original research and invented by almanacs and popular press, is it misleading to represent it as "standings"? I believe that it is misleading as a template because it is not explained on each article that it is integrated into. Remember, it isn't just college football fans reading any particular article. At minimum, it would seem appropriate to change the labels of these templates from "Division I FBS independents football standings" to "Division 1 FBS independent football records". I think Wikipedia at least demands the precision and historical accuracy of a wording change. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone have objections to me commencing with changing the headline labels of these templates from "YYYY Division I X independents football standings" to "YYYY Division I X independents football records" in order to avoid confusion that these are actual standings per my immediate prior reasoning? CrazyPaco (talk) 22:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with your logic, CP. Do it. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I took care it. CrazyPaco (talk) 15:58, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Rankings

So I've noticed that most rankings on a team's season's page start at preseason rankings, than go to the 1st week. The problem with this is that on ESPN.com, they go from preseason straight to the 2nd week, and that makes it look like the page Wiki page is missing a week of rankings, when they actually aren't. I feel that we should stay consistent with what ESPN's doing, considering that's where most of us get our rankings from. So I think that we should make ALL rankings on Wikipedia go from preseason, straight to the 2nd week, and then continue on exactly as ESPN.com has it, all the way up to the final rankings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.216.86.202 (talk) 22:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Disagree, the way Wikipedia articles list them are more accurate and less confusing by using the correct labels: preseason, week 1, week 2, etc. Where you get your rankings from, and your assumption as to where other people get them, really has no relevance here. ESPN's method is the one that looks as if it is missing a week, and frankly, is misleading in the use of its labels. CrazyPaco (talk) 15:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Austin Peay & UT Martin, Re: team names

See here and here, plus all relevant season articles, templates, categories, ect. There seems to be some disagreement whether the name of the team should be Austin Peay Governors or Austin Peay State Governors. Likewise for UT Martin Skyhawks or Tennessee–Martin Skyhawks. Some things use one way, some use the other. Some have been moved back and forth between the two, all without (as far as I can see) attempting to reach any kind of consensus as to what the common name of the team should be. Anyone have any thoughts about where these should be? Ejgreen77 (talk) 16:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Winning percentage in coach bio articles

In recent weeks one editor has made efforts to add winning percentages to the infobox and head coaching record tables of a number of prominent and current college football coach bio articles. I have reverted those changes as a prelude to this discussion. While I'm not necessarily opposed to the inclusion of winning percentages, I think that before we start adding them, we should build a consensus, develop a methodology that is efficient and won't compromise the layout and clarity of existing context, establish formatting standards, and update template documentation as needed. For the purpose of this discussion, let's consider Hugo Bezdek, a complex example who coached multiple sports at the college and pro levels, and how we might want to integrate winning percentages there. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

While I favor the inclusion of current and career winning percentages in coaches' infoboxes, I am not in favor of plastering random percentages in every table in a given article, nor do I believe it is necessary to have a breakout percentage for every team coached. The infobox is already set up for current and career win-loss records, and it is easy enough to add the winning percentage template to these infobox fields. (I did this for all of the Florida Gators coaches two years ago.) It is also important to use the winning percentage template because many fans (and some editors) seem to have no idea how to calculate percentages involving ties. That having been said, listing the winning percentages in more than one infobox or table within the same article is redundant and requires additional upkeep, and I am adamantly opposed to further cluttering the season-by-season career record tables with additional data. In summary,

• Career winning percentage in infobox -- same line/field as career win-loss record

• Yes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, though I resist the idea that all coaching articles must follow the same exact formula. Cbl62 (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes Topgun530 (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes -- Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Current winning percentage in infobox -- same line/field as current win-loss record

• Yes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, though I resist the idea that all coaching articles must follow the same exact formula. Cbl62 (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes Topgun530 (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes -- Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Require use of winning percentage template for all instances of winning percentage to avoid miscalculation

• Yes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yes. Cbl62 (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes or at least strongly encourage it--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes Topgun530 (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes -- Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Year-by-year winning percentage in career records table

• No. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• No, though I resist the idea that all coaching articles must follow the same exact formula. Cbl62 (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• No has much less meaning--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• No Topgun530 (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
• No -- Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Team-by-team winning percentage in career records table (or infobox)

• No. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, though I resist the idea that all coaching articles must follow the same exact formula. Cbl62 (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• No not require, but I have no objection if it is there--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes Topgun530 (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
• No -- Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• Career winning percentage in career records table

• No. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yes, though I resist the idea that all coaching articles must follow the same exact formula. Cbl62 (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes and No I could see its use, but it could also be redundant.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes Topgun530 (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
• Yes -- Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Please feel free to register your opinion above. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

If we are going to put winning percentages somewhere, I would lean toward putting them into the career record tables over the infobox. It's more detailed information, and more detailed information belongs deeper in an article. We could reconfigure the tables to give the winning percentages their own column, keeping everything nice and neat. I agree that the calculation should be automated in some way. The low-level solution for this would be employing the winning percentage template. The higher-level solution would be breaking wins, losses, and ties into individual fields and have the templates automatically calculate winning percentages, a la Template:Infobox NCAA football school. This would also keep the endashes nice and neat. Finally, I disagree with Cbl's resistance to "the idea that all coaching articles must follow the same exact formula". The default position ought to be that they follow the same formula, at least with regard to templates, unless a compelling case for an exception can be made. For example, can anyone think a special case that would warrant to exception to a general implementation of winning percentages? Jweiss11 (talk) 14:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Can we just make this easy and do the same display/format that college basketball coaches have? For example, check out Roy Williams' page. Topgun530 (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Was a final verdict ever made? Topgun530 (talk) 14:15, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Not yet, but it does seem to be leaning toward inclusion. I was hoping that more of the WP:CFB regulars would weigh in, so there would be no bitching later. Maybe the usual suspects need to be prodded on their talk pages. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

MOS: Sports season formats, player tenures and season spans

There is a discussion occurring at the Manual of Style talk page concerning date formats for sports seasons and year spans here: Sports seasons: 1967–68, not 1967/68. For those of you college sports editors who thought this was a settled issue, you may want to chime in. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merger and alterations of "Infobox NFL player"

Greetings, guys. This afternoon, I just stumbled on this TfD by accident: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 October 30#Template:Infobox NFL coach. The long and the short of it, there was a pending TfD for the merge of Infobox NFL coach and Infobox NFL player. Personally, I am not opposed to such a merge in principle, but I am hopping mad that WP:NFL was neither consulted nor notified. Furthermore, no TfD notice was ever placed on the template page for Infobox NFL player. What has this got to do with WP:CFB, you ask? Well, the vast majority of our CFB player bio articles use Infobox NFL player after the subject players have graduated from college. WP:CFB editors have more than a small stake in this, too. Personally, I think it is damn odd that any editor who does not regularly edit CFB and NFL player articles would presume to alter Infobox NFL player without consulting with the two groups of project editors who use the template on a daily basis. Please feel free to join the discussion on the WP:NFL talk page: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League#TfD for NFL coaches infobox and proposed merger. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Alabama-Texas A&M rivalry

Alabama–Texas A&M football rivalry was created today. Seems unnecessary. AfD? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Heh. I don't have any doubt that it's on now, but too soon. I'd support an AfD. Mackensen (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alabama–Texas A&M football rivalry.-_GrapedApe (talk) 03:14, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Florida Gators football: "State Championships"

The objective, third-party opinion of WP:CFB editors is hereby requested: Talk:Florida Gators football#"State Championships". Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:13, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

AfD: Florida–Alabama football rivalry

Pending AfD of an article previously deleted by prod: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Florida–Alabama football rivalry. Please join the party. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit notice

I would like to suggest the implementation of an edit notice for college football head coach articles advising editors that update the win-loss record to update it completely (i.e. in both the infobox and the record table). I have seen several instances of selective updating by IPs (like done because the IP was unaware of what they weren't updating) and it wouldn't hurt to try to cut down on it. AutomaticStrikeout 01:34, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

ASO, the easiest way to do it would be to insert an hidden text message in both the the infobox and records table. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:39, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe so, but only if it's not possible to create an edit notice that could be automatically applied to all the head coach articles (since manually adding the messages would take a while). AutomaticStrikeout 01:46, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Editors who have the "file mover" user right also have the ability to leave a written warning/reminder in the instructions above the edit dialog window when it has been opened for active editing. Of course, you will also need to find an admin or other editor who has the user right and is willing to add the warning/reminder to every active CFB coach article. And then you still have the problem that most IP users (and a pretty large plurality of registered editors) simply disregard all of the instructions above the edit window anyway. Sorry, fella, but the hidden text reminder is the only semi-practical solution of which I know. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, thanks for your help. Maybe someone else knows of something. AutomaticStrikeout 01:59, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

November 18 60 Minutes College football special

All of the sources that I have found ([7], [8] and [9]) regarding the 60 Minutes college football special said David Brandon, Brady Hoke, Denard Robinson and Jordan Kovacs were interviewed for the special. I see no sign of Kovacs in the on air piece or the overtime piece. Can anyone explain this to me.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 08:03, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps he was interviewed, but ended on the cutting room floor. — X96lee15 (talk) 14:18, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposals for mascots

I have created merge proposals for True Grit (mascot) (into UMBC Retrievers) and Rhody the Ram (into Rhode Island Rams). Any input from WP:CFB editors would be appreciated. -Jhortman (talk) 20:21, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Mascots

User:Mtking is going around putting PROD tags on various D I mascots (Smokey (mascot), Rhody the Ram, True Grit (mascot)), many of which are linked in the CFB templates. When questioned about it, his responses seem to all indicate that he believes that NCAA D I mascots fail WP:GNG. This is an extremely narrow reading and interpretation of WP:GNG, no? Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't say that every mascot is necessarily notable (Smokey was certainly notable), but it should probably be taken to AfD. AutomaticStrikeout 23:23, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Mtking 100%. It takes a LOT to show notability for a mascot.--GrapedApe (talk) 01:55, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with AfD instead of PROD. PROD is used for uncontroversial deletions. AfD is designed to facilitate discussion, which is the category most of the articles he's tagged fall under. -Jhortman (talk) 03:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, most Division I sports mascots should easily pass the general notability guidelines per WP:GNG. It only takes a couple of feature articles and other relatively minor coverage, and most of these mascots have been the primary topic of at least one feature article in the major regional newspaper(s) in the state where the universities are located.

FYI, the editor in question has a long history of "aggressive" editing. He is the editor who is primarily responsible for removing the helmet images from CFB infoboxes based on copyright violation related to the helmet drawings. Score one for him. I just de-PRODed Rhody the Ram, URI's mascot, based on the results of a simple Google News Archive search. There remains a PROD for "True Grit," the UMBC mascot. Someone else can tackle that one. Together with Smokey, those were the only three sports mascot PRODs I found among the last 1,000 edits in the editor's recent edits log.

That having been said, I am not a huge fan of these mascot articles for several reasons other than notability. First and foremost, the mascot articles tend to be magnets for a lot of unsourced fancruft and hagiographic "history" (read "mythology"). Remember, just because a topic is notable does not necessarily mean that it is an appropriate topic for a stand-alone Wikipedia article. There are other alternatives, including merging these articles into the primary athletic program pages for the particular universities. One sourced paragraph or two and a photo is really all these topics require. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:27, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Tend to agree with you Dirtlawyer, most mascots for schools playing at the D1 level are likely to be notable, not that others automatically will or won't be. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with your viewpoint, Dirtlawyer1. The only point I was making is that if he wanted to delete them, he should have used AfD, not PROD, in the same way that one should not click the "minor" button in the edit summary for anything other than uncontroversial updates that require no discussion. In fact, I think I'm going to leave a comment on his talk page specifically mentioning that. -Jhortman (talk) 14:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Good points, Dirtlawyer. Perhaps improving sourcing for mascot articles could be one of the long-term goals of the project, since these mascot articles are linked into the CFB templates. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:03, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Final CFB polls for past seasons

Guys, what is the current best online reference for past AP Polls and Coaches Polls? I haven't played with old poll references much in the last two years, and the website that I previously used for final AP Polls has been gutted because of copyright conflicts with the Associated Press. Specifically, I am looking for the full rankings from the final AP Poll, UPI Poll and CNN/USA Today Coaches Poll for the 1984 season (i.e. the January 1985 final polls). Can anyone provide an online reference? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:22, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's a link for AP polls: clicky linky. Not sure on the coaches' polls. -Jhortman (talk) 14:36, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's a link that seems to have the major polls: linky. And unless I'm mistaken, the UPI poll was the coaches' poll until CNN/USA today took it over, so there should only be two major polls from 1984: AP (media) and UPI (coaches). -Jhortman (talk) 14:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, JH. That's just what I needed. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I've got an excel workbook I've been using with the NAIA poll that seems to speed up the process. It doesn't handle win/loss records just yet... let me know if you want it.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the generous offer, Paul, but that's more than I required for my present purposes. I just needed to confirm the two major polls for a single team for a single season, and be able to have a reliable source-linked footnotes. Kind of frustrating when websites drop content, or when they change all of the webpage addresses within the site over time. I've got several hundred CFB articles whose linked footnotes all need to be updated over the holidays . . . but, hey, that's Wikipedia job security, right? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:18, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Speculation

Just a reminder to y'all to be aware of all the coaching speculation-related edits that are going on right now on pages like Butch Jones and Darrell Hazell. Others pages, such as Charlie Strong, have already been protected. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 01:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal

There is a merger proposal at Talk:List of Geneva Golden Tornadoes head football coaches that actually deserves attention from the entire project. I found two unique styles of creating coach list articles and we should all look and decide how to best standardize the list. Good ideas in both articles! Please take a look and comment.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:36, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Athlon Sports, reliable source for All-Americans?

Does Athlon Sports' All-American list qualify as a credible source for an All-American selection, to be add on 2012 College Football All-America Team (and previous years)? --bender235 (talk) 18:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Can you tell if it is a single editor or a panel of editors? If a panel, what are the credentials of the panelists?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:41, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea. --bender235 (talk) 20:58, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Uniform editiors?

Is there any one here who can update team uniform images? Florida's image needs to include blue home pants, white road pants as the primary combination, and orange road pants. ~ Richmond96 T • C 23:32, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Richmond, the Gators have so many jersey/pants color combinations now (blue/white, orange/white, white/white, white/blue, white/orange, blue/blue----am I missing any?) that it's reached a number that they cannot really be accommodated in the standard infobox. Would anyone object if we moved the updated uniforms from the infobox to a graphic in main body text? It would reduce the size of any infobox that is already too long, and allow for greater room to display all of the Gators' uniform variations. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with that. All that needs to be added to this image is three pants; there is no need to duplicate each jersey. ~ Richmond96 T • C 02:38, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Heisman winners on program navboxes?

Johnny Manziel was recently added to Template:Texas A&M Aggies football navbox (and also to Template:Texas A&M University) after I'd removed them from Manziel's article since he wasn't on them at the time. I got a nastygram from another editor about it and just thought I'd pose the question here - should Heisman winners be on at least the football program navbox? It doesn't appear to be the standard (nor for the University navbox for that matter), but I don't know if your project standards allow for any flexibility on this from program to program. I don't really care what you guys decide, but it seems like John David Crow ought to be added if Manziel stays. I guess my lesson is to stick to basketball. Rikster2 (talk) 07:07, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

No, Rikster, the decision was made over a year ago not to include coaches, individua award winners, or other individual persons on the CFB program navboxes. We have separate navboxes for coaches, and we do not include links for individual All-Americans or any other individuals award winners associated with the programs. Heisman Trophy winners should certainly be prominently mentioned in the team article and season articles, and, of course, there is a separate Heisman Trophy winners navbox. If someone is bent out of shape, tell them to bring it to this talk page. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 07:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I thought I remembered this discussion. Thanks for the response. I knew I wasn't crazy. Rikster2 (talk) 13:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:2012 NCAA Division I FBS College Football Consensus All-Americans

Now that the results are in on all five of the components of the consensus All-American team selection process, I am not sure how the tie breakers work in cases where there is no one who got three of the five. How do 2nd team AA selections contribute to the process when the number of people with three first teams does not fill out the roster. There should be a 5th OL, a 4th DB, a P and possibly a PR. How can I find the official complete list of consensus selections?

Good question, Tony. I wish I knew the answer, but it's probably buried somewhere in the NCAA statistics handbook section that explains consensus All-American status. Also, is there a reason we are not alphabetizing the Big Five selector organizations in the parentthetical following the names of the All-American players? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Not sure about alphabetizing, but WCFF has a 2nd team and AP has 2nd and 3rd. I know that basketball uses a scoring system of 3pts for first team, 2 for 2nd and 1 for 3rd. I am wondering if WCFF and AP count here in the same way for football? After Will Sutton got 2 1st teams and 1 2nd team, ASU issued a lot of press that he had already clinched consensus. I am guessing 2nd and 3rd count in that way here. However, the template only includes people with three 1st teams right now.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:14, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I was under the impression we were including only first-team selections in the recent AA lists/articles. If the parentheticals include second and third-team selections, they need to be so noted as they were in past years. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:18, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

For each Team list we only include first teams, but to determine consensus, I think we need to consider second teams. I think the following people may also be consensus

OL David Yankey based on AP second team breaking tie with Taylor Lewan

DB Eric Reid based on two second teams over Johnthan Banks and Matt Elam (each with one)

PK Cairo Santos only one with two first teams

PR Tavon Austin and Venric Mark tied with two 1st teams each and no 2nds.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:24, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

According to This Sports reference page, only Santos is consensus. No PR, 3 DBs and 4 OLs.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• I think USA Today mirrored our page without understanding that some extra guys are probably going to get filled in. Should we make it clear that the template may be incomplete?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:12, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• The final team was announced by the NCAA and can be seen here. Only Reid and Santos were included from those mentioned above as possibilities. Patriarca12 (talk) 15:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism or Corrections to Alabama's 2008 Team Article

Can someone please take a look at recent edits to 2008 Alabama Crimson Tide football team‎? An unregistered editor is either correcting serious errors that were made in the article or introducing serious errors. ElKevbo (talk) 06:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• Definitely vandalism, and I have double checked it and cleaned up the article a bit too. There has been a rash of IP editors trashing recent Alabama season articles as of late, and I have been trying as best I can to correct/revert them as they appear. Thanks for catching this one! Patriarca12 (talk) 08:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

is there really a consensus on series record for rivalries

An editor made edits to the WLOCP page that changed the formatting of the results table. Another editor reverted by saying that the former editor's change had no consensus.

1. Did we ever reach a consensus for how a results table is formatted?
2. If so, why have editors supposedly changed the table to go against consensus?

Some specific versions to look at:

• [10] This is the article after improvements were made to the table
• [11] The next edit was to revert that change

And I don't think the answer is to decide each rivalry's table format on a case-by-case basis (although we should make certain allowances where supported by references). There is no good reason that some tables should have the cell backgrounds color-coded while other tables have the text itself boldfaced and color-coded (see South's Oldest Rivalry for an example of that). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.90.216.96 (talk) 06:44, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

High School All-Americans

Instead of updating the USA Today All-USA high school football team page, I was considering to overhaul this entire concept, and create yyyy High School Football All-America Team articles like they exist for College All-Americans. First, however, there are a couple of problems to solve:

1. Which selector organizations are recognized by whoever the governing body is? They are high school All-Americans selected by USA Today, Parade, EA Sports, Rivals.com, Scout.com, MaxPreps, and a couple of others. Which are the important ones, and which are used to determine consensus/unanimous All-Americans?

1. Some organizations select only one team, others also add second and third teams. Do we include all of these?

1. What about the HS All-American Games, by US Army and Under Armour, which select not just a team, but two entire rosters? Do we include these (maybe only the starters)?

If I could get some feedback, that would be nice. I'm about to start this process with the 2012 High School Football All-America Team very soon. --bender235 (talk) 11:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

ESPN Insider?

I've been working on some college bowl articles, and today, as a Christmas gift, I was given a subscription to ESPN Insider. Is it permissible to use articles that not everyone can check to corroborate as sources in articles? On one hand, I thought that citing ESPN Insider is no different than citing a book because not everyone has the book, but on the other hand, I'd never seen ESPN Insider cited, so I wasn't quite sure what the precedent was. Thanks in advance, and Merry Christmas to all! Go Phightins! 19:24, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there's no problem with citing a source behind a paywall. cmadler (talk) 13:53, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

We're citing sources that are behind paywalls all the time, like all scientific articles on sites like ScienceDirect or SpringerLink. There's no problem with that at all. --bender235 (talk) 14:48, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Terrific. Thanks to you both. Go Phightins! 15:13, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Conference award navboxes

How do we feel about navboxes for conference awards such as Template:Pacific-12 Coach of the Year, Template:Pacific-12 Player of the Year, and Template:Morris Trophy. TfD? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:31, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I thought the conclusion of the last conversation we had about conference-level awards was that we should limit them only to the top awards, and avoid doing annual all-conference navboxes, etc. COY and POY may be within the permitted parameters of what we previously discussed. I'm not in love with these navboxes, as would certainly like to hear what other WP:CFB regulars think. I would oppose any further expansion of conference-level or team-level awards. Many of these additional awards are appropriate for inclusion in the player infoboxes, but are overkill for navboxes. Also, please remember that the guidelines for navboxes state that all navboxes should be supported by a stand-alone article on the same subject . . . . Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:Pacific-12 Player of the Year is overloaded with too many awards. We don't need to be able to navigate from Offensive POYs to Freshman Defensive POYs. While a stand-alone article is nice filter, there are probably stand-alone lists, like Freshman Awards, that dont really need to add to navbox clutter.—Bagumba (talk) 20:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

The Pac-12 navbox cited is a mess. The freshman awards do not merit a navbox, and need to be removed. Personally, I don't even include such awards in player infoboxes----most CFB players who are notable enough to rate a Wikipedia article by graduation have far more significant awards to list. I don't put much stock in second-team freshman all-conference selections and the like. The editor who created the navbox in question has been on a tear for the last several days making Pac-12 related edits. He may need some gentle guidance regarding WP:CFB policies and consensus. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:57, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I see no problem with the templates. They are notable awards, so in my opinion, I see no reason why they can't have templates.--Yankees10 18:03, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I guess the debate is usually that many wards are notable, but are some less notable than others that would not justify the clutter of overwhelming the reader with too many navboxes. Note, a reader can always click on the award link in the article to get more details. Even if there was agreement that some were "less notable", we need objective criteria to weed them out. Otherwise, they will always need to be discussed on a per-case basis.—Bagumba (talk) 18:14, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Yankees, if you believe that the Pac-12 freshman football awards are "notable," please provide links to multiple independent reliable sources that demonstrate their notability per WP:GNG. Please note per WP:GNG that routine mentions of such awards don't cut it. I think the best you will find are mentions of the freshman awards piggybacking on articles regarding the upper-class conference awards like the Morris Award, POY, etc. Too often we accept these sorts of trivial to routine mentions as indicia of notability when they should be disregarded per WP:ROUTINE. Moreover, the navbox guidelines require that any navbox be supported by a stand-alone article on the same subject,

By consensus, WP:CFB can decide what to include or not include in any CFB navbox or whether we should have particular classes of navboxes at all. We have discussed these conference awards before. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Well I can agree with the freshman awards and I wouldn't have a problem with them being removed, but the Player of the Year awards are notable and should have a template, imo.--Yankees10 18:56, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, then we don't we have much to disagree about. Pac-12 POY and Morris Trophy are both notable, and the Morris has an even longer history. Navbox should be linked to the Pac-12 football awards article. I'll hold my tongue and let other WP:CFB editors chime in. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:07, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I've nominated these three navboxes for deletion. Please see the discussion here: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#January 3. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:52, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Real-time bowl info

Is there any precedent on college bowl game infoboxes being updated throughout the game (i.e. after every TD, FG, etc.)? Should this happen, or should all scores go into the box after the game?
Ben S. Henderson (talk) 01:15, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any reason not to? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 01:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

It makes for a cleaner edit history to add it all in one chunk, but otherwise I can think of no objection. Mackensen (talk) 04:09, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd go to ESPN before coming here. Some would say its news and not encyclopedic, but {{mip}} realizes that people will update it anyways.—Bagumba (talk) 04:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

It is, after all, "The Free Encyclopedia".
Ben S. Henderson (talk) 22:38, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Does that mean we shouldn't strive to be accurate? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 02:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

IMO, it's incorrect to update the score throughout the game. The way the info box is currently implemented, there's no way to indicate the game is in progress. This is Wikipedia, not wikinews. – X96lee15 (talk) 05:17, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

X96lee15 brings up a good point about no indication of games in progress. Updating during games also strikes me as frivolous and inefficient. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

My point exactly.
Ben S. Henderson (talk) 23:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that as long as the information is accurate, it hardly matters when it's added, be it 10 seconds after it happens or 10 years after it happens. Go Phightins! 19:24, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem is, the way the infobox is now, if the score is 14-7 in the first quarter, then that's how the score will be shown at the top of the infobox and it's not obvious the game is still in progress. It's better to not update it at all as opposed to having the article present itself that the game is complete. – X96lee15 (talk) 06:07, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

In such cases, the article should be tagged with {{current sport}} while it's ongoing. cmadler (talk) 13:52, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

So if I do attach the current sport template at the top of the page, is there any objection to adding the score and some scoring plays as we go for the bowl game today between W. Kentucky and someone? Go Phightins! 15:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I still don't think it's appropriate to update scores on a game in progress on Wikipedia per WP:NOTNEWS. "Editors are encouraged to write about breaking news events in Wikinews instead of in Wikipedia." — X96lee15 (talk) 15:18, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Another point against updating in real-time during the game: if people start updating the score, but at some point stop, then the score is potentially from the first quarter, but the game is in the fourth quarter. I noticed this during the Holiday bowl last night. The updates were at least 10 minutes out-of-date at one point. — X96lee15 (talk) 14:25, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Name of articles on conference awards

For the lists in Category:College football conference awards and honors, the recent addition of "individual" to the title of lists like Pacific-12 Conference football individual awards seems overly verbose. Per WP:LISTNAME, "Many lists are not intended to contain every possible member, but this does not need to be explained in the title itself." Also, it's not like there is the need to disambiguate with a "non-individual" award article either.—Bagumba (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I think "Pacific-12 Conference football awards" would work just fine. Unfortunately, most of these conference awards articles/lists are a complete mess, regardless of what we call them . . . . Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:50, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems that one editor recently standardized all these article names to "...individual awards". When I created the Big Ten article a few years back, I named it Big Ten Conference football individual honors because that's what the conference officially referred to them as in their press releases. The 2011 press release is titled "Big Ten Announces 2011 All-Big Ten Teams and Select Individual Award Winners". Jweiss11 (talk) 07:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Score sequence

Several of the Michigan team articles were edited today to flip the scoring to reflect Michigan's score first, even in losses. See here. I recall this coming up here before and the consensus being that the winning team's score should be listed first. Thus, a Michigan loss should be shown as 14-0 rather than 0-14. Is my recollection correct about that? Cbl62 (talk) 05:49, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the decision was that "it depends." In a Michigan article, the Michigan score should always be listed first. In a rivalry article, or other non-team-specific articles, the winning score should always be listed first. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 06:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Caveat: I was thinking in terms of season record tables and series record tables above. In main body text, the winning score should always be listed first, e.g., "the Wolverines suffered a 14–7 loss at the hands of the Buckeyes." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 06:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

With Loss winning score first it looks like this

Date	Opponent	Site	Result	Attendance
October 1,	Mount Union*	Ferry Field Ann Arbor, MI	L 44–0	10,000
*Non-conference game

With loss the other way

Date	Opponent	Site	Result	Attendance
October 1,	Mount Union*	Ferry Field Ann Arbor, MI	L 0–44	10,000
*Non-conference game

MDSanker 06:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Prior discussion can be found at the archives of this page (Archives 10 - "losing score first"). Consensus was for winning score first. We should stick with that consensus.Cbl62 (talk) 06:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Cbl, but I was trying to link to the prior conversation at the same time you were saving your edit. Regarding the last discussion, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive 10, I count precisely one vote in favor of winning score first always----that was Xlee15's. No other affirmative votes were in favor of winning score first under all circumstances. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 06:41, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I interpret the prior consensus (as applied to team/year article) differently with precisely one vote (yours) in favor of lower subject team score first. Here's a summary:

• X96lee: "IMO, the higher score should be listed first."
• Jweiss11: "I lean toward agreeing with X96lee15 on higher score first." Jweiss also pointed out that, although there is a lack of uniformity, authoritative sites such as ESPN go with higher score first. See, e.g., this example from ESPN.com. Jweiss suggested an exception where there are separate columns that lock things in.
• Nolelover: "I too had 'heard somewhere' that the losing score would go first, so I've always done it that way, even though I agree that it doesn't make sense if you have the W or L."
• Dirtlawyer: "I believe that the score of the subject team should always be presented first."

I didn't take a stand on the issue and have no skin in the game. I just hate to have to go back and redo everything. Unless there's a very good reason to reverse what looked to me like a solid consensus, I prefer sticking with the winning score first consensus. Cbl62 (talk) 06:57, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

• It is not really losing score first it is "The team's score first and the opponents last. Say Texas scored 21 points and Texas Tech scored 24 points the page is Texas so it reads Texas lost the score was Texas 21 Texas Tech 24. In writing it out or saying it in a sentence you can still say Texas last to Texas tech 24 to 21. MDSanker 07:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

You are correct. It's between subject team score first or winning team score first. Cbl62 (talk) 07:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, no, not exactly. It depends on context. . .

Yes, Cbl62, those are quotes from Jweiss and Nolelover, and both of them also acknowledged that the losing score first for the subject team appeared to be the current CFB majority practice in certain contexts. As I read the discussion, neither of them actually took a definitive position in all circumstances. As for my quote above, it's taken out of context. If you re-read what I wrote in the archived discussion, I suggested that the subject team score should always be presented first in season records tables, and that the winning score should always be presented first in main body text (the normal American verbal convention) as well as in rivalry series tables. Jweiss' examples suggested a split of examples both on Wikipedia and on other websites. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 07:36, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Nobody has ever suggested subject team score should always be first In text. That's a red herring. The debate was how it should be listed in season record tables. On that point, it appeared you were the only advocate of subject team first. Let's not over-lawyer things. Maybe consensus has changed. If so, fine. Cbl62 (talk) 07:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Two things to say here. First of all, as a Michigan fan, I must point out that they never lost to Mount Union. Also, I'd like to ask if it would be advisable to take a !vote on this to determine consensus? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup. Let's formulate one of our usual informal WP:CFB RFCs and determine consensus for real. Before we start that, however, let's solicit the input of the usual suspects. Immediate voting tends to curtail meaningful discussion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:35, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I've never participated in one of them informal RfC thingys, so I'll let someone else get it going. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 17:36, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Coming late to the game, but I just want to reiterate my position that the higher score should go first. My reasoning is that when speaking (and in prose) it is typically said, "we lost fourteen to seven" or "we won fourteen to seven". I rarely hear, "we lost seven to fourteen". Because of this, I believe table entries should be most like prose. Actually, if you look at WP:WHENTABLE, the sporting score examples list the higher score first (even without the W/L indicator). I don't believe there was consensus one way or another in the previous discussions (or I would have gone and changed every instance :). — X96lee15 (talk) 18:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

If my position before was ambiguous, let me state it clearly here. I support higher score first in all cases where a score is endashed or written out (e.g. "21 to 14") in either prose or in tables where W/L/T is explicitly noted and left-right orientation is not used to assign points to opponents. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

TfD for Pac-12 award navboxes

Please comment here: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 January 3. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 07:39, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Assessment backlog for 2012 season articles

Now that we have almost reached the end of the 2012 college football season, we have a large backlog of Current-Class and Future-Class (never moved to Current) articles that need to be rerated for quality. Please see Category:College football articles by quality and chip in where you can. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 12:59, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

2013 Senior Bowl

I recently created the article and would like some help because I've seen conflicting information as to which teams are being coached by which staffs. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 19:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

TfD: Starting Quarterbacks Navboxes

Mass TfD at: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 January 5#Template:Southeastern_Conference_quarterback_navbox. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 06:43, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

AfD: Division III football seasons

Mass AfD at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012 Buffalo State Bengals football team. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 06:43, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

WAC football

So WAC football is more or less done at this point, with just the bowls to play out. Here's my question: when do we start changing things like {{Western Athletic Conference football coach navbox}}? I ask because it seems weird to add Paul Petrino when he's never really going to coach in the WAC, but Jason Gesser shouldn't be listed there either. Mackensen (talk) 02:49, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Conference changes generally happen officially on July 1. We shouldn't jump the gun before they happen. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I've updated accordingly. Mackensen (talk) 03:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks for making the quick changes. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Never crystal ball a conference in the NCAA. Good job.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Oops, I made these changes today without reading this discussion first! I usually wait until July 1 for conference change-related updates as well, but I thought for football coaches it might make sense to update now considering that the 2012 football season is over. Feel free to change these back if you'd like (I updated WAC, ACC, Big East, Mountain West, CUSA, and Sun Belt coach navboxes). Or could we simply add a note somewhere on the template saying that these changes are coming in the future (e.g. "Current head football coaches of _________ Conference (as of July 1, 2013)")? Let me know, sorry again for jumping the gun. Dafoeberezin3494 (talk) 04:05, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

All-time lists of All-America Teams

Does anyone have or have access to an all-time list of The Sporting News college football All-America teams? TSN don't have links on its website, nor has its staff ever compiled an all-time list in PDF format that they can share, at least according to their customer service department. Damned odd for one of the Big Five selector organizations used by the NCAA to determine consensus All-Americans. FWAA and the Walter Camp Foundation have links to their all-time All-America teams on their websites, and AFCA will provide a PDF all-time list on request (I have it if anyone wants it). The AP All-Americans, of course, are published every year in most newspapers, so they're not hard to find. Besides Sporting News, I am also looking for the all-time lists of All-America teams for UP/UPI, Pro Football Weekly, College Football News/Football News. It would be great if someone could recommend a CFB encyclopedia or almanac that included All-American lists . . . . Can anyone help me out? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:01, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Kevin Kiesel

Can anyone help fill in the yearly records for Kevin Kiesel? Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 21:19, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

RM for Derek Dooley

A requested move has been opened here that may be of interest to the members of this project. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 20:19, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Proposal for the University of Georgia

Hello all,

I have started a proposal for a WikiProject for the University of Georgia. The UGA article and all related pages including Georgia Bulldogs is in need of much improvement and expansion. If you're interested in joining, please add your name to the supporter list. The University of Florida started it's own WikiProject and that gave me the idea. There is much work to be done! Your support and attention is much needed and much appreciated!

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. DMB112 (talk) 18:15, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

New navbox rivalry/trophy game format

I was bold in updating the navboxes in Category:NCAA Division I FBS team navigational boxes. The old format consisted of a mix of opponent's name, game monikers and trophies alphabetized together and made navigation difficult. At any point you could find a rivalry listed by either of the three identifiers:

Opponent
Trophy	(Opponent)
Game nickname	(Opponent)
Game nickname	(Opponent,	Trophy)

This left a mess of the three components (game nickname, opponent, and trophy) with some beginning with trophies found on either side of the name of the opponent, and inside and outside parenthesis. When dealing with multiple trophies per opponent, they became regulated away from the opponent. The format I just put in place simplifies this to a simple concept that the Opponent always leads and is always alphabetized by the opponents instead of the previous 4-way format.

Opponent
Opponent	: Game nickname
Opponent		(Trophy)
Opponent	: Game nickname	(Trophy)

This ensures every rival is listed by their primary identifier: their name. Game nicknames (Southwest Classic, Bowden Bowl, etc.) and trophies (Slab of Bacon, Sweet Sioux Tomahawk, etc.) are not substitutes for the match up itself since that is the most consistent measure of the rivalry. When looking at Template:Alabama Crimson Tide football navbox, here is the before and after:

Before:	Iron Bowl (Auburn, James E. Foy, V-ODK Sportsmanship Trophy)
After:	Auburn: Iron Bowl (James E. Foy, V-ODK Sportsmanship Trophy)

Previously, rivalries with multiple traveling trophies had several different methods for handling either discontinued or concurrent traveling trophies. The Minnesota–Wisconsin football rivalry has two traveling trophies exchanged in the series. [Under the previous format, Template:Wisconsin Badgers football navbox] listed the traveling trophy presently exchanged since 1948, Paul Bunyan's Axe, next to the opponent's name in the "Bowls & rivalry" list but the previous traveling trophy, Slab of Bacon, was listed in "Culture & lore" without an identifier of the team it was exchanged with and whether it was even a traveling trophy. The format below for multiple trophies corrects this problem, and continues to emphasis the overall rivalry that began in 1890 and not simply the series during the exchange of each traveling trophy (1930–1943 & 1948–2012):

Opponent

: Game nickname

(Trophy 1, Year start–Year end; Trophy 2, Year start–Year end)

NThomas (talk) 11:55, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Editor NThomas is making significant changes to the established WP:CFB formatting and content for dozens of college football program navboxes (see list of recent editor contributions here). I have remove the added trophy links for the Florida Gators because the Gators do not have "trophy rivalries," and because two of the three links are redundant redirects, not standalone article, and simply redirect to the articles already listed. Please see my further comments on my user talk page. I am sure that there are many similar circumstances where these changes have been made last night and this morning. I would be curious to hear the reaction of other long-time WP:CFB editors regarding these changes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:36, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Whether you like it or not, the Seminole War Canoe, Okefenokee Oar, and Florida Cup all exist, and at are/were traveling trophies exchanged between rivals and the University of Florida. Your personal bias that these traveling trophies have "very little significance to the teams or fans" shouldn't be what keeps this information from being accessible from related articles. NThomas (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Please note that the links for the War Canoe Trophy for the Florida-Miami rivalry and the Okefenokee Oar trophy for the Florida-Georgia rivalry are both redirects to the rivalry articles. Including redirect links for the trophies side by side with the direct links for the rivalry articles is contrary to linking policy. It's also a little goofy. We can justify a separate link for the Florida Cup; it is a separate article. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Please link the WP policy you're referring. Using targeted redirects is perfectly fine. NThomas (talk) 22:02, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:OVERLINK and WP:REPEATLINK. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree about linking redirects per WP:REPEATLINK. However, WP:OVERLINK pretty much argues for removing the year-by-year season articles, which in many templates, are filled with redlinks (see the Central Michigan example cited just below) or are simply subsection links. For instance, IMO, there is really no need to link each some section of Florida Gators football, 1910–1919 when 1910-19 would be sufficient and more concise. IMO, linking each year actually buries seasons of significant achievement for any particular program (National championships, major bowl victories, conference titles, or even just complete stand-alone articles) in a sea of mostly mediocre or non-notable seasons and makes it actually makes it harder for the typical Wikipedia reader to extract meaningful information about the topic. To quote WP:OVERLINK directly: "making it difficult to identify links likely to significantly aid the reader's understanding." However, that said, on a scale of acceptability, I think it is more reasonable to link article subsections, even if unnecessary or a detriment to clarity, but not redirects. A rivalry name or trophy can be added in parenthesis to the navbox without being linked if deemed to be important. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:39, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Linking to through targeted redirects helps in developing those redirects into stand-alone articles. If 1910 Florida Gators football team is developed into a stand-alone article, existing targeted redirects would not have to be replaced like piped links. E.g., [[[Florida Gators football, 1910–1919#1910]] doesn't help to facilitate the growth of Wikipedia. Also, redirects can be categorized where piping links cannot. NThomas (talk) 00:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

How ironic in your reply, that you WP:OVERLINKed considering WP:REPEATLINK in contained in the same section...

Even within these general limits, the choice of whether or not to repeat a link should consider whether the added value of linking a particular occurrence outweighs the consequent dilution of the value of other links. —WP:REPEATLINK

Considering that targeted redirects would not dilute the other link, I see no reason why something you see as "a little goofy" violates WP:OVERLINK when it infact it remains a targeted redirect and adds value to the particular occurrence (i.e. the targeted redirect traveling trophy). NThomas (talk) 22:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Interesting that you subscribe to the concept of 'dilution' in one breath and you negate it in the second: a link is a link, and if there are repeated links, or links that are placed too close together, these all dilute each others' effect, and potentially drive away from where the reader is most likely to benefit from going to learn more about the subject at hand. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:26, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't. Besides, it's a navbox. There're suppose to be links. If you don't like it, change it. NThomas (talk) 07:26, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm also interested if you think this recent edit to Template:Pittsburgh Panthers football navbox] is "a little goofy" in increasing the ability to navigation between multiple related articles. NThomas (talk) 22:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

It actually improves the navbox by aiding the reader in distinguishing between bowls and the list of rivals by inserting the word "Rivals:" (to avoid potential confusion of the teams following "bowl" as being bowl opponents) and 2) lists them in order of most played, thereby placing them in some order of significance to the reader as opposed to a meaningless alphabetical order. The point being primarily, that instituting mass changes in a one-size-fits all manner is generally a horrible idea and really is unprecedented in any other sports wikiproject, or most wikiprojects. Further, football article navboxes are not owned by this wikiproject, but also fall under the consensus of individual article editors, the wikiprojects of individual universities, WP:UNI, and wikiprojects of the cities and states to which those universities are located. The issue of this Wikiproject owning 100s of navboxes, and particularly one or two editors, can certainly be taken to RfC. I would welcome that. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Inserting a duplicate "rivals:" in list2 "Bowls & rivalies" is a horrible idea only because bowls and rivalry games don't belong in the same list. Ideally, all of the CFB navboxes would have "|above =" for general information such as the program's founding (including hiatuses, and disbandment year), the location of the program affiliated with the university, alternate monikers, etc. Also, |group1 = would be an overview list for links that are currently piped like [[List of [university] [moniker] football seasons]], [[List of [university] [moniker] home football stadiums]], etc. looking something like this: Template talk:Pittsburgh Panthers football navbox/sandbox. Although WP:CFB may not "own" this topics, it is a gathering point for discussion that should be used to find a consensus for standardization, with as many options for personalization per standards. If you look at the navbox categories for all the five major sports leagues in the United States (MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL}, and NHL) you'll see there is a precedent and it works quite well. NThomas (talk) 00:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you completely, they don't belong on the same line. It was a less than ideal solution for a template that is bad to begin with. This goes back to a debate over a year ago that did not result in consensus. You know what else is a bad idea? Forcing information onto navboxes that highlight trivial information about a football grogram but not allowing, in fact removing, other information that is included in many pro sport navboxes. It is also unnecessary to put 50+ redlinked years into the navboxes, but that is a separate issue. But these things are what a few editors have done here, without clear consensus, for the sake of rigidly standardizing the encyclopedia in contrast to every navbox for every other topic and sport that I am aware of (eg. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, Premier League, etc, etc). It is simply unheard of to prevent customization of navboxes to provide the most pertinent information for the best understanding on the topic. You can't stuff 32 NFL team navboxes into the same rigidity, you sure aren't going to stuff 248 D1 navboxes into the same mold: it is flat out poor Wikipedia practice. BTW, your sandbox version of the Pitt football template is superior to the current one, with some duplication that could be removed. I look forward to actually having a discussion with you about what sorts of information makes reasonable sense to include in the navbox. I encourage you to implement it as a live edit. CrazyPaco (talk) 04:50, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no interest any more sweeping changes to any of these CFB navboxes. When these were all "standardized" the first time around, and a now banned user moved dozens of articles from their trophy game name to the [Team A]–[Team B] football rivalry, the navboxes lost LOTS of links and info from about their series' traveling trophies. Now we're left with the mess, and it still hasn't been "fixed." That sandbox of the Panthers is just an example. I'd like to think that every NCAA Division I (FBS & FCS) teams could be as well developed to fill some of those redlinks, but considering the merge happy desire by some editors here, I don't think these topics will grow, but instead shrink. Until personal bias are put aside for the betterment of the project, there'll be no reason to implement a navbox based on growth. Feel free to expand and perfect what I laid out in that sandbox for the article space but you won't see me do anything on a mass scale about this MUCH needed organization when we can't get simple traveling trophies on group2 of these navboxes. NThomas (talk) 07:26, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you. I am not looking for any mass changes. CrazyPaco (talk) 09:26, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

NThomas, thanks for posting here. I like the idea of making the navigation across all the navboxes more consistent and intuitive. Links to redundant redirects are generally a bad idea, especially in the case of rivalries and trophies. That area of rivalries and trophies is one that needs a lot more cleanup. We've addressed this as a project in the past, but more work is still needed to finish the job. Please take a look at Template:Central Michigan Chippewas football navbox versus Template:Western Michigan Broncos football navbox. There's an inconsistency there. I think the Central Michigan navbox form makes more sense as it avoids the redundant wikilink to Michigan MAC Trophy. Dirtlawyer1, the Florida Cup is a bit of funny situation, somewhat analogous to the Michigan MAC Trophy, but standalone articles for each of the three greater Florida rivalries exist. That being said, as long as the Florida Cup article exists, it belongs somewhere on Template:Florida Gators football navbox. Removing it from the Gators navbox, but leaving it on the Seminoles and Hurricanes navboxes makes no sense. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:00, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, the "Florida Cup" is a forgotten trophy as it is awarded so infrequently because it requires round-robin play among Florida, FSU and Miami to be awarded in any given year, and the next Florida-Miami game isn't even scheduled (beyond 2013). As a result, it means very little to anyone in Gainesville. It means something to FSU and Miami because they continue to play every year.

Beyond that, NThomas' edits do raise legitimate questions about how we should format rivalry links and how we should display the relationships between the rivalries and the rivalry trophies within the navboxes. If I had my druthers, the trophy articles would all be merged into the rivalry articles, with redirects for the trophies, but I know some of the Big Ten guys have very strong feelings about maintaining standalone articles for the trophies. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The next Florida–Miami football game is scheduled for September 7, 2013. Your recentism is showing considering that contractual bowl agreements between the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and Southeastern Conference (SEC) could place both the Gators and Hurricanes in either the Chick-fil-A Bowl, Music City Bowl, Independence Bowl, or Bowl Championship Series in seasons when the programs have not scheduled a regular season game. NThomas (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I love that you changed your original comment where you lied about the Florida–Miami series schedule to belittle the rivalry & Florida Cup instead of replying after I called you out. NThomas (talk) 07:26, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

DL, so perhaps the Florida Cup should be merged into the greater rivalry articles? I think we should be aggressive about merging trophies with their rivalries. The question should just be the article name and which way the redirect points. In the cases of some rivalries, and not just Big Ten ones, the trophy (e.g. Little Brown Jug (American football)) or rivalry nickname (e.g. Third Saturday in October) should be the article name, not a simple "Team A–Team B football rivalry" structure.

Generally, there is a high level of content duplication between the rivalry articles and their associated trophy articles, often with both having some version of the series record table, etc. In most, but not all instances, a merge makes sense. In the particular case of the Florida Cup, it's a "three-way" trophy and a problematic candidate for a merge given that it concerns three different rivalries.

In the absence of an overwhelmingly common and publicly recognized rivalry name, I think most rivalry articles should follow the "Team A-Team B football rivalry" naming pattern, with a redirect from the trophy name. If we use a rivalry game's "nickname" as the article title, then a redirect should be created that does follow the standard "Team A-Team B" naming pattern.

Just as an aside, I note that many rivalry articles remain among the worst maintained, worst sourced, and cruftiest CFB articles we have. They also remain among the worst violators of NPOV within the writ of WP:CFB. For every rivalry article that is well written and well sourced, there are dozens of others that are simply embarrassing to WP:CFB and Wikipedia. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:42, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Please show an instance in which two articles exist for the same rivalry that should remain as two separate articles. Are we just too lazy to merge them or should some remain separate?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Tony, a good example of this issue is Notre Dame–USC football rivalry and Jeweled Shillelagh. It's redundant to have two separate articles here. They should be merged. I don't know that there are any cases where such a pair of articles should remain separate. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

That absolutely should be merged. I would submit that the vast majority of trophies themselves are not notable separate of their corresponding rivalry. As far as the format, I think it is adequate, with the caveat raised by Dirtlawyer that it can't necessarily be applied uniformly across all templates because not all schools have trophy rivalries. Of course, this gets back into the ownership issue that this project has with shoehorning in all programs into a one-size-fits-all football navbox, which in some case, IMO, has resulted in inferior, less effective presentation of the most relevant material. CrazyPaco (talk) 17:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The whole purpose of this reformatting as to place emphasis on the rival opponent and away from the traveling trophies. If there is a need for a separate articles for traveling trophies and game nicknames, then the format [[Team A–Team B football rivalry|Opponent]]: [[Game nickname]] ([[Trophy]]) still applies. When dealing with rivalries that have had multiple traveling trophies (e.g., Template:Wisconsin Badgers football navbox) over the course of the overall rivalry, it makes sense to list both and the dates exchanged for the purposes of navigating between related articles of the subject. Ideally in the case of Wisconsin, a separate article [[Minnesota–Wisconsin football rivalry]] would cover the overall series with sections (and separate articles if needed) for the traveling trophies. NThomas (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't disagree with that. It makes sense to list the "Team (rivalry name and/or trophy)". Separate articles or not, that just makes sense. However, there probably aren't many warranted articles about just the trophies themselves (with some exceptions like the Florida Cup that involves multiple teams and should be dealt separately than FSU-Miami or FSU-UF, etc). As far as the Big 10, with its plethora of trophy games, it seems like all of the trophies and rivalry articles are merged, so it may not be that big of an issue. CrazyPaco (talk) 21:03, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I liked the idea of round-robin (or semi-round robin) traveling trophies listed separately because in the case of BYU–Utah State you get both the traveling trophies that are effect by the game: e.g., Utah State (Beehive Boot; The Old Wagon Wheel).

The one thing I want to reiterate about redirects within the navboxes. The purpose of navboxes according to WP:NAV is: a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles.

When looking for a traveling trophy about a particular team, while it may not have a stand-alone article, it does facilitate the navigation between those multiple related articles even if the subject is a redirect to a section within the main rivalry article. NThomas (talk) 21:15, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

As an aside to this discussion, I have proposed mergers for Frank Leahy Memorial Bowl (Discuss) and Jeweled Shillelagh (Discuss) CrazyPaco (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

CrazyPaco, thanks opening those mergers. I have a few comments on some points made in the discussion above.

The reason we don't want to link to Okefenokee Oar in a navbox is that we have decided that it doesn't warrant a standalone article. I think everyone here agrees that we don't need a separate article for a rivalry trophy; a rivalry article is good enough and any hardware that is awarded in that rivalry can be discussed within that one article. In contrast, 1910 Florida Gators football team could easily, and probably should be, expanded into its own stand-alone article. We've got plenty of other stand-alone season articles for the 1910 season. The excellent work of editors like User:Cbl62 and User:Patriarca12 has proven that such season articles, even going back to the late 1800s, can be developed into high-quality ones worthy of their stand-alone status. You might wonder why 1910 Florida Gators football team is a redirect to a decade article while 1910 Wisconsin Badgers football team is a stand-alone article. The answer is the relatively arbitrary approaches of two different editors over the span of many years. Let's not form our standardized structures upon such arbitrarity.

One of the main points for forcing a standard for the navboxes is to combat team-based ownership and fanboyism and force us all to take a more methodical, neutral approach to building college football content on Wikipedia. In many cases, the standards developed here in this WikiProject have served as the basis for adoption by other projects. The team navboxes for the NFL, for example, are nothing to look to for good examples. They are rife with banner-raising and redundancy. Jweiss11 (talk) 08:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Prevailing precedent across Wikipedia is that there is no reason to fill a navbox with dozens (or over 100 in some cases) of redlinked dates and article subsection redirects. I refer you to precedent laid out WP:NAV: "Red links should be avoided unless they are very likely to be developed into articles, and even if they do, editors are encouraged to write the article first."

Further:

"Navigation templates provide navigation within Wikipedia:

• The goal is not to cram as many related articles as possible into one space. Ask yourself, does this help the reader in reading up on related topics? Take any two articles in the template. Would a reader really want to go from A to B?
• They should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value. For navigating among many articles, consider:
  • Split them into multiple, smaller templates on each sub-topic. For example, {{EMD diesels}} lists all models of diesel locomotives built by one manufacturer, but is too large to be transcluded on each of their articles. Instead, the individual sections of {{EMD diesels}} were split out into their own templates: {{EMD GPs}}, {{EMD SDs}}, etc."

There is a reason no other sports team navbox for any league or any sport, or really any navbox anywhere on Wikipedia, fills their navboxes with a list of 100+ consecutive numbers: it is a waste of space and it is overwhelms the reader with links to often trivial information, or far too often, links to nowhere. As stated above, navboxes are supposed to guide a reader through the most relevant, important information. The result of the current navbox is, for many programs, that the list simply obscures the more important articles about the team. But hey, I also believe if Team X has 100 notable, Wikipedia-worthy single season articles and consensus is that it is important to highlight them in the navbox, then the editors of those articles should feel free to move on their consensus to do so. Notre Dame is not the equivalent of Akron, and no matter how hard you try you can't shove a kangaroo into a four-leaf clover-shaped hole. The editors of those individual program's articles (and the other relevant WikiProjects) must have a say in what is important to navigate the reader to for either of these programs. It is not up to only one or two editors on this Wikiproject who may or may not have expert knowledge of the individual topics, which are the individual teams. Do not get me wrong, I'm not advocating reversing all the dates you've filled in on all these navboxes, but if Akron's editors want to remove 111 red linked meaningless dates, not only do you not have consensus, policy or precedent to tell them that they can not, to do so would really goes against existing precedent all throughout Wikipedia. And really, despite your assertion otherwise, and the NAV essay would agree with me, the result is that this navbox is in fact significantly worse than the navboxes of NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA teams because this navbox does not "help the reader" in finding the most pertinent and important information because it is too concerned with its structure being the same for USC as Arkansas State. That's ludicrous. USC should have more items and categories in its navbox than Arkansas State. To suggest or enforce otherwise damages the navigation to potentially pertinent articles. It is also not correct to prevent Arkansas State from highlighting an article that might be trivial to USC, and it is just as wrong to force that trivial information into USC's navbox. To do so is not navigating the reader on the topic, and that topic is the individual teams, NOT college football in general.

While I appreciate that your work on this has improved many poor navboxes, the ownership you are exerting via this Wikiproject over 200+ navboxes is no more valid than any other editors and collaborative Wikiprojects asserting "ownership". I have no issues with combating WP:BOOSTER, WP:PEACOCK, WP:FAN or any similar type of issue, but when you insist on a such a rigid format that prevents, in some cases, delivery of information and, in other cases, overemphasis of trivial information, without reasoning or discussion on a program by program basis, it is bad for Wikipedia, and that is why no other sports projects have adopted such policies. Indiscriminate bureaucratic ownership by a Wikiproject does not trump " team-based ownership". Ownership is ownership. CrazyPaco (talk) 12:27, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

When it comes to renaming or merging articles, doesn't WP:COMMONNAME come into play, as well? Whether it's the nickname of the game, or the name of the trophy, whichever one comes closest to WP:COMMONNAME should be kept and all other articles should be merged into it, IMHO. Of course, some rivalries may not necessarily have a nickname or a trophy, and in those cases the "A-B football rivalry" format should be used. For example, I'm not a USC or a Notre Dame fan, but it seems to me that in the case listed above, perhaps Notre Dame–USC football rivalry should be merged into Jeweled Shillelagh, instead of the other way around? Thoughts? Ejgreen77 (talk) 22:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Ejgreen77, you are absolutely correct that WP:COMMONNAME should inform the direction of these merges and the names of all these articles. I'm not sure that "Jeweled Shillelagh" trumps Notre Dame–USC football rivalry. However, I do think that Third Saturday in October trumps "Alabama–Tennessee football rivalry" and Little Brown Jug trumps "Michigan–Minnesota football rivalry". Jweiss11 (talk) 14:38, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, again, I'm not particularly familiar with either team so I just thought I'd raise the point. In the other merge proposed above, clearly Holy War would be closest to WP:COMMONNAME in the context of the Boston College–Notre Dame rivalry. There's also things like Big Game (American football) and Stanford Axe. Now, maybe the Stanford Axe is a significant enough trophy to warrant a separate article. Then again, maybe it isn't. But, clearly, Big Game would be the closest thing to WP:COMMONNAME in the context of the Cal–Stanford rivalry. Ejgreen77 (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, guys, this discussion is chaotically spinning off in multiple directions, with confusing cross-argument back and forth, and no one's concerns are being adequately addressed here. As I see it, these are the separate issues that deserve be discussed and decided individually:

1. Standard CFB program/team navbox -- NThomas wants to change the standard design to incorporate new standard design elements regarding rivalries and rivalry trophies.
2. Redundant direct and redirect links -- Dirtlawyer1 objects to the NThomas' proposed inclusion of redundant links to the same rivalry article within our standard CFB program/team navboxes. Specifically, NThomas wants to include both links to a specific rivalry AND a link to the section-specific redirect for the trophy for that given rivalry. Dirtlawyer objects that such links are redundant and disfavored per WP:REPEATLINK and WP:OVERLINK.
3. Standard CFB program/team navbox -- CrazyPaco objects to the authority of WP:CFB to adopt a standard form of CFB program/team navbox, including the format, the omission of certain team-specific information/links, and in particular the inclusion of links for every team season. Jweiss strongly supports the standard format; other editors, such as Dirtlawyer, support the standard format, but believe that there should be some flexibility to accommodate the particulars of a given team or program.
4. Merge rivalry trophy into rivalry articles -- Proposed by several WP:CFB editors, with exceptions when appropriate. Many WP:CFB editors see separate trophy articles as redundant, as they duplicate much of the same content as the main rivalry articles. When merged, redirects from the trophy names to the rivalry articles should be created because the trophy names remain plausible search terms.
5. Standard naming of rivalry articles -- Proposed by several WP:CFB editors, with exceptions when appropriate. Generally, naming pattern should follow the "Team A–Team B football rivalry" pattern, with exceptions when the rivalry's "nickname" is commonly used by mainstream media, etc., per WP:COMMONNAME. Appropriate redirects for all plausible search terms should be created for each rivalry Team A-Team B title, rivalry nickname and rivalry trophy, as applicable.

Did I miss anything? In order to have an organized discussion, or series of discussions, I would suggest that these issues need to be addressed separately, under separate section headers, so that we might actually reach coherent conclusions regarding each of these issues. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Dirtlawyer, thanks for the summary. Yes, going forward let's address each of these issues as separately as possible. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi all, I have spent about half a day going through all this, I admire the pathos and expertise brought into all this. My first thought after all this reading and pondering is could our collective time and talent resources be put to better use in actually just forming consensus on 4, 3 or even 2 styles of navbox, that to me would make many of these concerns disappear. For full disclosure CrazyPaco alerted me to this discussion and to others impacting the University of Pittsburgh and other Pittsburgh colleges/universities. My interest to be fair here is strictly coming from the Pittsburgh wikiproject so before you think "biased!" I see a lot of editing and contributory potential here with all these editors, again since college football is probably the most diverse and randomly inclusive of the sports covered in wikipedia it may be wise just to gain a consensus on a package or set of navboxes and then allow those most familiar with Ohio State or Villanova or Grambling or Bethune Cookman or even Washington & Jefferson College or for that matter that powerhouse of the prewar American south, Rollins College . . . to apply the one of the three or four consensus boxes to their program. Yes its not a perfect solution and not easy but neither is college football perfectly uniform nor is this discussion getting any easier. To be blunt with my contribution to the issues raised short of a "consensus package of navboxes" I would like to see programs like Pitt, Rollins, W&J and Duquesne be able to eliminate the cookie cutter, one size fits all redlinks of multiple seasons and add some NPOV and commonsense links to things that are important for their programs, any "consensus package" should consider those points and short of a package approach to navboxes in consensus I really do believe that college football is much more a local or regional phenomenon, so leaving it up and yielding to regional editors is more than just the only logical solution, it is the only way to allow growth and expertise to contribute. To me if someone in Seattle Washington or Hartford Connecticut or Tuscaloosa wishes to squeeze a Rollins College or Pitt or Grambling into a cookie cutter approach those editors should at the minimum have at least 3 consensus formed navboxes in the "package" of options. Knowing Rollins College and the University of Pittsburgh I seriously doubt we are going to get a 1968 season wiki article any time in our life times. ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 22:46, 22 February 2013 (UTC)