Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive 26

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Good article reassessment for Acrisure Stadium

Acrisure Stadium has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 21:59, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:40, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pine Bowl (stadium)

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pine Bowl (stadium), on the deletion of a former Division I football stadium. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:38, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Mass-TfD college baseball navboxes nomination

For those in this WikiProject interested, since it is a sibling project: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 April 11#College baseball class-/position-specific award navboxes. Thank you. SportsGuy789 (talk) 04:03, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Notability of seasons question

Am I correct in believing that in-depth coverage of each game is what proves notability for a season article? As over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1991–92 Kilmarnock F.C. season (a pro soccer team) users are arguing that "even though there's over 50 references, including in-depth sources on every single game, coverage of games are routine and only coverage that address the entire season as a whole can possibly count." Just wanted to make sure if I have this right. BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:41, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

That strikes me as a seriously flawed analysis. Cbl62 (talk) 22:19, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
And apparently we now need academic journals to be writing about seasons for them to be notable? BeanieFan11 (talk) 13:35, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Condensing head coaching tables

I have been boldly condensing head coaching tables to get rid of empty bytes of information and make these tables more managable. See [1] as an example. @Jweiss11 posted a question on my talk page and I think it isn't unreasonable to wait before continuing further. I want to know, does the community find these to be good edits or bad edits? I will admit that part of being bold some plausible questionable edits are: 1) I have also been getting rid of the bowl column for coaches that never went bowling [2]. I figured that these tables had an "off switch" for lack of a better term for a reason. 2) Why should Marcus Freeman have a "conference" or "standing" column if he never coached in a conference? If he does one day, it wouldn't be that difficult to add. Eliminating these columns would keep it in line with other Notre Dame coaches such as Knute Rockne, a page that I never recall editing.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 04:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

UCO2009bluejay, thanks for kicking off this discussion. On one hand, I generally support efforts to make things parsimonious, i.e. both removing blank fields from tables in the edit mode and removing empty columns from rendered tables/articles. On the other hand, I love consistency. Consistency breeds consistency which breeds quality. When there's one clear way of doing something formulaic (e.g. templated content) everyone, veterans and noobs, tend to get it and replicate it. When there more than than one way of doing something, soon there's 10 ways of doing it. We have major issues with consistency for templated/tabled content in lot of places across the college football topic area. Rosters and box scores are two good examples. They're a mess. But one of the most stable and consistent areas is head coaching record tables. I know because I've edited just about every one of the 5,000 or so of these tables that is out there. And virtually all of them, rare exceptions like Knute Rockne notwithstanding, follow a very stable, consistent format. If we're going to migrate the head coaching tables away from their existing state of stable consistency, I want to make sure we arrive at another state of stable consistency. Let me break down the various pieces of these tables we'll want to discuss in a later comment. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:27, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
@Cbl62:, @BeanieFan11:, @SportsGuy789:.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 16:12, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm in favor of what UCO is doing; saving bytes and tidying unnecessary data fields. SportsGuy789 (talk) 19:10, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
I also favor UCO's removal of empty columns. Makes the final readout cleaner. It's comparable to schedule charts where we have the option to eliminate empty columns for attendance, game time, etc. Cbl62 (talk) 21:00, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm OK with them as long as they are not cosmetic changes i.e. as long as they change the display, and not just removing "empty" params that don't do anything. Cosmetic changes are fine if done with other substantive edits.—Bagumba (talk) 20:56, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussions at

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 April 11#Premature NBA standings templates that editors here may be interested in. Topic of note include how soon is WP:TOOSOON. Another discussion that may have relevence to this project (and all sports for that matter) may be found here- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 00:46, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Help with question at Bryce Young

There is an edit request at Talk:Bryce Young#Semi-protected edit request on 18 April 2023, that could use a response from someone who edits in this area. The request is to change an athlete's stated height to one based on the NFL's reporting, which differs from the height reported by ESPN (the previous section has a link to the ESPN source), and I do not know which one would be the preference/more authoritative. Though it's not in the edit request, the sources also differ on this athlete's weight, so presumably that would be taken from the same source? Thanks. --Pinchme123 (talk) 13:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Article name/disambiguation discussion: Marshall Mills

There's an article name/disambiguation discussion for Marshall Mills. Please see the discussion at Talk:Marshall Mills#Requested move 16 April 2023. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 14:54, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Military service coaching records

Over the past few weeks, I've expanded our coverage of World War II military service football teams, building off of work that User:Cbl62 and others kicked off a few years back. These service team, and similar ones during World War I, played a mix of other service team, college teams, and professional teams, sometimes NFL teams during the NFL's preseason (e.g. 1943 Camp Lee Travellers football team, 1944 Sampson Naval Training Station Bluejackets football team. Some of the players on WWII service teams had played in the NFL. Service teams were included the AP Poll along with college teams in 1943 and 1944, and other ratings systems like the Litkenhous Ratings combined service and college teams for all the war years (1942 to 1945). Many of the coaches of these teams coached college teams before and after the war, including prominent examples like Bernie Bierman, Paul Brown, and Don Faurot. So my question here is: should the head coaching won–loss record compiled with these military service teams be included in the totals for a coach's college football record? Or should they be broken out as their own item, the way we differentiate high school, junior college, and pro records from college records? I've included these military service records in the college football totals in infoboxes and head coaching record tables. But I'd like to see what others think about that. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 22:55, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Have you searched to see how reliable, secondary sources (e.g, the NCAA) deal with the situation? If reliable, secondary sources do not include the service team wins and losses in the coaches' overall collegiate record, I'm not sure it would be appropriate for us to aggregate them. Absent reliable, secondary sources that aggregate college and service wins/losses, it might be viewed as original research for us to do so. 23:17, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
Well, the NCAA wouldn't even report NAIA records in many cases, and we combine NCAA and NAIA by standard practice. Sports Reference lists service records along with college records (for the limited cases that it reports at all): https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/coaches/don-faurot-1.html, https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/coaches/paul-brown-1.html, https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/coaches/bernie-bierman-1.html. User:Paulmcdonald's essay, Wikipedia:Counting and sorting are not original research, is worth referencing here. I think it's up to us to make an editorial decision about apples and oranges. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:38, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
I have no issue with simple arithmetic. The issue is whether we're aggregating (i) Fuji apples with Granny Smith apples or (ii) apples with oranges. There are substantial differences in the types of military teams at issue, and we therefore need to break the analysis into three parts:
  • University-affiliated service teams (e.g., Iowa Pre-Flight, Georgia Pre-Flight, North Carolina Pre-Flight, Saint Mary's Pre-Flight, etc.). Importantly, these programs were part of a college or university. Also, we have a reliable source (SR/College Football) aggregating wins/losses as part of "college football" coaching records. For these cases, it's much easier to justify treating these as aggregating apples with apples. I support aggregating in this case.
  • 1942-1944 purely military teams. These teams are numerous and had no affiliations with colleges or universities. Aggregating in these cases is harder to justify, and we don't have reliable sources (such as NCAA, SR/College Football, or College Football Data Warehouse) aggregating in these cases. (Aggregating thus raises potential WP:OR concerns.) However, there are some significant commonalities. One is the extent of scheduling interplay with college teams. Some 150 college teams ceased play during these years, and college football teams that continued to play scheduled games with purely military teams in order to fill out their schedules. In addition, the AP Poll included military service teams in its AP Poll for 1942, 1943, and 1944. Thus, an argument can be made due to the college interplay and inclusion in the AP Poll. I'm "on the fence" about the justification for aggregating in this case.
  • 1945 purely military teams. By the fall of 1945, the war was over, and most college programs returned to full activity. Some of the purely military programs continued to field teams, but segregation between military/college play returned and there was not extensive interplay between military and college teams. Most of the military teams were playing schedules only [or at least primarily] against other military teams. E.g., Air Transport Command, Bainbridge, Cherry Point, Camp Peary Also, the AP ceased including military teams in its college football poll. These teams provide the weakest case for treating military wins/losses as interchangeable with college wins/losses. I'm opposed to aggregating in this case. Cbl62 (talk) 16:56, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Clarifying note: Great Lakes Navy is a special case. Unlike most military teams, Great Lakes Navy continued to compete as an integral part of college football in 1945. (Nine of its eleven games were against college teams in 1945.) As a result, a reliable source (SR/College football) treats these wins as part of Paul Brown's collegiate record, and so should we. Cbl62 (talk) 17:05, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
Cbl, I think it's undue complication to start bucketing these service teams into sub-buckets in this way. First off, 1945 should not be treated differently from 1942 to 1944. Yes, Japan had just surrendered by early September 1945, but culturally this was still a war-year for college football. The war machine was still humming along with the possibility of fighting continuing into 1946 or beyond right up until the Japanese surrender. Second, you're imputing intentionally into SR/College football where there isn't any, but rather just omission because of lack of focus/priority on their part. It's simply a rather incomplete resource. It's fine where it's accurate, but often fails to cover college football records comprehensively. For example, it omits several of the early Michigan football seasons and reports the program's all-time record as 963–345–35, when it's actually 989–353–36. Don Faurot's record omits his tenure at Kirksville State, just as it omits his coaching at Jacksonville NAS in 1944. SR/College football lists Frank Tritico's record as coach of the 1944 Randolph Field Ramblers football team (https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/coaches/frank-tritico-1.html)—inaccurately as it invents a game that never happened against "Abilene Field"—in the same manner that it reports any other coach's record. It just so happens that Tritico never coached a college team before or after the war. But if he had, say coached at Auburn in 1946, I see no reason to believe SR/College football wouldn't roll the Randolph Field and Auburn records up together. Third, some of the "purely military" teams also played colleges outside of the World War years. Air Transport Command played 1946 Oklahoma City Chiefs football team. San Diego NAS played 1953 North Texas State Eagles football team and Arizona State several times in the 1950s. The Cherry Point Marines played East Carolina every year from 1948 to 1951. Then we've got things like 1932 San Diego Marines Devil Dogs football team, 1940 San Diego Marines Devil Dogs football team, 1965 Quantico Marines Devil Dogs football team. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:53, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
The only place where I'm firmly disagreeing with you is when we get past the war years. The European War ended in May 1945, and the Pacfic War ended at Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 -- before the start of the 1945 college football season. Your reliance on isolated games played by Air Transport Command in 1946, San Diego NAS in the 1950s, and Cherry Point Marines from 1948-1951 doesn't really advance your point. Sure, the service teams continued to play after the war -- and occasionally faced off against collegiate competition. But the service teams were not viewed as true "college football" programs after the war. The AP Poll is instructive. The AP Poll included service teams only during the actual war years of 1942, 1943, and 1944. That is because of the exceptional circumstances that led to massive interplay during the war years. A justification can be made for aggregating coaching wins/losses during those war years, but the game (as reflected in the AP Poll) returned to more-or-less normalized conditions after the war. I think the justification is just not there for the post-war years. Cbl62 (talk) 00:50, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Kudos

I use to be active with this project and wanted to drop by and tip my hat to all the folks who made it so that every NFL draftee had an article within hours of the draft. I checked much earlier today and every article was already a blue link. I imagine most of this was work done predraft, although maybe some WP:NFL folks filled in some last minute redlinks. I remember maybe 5 years back when 24 hours after the draft you could still see 5th rounders redlinked. Thanks for all the hard work.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:55, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Draft:1923 Davis & Elkins Senators football team

Davis & Elkins began playing college football in 1904 and is one of the oldest college football programs that lacks even one season article. I looked through the school's history, and the 1923 team seemed like a good candidate with a perfect 8-0 record. However, newspaper coverage from 1923 in the West Virginia area is either not available on-line or is poorly preserved and not easily searchable. I created a draft which is linked above. If anyone knows of additional source material (or is willing to help with digging for sources), your help would be appreciated. And feel free to edit that draft as you see fit. Cbl62 (talk) 00:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I found an article about the Rio Grande game that has the date. TheCatalyst31 ReactionCreation 21:09, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Category:Davis & Elkins Senators football seasons

You may be interested in the deletion discussion of this category. See here. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:01, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Recruiting Class Rankings

I've noticed that many season pages put recruiting rankings on their page, such as here but ESPN's rankings are behind the ESPN+ paywall. Does anyone have ESPN+ that can fill in the table or somehow provide the information so others can fill? Thanks, Swimmer33 (talk) 01:08, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

The Perfect Season

I have begun an effort to document notable college football teams that completed perfect seasons without a loss or tie. Any and all help is welcome and appreciated in connection with this effort. Information about the effort can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/The Perfect Season. Cbl62 (talk) 02:41, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Creating articles for seasons from 1934 to 1935 or 1948 to 1955 would be particularly helpful as they would also address the issue two sections above. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:39, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Broken roster from 2010 edit

This 2010 edit really messed up the roster at 2009_Kentucky_Wildcats_football_team. Can someone look into how to repair it? Dicklyon (talk) 01:58, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with a dispute

A bit of an odd situation here that I've never before been in. So, several months ago, I wrote an article on deceased football coach Art Haege, who, according to sources, seemed to have been quite the figure! (see this article for example) - Today, a user who seems to be his son added a bunch of unsourced info and also removed a bunch of sourced information (specifically complaining about one part that says 'Haege later in his career openly acknowledged that he had "violated NCAA recruiting rules, cheated during games, drank too much booze and picked more than his fair share of fights." His son Frank said that he would "do just about anything to win and proved it just about anywhere he went." ... Haege also said that he didn't believe in sportsmanship. When his son lost his final high school basketball game, he left the court without shaking anyone's hand, resulting in a few parents, bothered by his lack of sportsmanship, to talk to Art. Haege responded, "I'm glad Frank walked off the floor! I don't believe in that sportsmanship crap. And I don't believe in that hand shaking b. s. we do before and after games."'). Those are all direct quotes from the sources. The user says that that information is libelous/slanderous and could affect his life. I've never been in this type of situation and am unsure of what to do. Looking for help. Thanks. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:56, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Looks like this user has been blocked; User talk:Coachfootballnow. If this info about Haege is libelous, his son should take it up with the The Des Moines Register. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:38, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
WP:COI issues with the editor aside, I do see a problem with one of the quotes that begins Haege later in his career openly acknowledged that he had 'violated...' In that particular case, the subsequent quote looks like it was from Haege, when it was actually a quote of text from the newspaper. That is miseleading. All quoted text should have WP:INTEXT attribution, e.g. "according to the The Des Moines Register". Ideally, just paraphrase without quoting, unless it's POV and not objective, in which case definitely use intext attribution.—Bagumba (talk) 04:40, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Notability

Can someone prove to Onel5969 that college athletic programs and college football teams are notable. He keeps adding tags to Wisconsin–Stout Blue Devils football, Wisconsin–Stout Blue Devils football and Wisconsin–Platteville Pioneers citing WP:NSEASONS (?) and I can't revert the notability tags anymore or I'd violate 3RR. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:23, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

The way solve this dispute is just to add some sourcing to the articles to establish notability. I think Onel5969 is putting the wrong tag on these article, but they do deserve a tag, perhaps Template:More citations needed. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
I think what they are doing is fine. Tagging for "more citations" would be ok if there was unsourced text. In these cases, though, they are stubs with no citations that demonstrate GNG. So the solution is to add a few citations that make it clear that GNG is met.—Bagumba (talk) 02:10, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
It looks like they're adding the tag to programs that don't cite any sources independent of the college itself. On the one hand, I don't necessarily agree that notability tagging is the correct way to address that problem (though they're usually also adding Template:Only primary sources, which is more useful). On the other hand, it means that it shouldn't be too hard to dig up a few secondary sources and remove the tag for most of these programs, especially the DI ones. TheCatalyst31 ReactionCreation 14:57, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
We're not talking WP:AFD or even WP:PROD here. This is the best-case scenario if someone is not a subject-matter expert and sees an insufficiently sourced topic where notability is questioned. —Bagumba (talk) 15:51, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Many of these articles lack citations to SIGCOV in independent, reliable sources. User:BilledMammal has created a more comprehensive list of such articles at User:BilledMammal/College athletics. This list can be sorted to find the articles that are most in need of improvement. Cbl62 (talk) 21:39, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
If you want to find the ones that are most likely to have issues, sort column "Count(el_id)" from lowest to highest. It represents the number of external links an article has, and generally this number being low means that it has few sources, and even fewer non-primary sources. When sorted in this manner, I've reviewed up to the Cloud_County_Thunderbirds, inclusive. BilledMammal (talk) 05:33, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Several seasons back over the limit for cfb link calls

I've just finished building out the standings templates for the early seasons of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference; see Category:Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference football standings templates. After transcluding these templates onto the relevant college football season articles, several are back over the limit for "expensive parser function calls" because of the calls to Template:Cfb link embedded in those standings templates. 1934 college football season, 1935, and every year from 1948 to 1955 are at or over the limit now. The way to remedy this is to create more teams season articles for these seasons, which will reduce the number of Cfb link calls. Those of you working on building out new season articles, can you prioritize these seasons in the near future? We still have lot of undefeated seasons, conference championship seasons, and current DI teams lacking seasons articles for these years. Pinging: Cbl62, Patriarca12, BeanieFan11, TheCatalyst31, Dmoore5556. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 00:52, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  • Haven't done any season articles in awhile, but I could try to get to doing some of these after a few other things. Wondering, though, is it possible to increase the amount of "expensive parser function calls" allowed per article? BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:57, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
  • A possible work-around would seem to be creating redirect pages. For example, Template:1934 Western college football independents records currently invokes "cfb link" for the 1934 Pomona Sagehens. It would seem that creating a page named 1934 Pomona Sagehens football team that simply points to Pomona Sagehens for the time being, would then allow the "cfb link" to be replaced in the aforementioned template, with no change to the user experience, while helping to reduce overuse of the "expensive" function call. Outside of that, I have created a number of Idaho State Bengals football season articles, although not recently, and I am happy to create some more, but it will be several weeks until I have time to do so. Dmoore5556 (talk) 01:16, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
BeanieFan11, I don't think it's possible to raise the limit on those calls, at least not without wading through a lot of red tape. Dmoore5556, I don't think it's advisable to create team season redirects that just point back to a main program article or an even more general article as those redirects will be low-value links in a navbox. Let's just create the articles. They need to be created anyway. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:49, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
No doubt such redirects would be low-value links. There's a trade-off between that, and having ill-functioning college football season articles (various standings tables currently display with broken links). Proceed as you feel is best; it will just be a while for new articles to get created, at least on my part. Dmoore5556 (talk) 05:02, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Not sure if this is a valid reason, but I prefer that we need create a bunch of redirects. I find it helpful to see the redlinks so that we can tell easily which articles do and do not exist. Cbl62 (talk) 04:37, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Expensive parser function calls for seasons at/over the limit:

Jweiss11 (talk) 04:37, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Updated stats—May 24

Expensive parser function calls for seasons near/at/over the limit:

Jweiss11 (talk) 23:49, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Harvard Crimson in the NFL Draft

You may be interested in the deletion discussion on the List of Harvard Crimson in the NFL Draft. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:00, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Discussion about College Football Data Warehouse and national championships

There's a discussion that may be of interest to those here about the College Football Data Warehouse and college football national championships taking place at Talk:List of NCAA schools with the most Division I national championships#Remove CFDW from football column; switch to university claims. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:23, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

I have also added a Template:Notability to the College Football Data Warehouse article, if anyone here is able to produce sources establishing the website's notability via significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
PK-WIKI (talk) 16:36, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
The notability of College Football Data Warehouse is indeed questionable. I wouldn't be opposed to moving the article out of the mainspace and into this project's project space. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:31, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Allen Barra (October 13, 2005). "College Football's Greatest Rivalry Adds a New Chapter". The New York Sun. Archived from the original on 9 June 2011. Retrieved 9 September 2006.
  2. ^ Football faves South Bend or College Station? Namath or McMahon? Lombardi or Parcells? What and who are the best in the world of football? Here are one man's offerings Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, The Star Telegram, September 5, 2004.
  3. ^ Story behind Tide’s claim of 12, Went from six to a dozen in one year Archived 2011-06-09 at the Wayback Machine, The Ledger-Enquirer, January 7, 2010.
  4. ^ Holtz Looks For Positives Archived 2016-09-19 at the Wayback Machine, The State, November 8, 2003, page C1.
  5. ^ Sports trivia, The Lawrentian, January 22, 2010.
  6. ^ John W. Cox; Gregg Bennett (2004). Rock Solid: Southern Miss Football. University Press of Mississippi. p. 261. ISBN 1-57806-709-X. Archived from the original on 2016-05-17. Retrieved 2015-11-17.
  7. ^ Adam Powell (2006). University of North Carolina Football. Arcadia Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 0-7385-4288-1. Archived from the original on 2016-05-14. Retrieved 2015-11-17..
  8. ^ Carolyn Siegel (2004). Internet Marketing: Foundations and Applications. Houghton Mifflin. p. 200. ISBN 0-618-15043-9.
  9. ^ Brett Perkins (2009). Frantic Francis: How One Coach's Madness Changed Football. University of Nebraska Press. p. 448. ISBN 978-0-8032-1894-9.
  10. ^ Jesse Lamovsky; Matthew Rosetti; Charlie DeMarco (2007). The Worst of Sports: Chumps, Cheats, and Chokers from the Games We Love. Random House. ISBN 978-0-345-50227-8. Archived from the original on 2021-12-01. Retrieved 2016-09-09.
  11. ^ Patrick Garbin (2008). About Them Dawgs!: Georgia Football's Memorable Teams and Players. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 334. ISBN 978-0-8108-6040-7. Archived from the original on 2016-05-08. Retrieved 2015-11-17.
  12. ^ Jerome Karabel (2006). The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 563. ISBN 0-618-77355-X. Archived from the original on 2016-05-12. Retrieved 2015-11-17.
  13. ^ K. Adam Powell (2004). Border Wars: The First Fifty Years of Atlantic Coast Conference Football. Scarecrow Press. p. 385. ISBN 0-8108-4839-2. Archived from the original on 2016-04-28. Retrieved 2015-11-17.
  14. ^ Daniel I. Rees and Kevin T. Schnepel, College Football Games and Crime Archived 2021-12-01 at the Wayback Machine, Journal of Sports Economics, vol. 10, no. 1, 68-87, February 2009.
  15. ^ Parker Allred, From the BCS to the BS: Why "Championship" Must Be Removed From the Bowl Championship Series Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine, Utah Law Review, vol. 1, 2010.
  16. ^ Jasen R. Corns Pigskin Paydirt: The Thriving of College Football's Bowl Championship Series in Face of Antitrust Law Archived 2020-09-19 at the Wayback Machine, Tulsa Law Review, p. 167, 2003–2004.
  17. ^ Jodi M. Warmbrod, Antitrust in Amateur Athletics: Fourth and Long: Why Non-BCS Universities Should Punt Rather Than Go For An Antitrust Challenge to the Bowl Championship Series Archived 2020-09-19 at the Wayback Machine, Oklahoma Law Review, p. 333, 2004.
  18. ^ Jude Schmit, A Fresh Set of Downs? Why Recent Modifications to the Bowl Championship Series Still Draw a Flag Under the Sherman Act Archived 2020-09-19 at the Wayback Machine, Sports Law, p. 219, 2007.

Perfect seasons

Thanks to User:Jweiss11, User:Patriarca12, and User:UCO2009bluejay for their help working on The Perfect Season project. If you are interested in helping, a list of drafts needing work can be found at "Drafts", and a list of perfect seasons without articles at "Seasons without articles". Cbl62 (talk) 02:26, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Deleted defunct conference categories

See this. @Jweiss11:, @Cbl62:- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:29, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I imagine several of them had subcategories for standings templates.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:31, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
The subcategories for standing templates are templates categories, which aren't supposed to roll up into content categories. Note that I've opposed this policy and opened an RFC last year to overturn it, but that effort failed. See Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Archive 18#RfC: should templates and template categories roll up into related content categories. So once the standings template categories were disconnected from the main conference categories, some of those main conference categories became empty. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:28, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

PROD of 1939 Northeastern Huskies football team

Figured I'd let CFB know that 1939 Northeastern Huskies football team was PRODded. SportsGuy789 (talk) 15:05, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I reverted the PROD. It was totally inappropriate. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:19, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks Jweiss11. Btw I noticed a couple things related to the New England Conference football... [1] Category:New England Conference football champion seasons doesn't yet exist, and [2] some teams listed on {{New England Conference football champions}} either don't have the yellow championship indicator in their season infoboxes or the team isn't listed as being in the NEC (e.g. the discrepancy with 1946 New Hampshire Wildcats football team, which says it was in the Yankee Conference yet it's listed on that navbox). Might want to dive into the teams listed on that navbox for consistency (yes I'm being lazy and not doing it personally, ha!). SportsGuy789 (talk) 15:30, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

1960 NCAA College Division football rankings etc.

The above series of rankings articles are incorrectly named for two reasons:
1. Not "College Division". The contemporaneous sources refer to these as "small college" rankings, not as "NCAA College Division" rankings. E.g., here, here. It is thus inaccurate and original research to refer to these as "NCAA College Division" rankings.
2. Not NCAA. The rankings are neither generated by the NCAA, affiliated with the NCAA, or limited to NCAA programs. To the contrary, the rankings include both NCAA and NAIA schools. This is a further reason why it is inaccurate to refer to the rankings as being limited to "NCAA College Division" schools.
For these reasons, the articles should be renamed to be consistent with the contemporaneous sources as "1961 small college football rankings" etc. @Ocfootballknut: @Jweiss11: and others: Any objection to these articles being renamed? Cbl62 (talk) 19:21, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Cbl, yes, those articles should be renamed as "19xx small college football rankings". Similarly, I think 1936 NCAA football rankings though 1957 NCAA University Division football rankings should be renamed "19xx college football rankings". Jweiss11 (talk) 03:58, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
Agree on all counts. Any opposition? Cbl62 (talk) 18:58, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
The top level polls and rankings have never/rarely actually been restricted to top-division teams, so I definitely agree with the proposed changes and possibly more as well.
In the modern era the AP Poll has been open to FCS teams since 2007 and FCS teams have received votes. (Not sure when FCS teams were originally restricted). The current AP poll is described as the "AP Top 25 College Football Poll" with no mention of FBS. The modern Coaches Poll is the "USA TODAY Sports AFCA Coaches Poll" with no mention of FBS. Should the articles then be titled 2022 NCAA Division I FBS football rankings?
In my opinion the article title College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS is especially misnamed and guilty of WP:RECENTISM, considering that 25% of the article occurred prior to the formation of the NCAA, 56% prior to the "University Division" / "College Division" split, and 71% prior to the "Division I-A/FBS / I-AA/FCS" division splits. (Not to mention that the NCAA still plays no part in awarding the title.) But my move proposal in 2022 didn't attract any support.
PK-WIKI (talk) 20:21, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
I've renamed all the "College Division" rankings articles to "YYYY small college football rankings"; see Category:NCAA College Division football rankings. These articles all need to have their leads re-written and there's a lot of associated cleanup to do with these article moves. I could use some help. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 00:09, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Thank you JW. On reflection, and as a matter of proper grammar, these should probably be tweaked further as "19XX small-college football rankings" etc. Any objection to this? Cbl62 (talk) 18:36, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't think the hyphen is necessary and the sources tend not to use it in the phrase. In fact, I don't think the sources ever use it. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:00, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Note also that the analogous phrase "major college football" is not typically hyphenated either, cf. List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders, List of NCAA major college football yearly scoring leaders, etc. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:07, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Ralphie the Buffalo

Ralphie the Buffalo has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 22:03, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested article

2023 Southeast Missouri State Redhawks football team - currently a redirect. It seems that this is the only upcoming D-I football team season without a page. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Done. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

IP editor making erroneous edits to coaching records

Heads up: an IP editor, 75.143.243.195 is making lots edits changing head coaching records to erroneous values. IP has been warmed and blocked in the past. Time for another block? Jweiss11 (talk) 17:08, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Rivalry tables

I've noticed that most featured rivalry tables, like Michigan–Ohio State football rivalry, use Template:Sports rivalry series table in the Example 7 format. Others, like Third Saturday in October, use Example 6. Which should we prefer? I'd like to be consistent when possible. Glman99 (talk) 20:46, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

  • Example 6 displays the losing team's rank. This is allows us to see when both team were ranked at the time of a game. That is helpful. Cbl62 (talk) 22:08, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested good article reviews

Hi. I would appreciate if someone could review my good article nominations for Stan Robb and Fred Vehmeier by the end of the month (as part of the WikiCup). Thanks. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

  • The overhwelmingly majority of the Vehmeier relates to a handful of games that he coached in Oct-Nov. 1912. Roughly 500 characters of text relate to the 60 years of his life thereafter. While I think the decision to save this article was correct, I don't see how it can be considered a well-rounded biography qualifying as a "Good Article". Frankly, the current rating of "C" seems about right, if perhaps a little generous. Cbl62 (talk) 22:19, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
    • In my view, since the overwhelming majority of information about him is related to coaching, I think it can be considered appropriate. We'll see what the person to eventually review it thinks. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike Woessner

You may be interested in the deletion discussion on Mike Woessner. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:39, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Vacated bowl wins

With LSU having two bowl wins (2014 Outback Bowl and 2015 Texas Bowl) vacated this week, I cleaned up some spurious edits that initially treated them as forfeits. I also added a "Bowl games" subsection to article Vacated victories (here). If other editors known of NCAA-vacated bowl wins, additions there are welcome. It seems that a Category for vacated bowl wins may be appropriate/helpful, for example to place in the Categories section of the above two mentioned bowl games. It likely should be a sub-category of Category:College football bowls; suggestions? Dmoore5556 (talk) 07:08, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Dmoore5556, thanks for your work on the LSU vacated wins. Note that there are dedicated fields in Template:Infobox college sports team season for vacated wins and vacated conference wins. See my edits at 2012 LSU Tigers football team and the like. Standings template like Template:2012 Southeastern Conference football standings should also be edited accordingly. I'm not sure if LSU retains their tied-for-second-place finish in the SEC West in 2012, despite the vacated wins.
Jweiss11, thanks for that. I updated the Southeastern Conference football standings of 2012–2015 to note LSU's vacated wins via the "special-note" field, which was already setup for that purpose in the 2012–2014 templates for Ole Miss. I do not know if/how this impacts LSU's second-place finish of 2012 SEC West, so I have not modified anything specific to that. Dmoore5556 (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
As for the category, I'm not sure that's needed. What would it be called, Category:College football bowls with vacated wins? I think would be a good idea, however, to create an analog of List of vacated and forfeited games in college basketball for college football. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:23, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Jweiss11, I feel no Wikipedia categories are needed, but in their current realization, vacated bowl wins are uncommon enough and are a clear differentiation, such that a Category for them would be appropriate. That category name would be fine. Input from other editors is welcome. The suggested List article seems reasonably justified, although I would imagine it would be quite large once forfeits are added in. The sports-reference.com list here could be a good starting point, although I suspect it has some holes (it seems implausible that there were zero forfeits between 1910 and 1951). Dmoore5556 (talk) 18:48, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
Well, categories certainly serve the practical purpose of organizing articles based on the fundamental properties of the subjects they cover. Forfeited and vacated wins don't seem like a defining quality of a bowl game though. They are more defining for team that forfeited or vacated the win. Thus it would make more sense to have a category called Category:College football team seasons with forfeited/vacated wins and place 2012 LSU Tigers football team and the like in that category. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
Jweiss11 Sure, that seems fine. I might suggest replacing the slash with " or ". If/when we reach consensus on creating such a category, the above noted sports-reference.com page could identify which team-season articles are likely candidates for inclusion. Dmoore5556 (talk) 21:20, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Content assessment

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Content assessment#Proposal: Reclassification of Current & Future-Classes as time parameter, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. This WikiProject received this message because it currently uses "Current" and/or "Future" class(es). There is a proposal to split these two article "classes" into a new parameter "time", in order to standardise article-rating across Wikipedia (per RfC), while also allowing simultaneous usage of quality criteria and time for interest projects. Thanks! CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {CX}) 20:58, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Two standings templates nominated for deletion

Template:1951 Montana Collegiate Conference football standings and Template:1976 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference football standings have been nominated for deletion, and the discussions could use more input. Please see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 June 27. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 11:27, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Editor proposes deletion of a head coaching record table

See Talk:Vernon Louis Parrington#Head coaching record.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 00:53, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Formatting small college playoff games/eventual 12 team CFP games

I have noticed several small college program team pages have different formats for playoff games. I think I may have created one I thought I saw somewhere. With some following the college basketball format; there is an interesting one on NDSU's page. I figure we need a standard format. Another point to consider is how some teams Troy, Louisiana Tech, and others have played both playoff systems and bowl games. I know I am beginning to sound like a jumbled mess so let me get to the point. How should we format bowl games/playoff appearances on team pages? How should home playoff games be mentioned in lists such as List of Wikipedia Tech Fighting Vandals bowl games. This is also a point to consider depending on the format of the 12 team CFP format upcoming for FBS. We need to be ahead of the curve. UCO2009bluejay (talk) 22:45, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

UCO2009bluejay, you're talking about sections like Louisiana Tech Bulldogs football#Postseason history and Troy Trojans football#Postseason results, right? Jweiss11 (talk) 22:50, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
Precisely.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:00, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
See North Dakota State Bison football#Playoff history, Marshall Thundering Herd football#Division I-AA playoff results, Montana Grizzlies football#Postseason results for some examples of the differences.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:04, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Once again, seasons over the limit for expensive parser function calls

I am once again asking for your support in building out team season articles for the following seasons over or near the limit of "expensive parser function calls" because of the calls to Template:Cfb link.

Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 01:33, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Remind us, what's the limit? And by the way ... why are they so "expensive"? Does it have anything to do with recent inflationary trends or the supply chain? Maybe we should tighten our belts and start using "cut-rate" parser functions? Cbl62 (talk) 16:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
The limit is 500. I think Jimbo keep raising Wikipedia debt ceiling causing the price of parser functions to spiral out of control. Maybe we should offshore out parser functions to China. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:16, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
  • Building out conference season articles, especially for larger conferences, is the most efficient way to reduce these numbers. For example, 1946 Ohio Athletic Conference football season has 18 associated teams redirecting to it. Such a conference article reduced the call total by 18 in one fell swoop. Cbl62 (talk) 14:17, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
Those 18 redirects for the 1946 OAC article actually reduced the call total by 54 because each instance of Template:Cfb link has three expensive parser calls inside of it. However, conference season articles don't seem any more efficient in terms of editor man-hours at addressing this issue, because they take more work to create. That being said, it's efficient to attack particular conferences. I recently did this for the 1955 Southwestern Athletic Conference and Indiana Collegiate Conference with individual team season articles, e.g 1955 Prairie View A&M Panthers football team. Those conferences both played full round-robins, so by the time you get to the last team, you already have the details and sourcing for all the conference games, which you can copy over from the prior articles you created. Either approach will help. There's a reason why 1946 isn't on this list as it's way down at a healthy 200 expensive parser functional calls. It's in large part because of your work to build out articles like the 1946 OAC one in the last year or so. Jweiss11 (talk)
Cbl, 1955 has dropped to 498 thanks to your creation of 1955 Ohio Athletic Conference football season at the associated redirects. Much appreciated. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:55, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
Aren't these a different format than the conference seasons for D-I conferences? Example 2020 Southeastern Conference football season? Would team by decade articles be better for this such as what is occurring with Michigan Tech? I recognize the irony because we went away for those in the single season articles campaign?-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 19:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
We went away from them for major programs, but they may be a good solution for sub-Division I teams with lesser coverage. There's definitely a discontinuity between forms of 1955 Ohio Athletic Conference football season and 2020 Southeastern Conference football season that will have to be resolved at some point. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:27, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
If we even want a small college precedents, see 2010 Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference football season, 2012 Lone Star Conference football season.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
@Cbl62:.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
IMO the purposes of a conference season article are different for Division I and Division II/III conferences:
  • For Divison I conferences, there is a reasonable likelihood that there will be season articles for each team. Accordingly, the conference season article is more of an overview with the real meat being found in each team's season article.
  • For Division II/III conferences, there is often not enough SIGCOV in independent sources to support season articles for each team. In these cases, the conference season articles can and should IMO provide both an overview and also an alternate forum to present the meat for teams that lack sufficient SIGCOV. Cbl62 (talk) 23:53, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
AfD was already closed as Keep. Please do not modify it.

This is of interest to this WikiProject. If you feel inclined, please weigh in with your thoughts. Thank you. SportsGuy789 (talk) 17:18, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it.

Question for head coaches' yearly records tables

Now that Colonial Athletic Association is officially Coastal Athletic Association Football Conference, how should the yearly records be treated for the head coaches? See Mike London, for instance, which I edited earlier, but now I'm not so sure. Should the two leagues be combined in the header, or broken out the way London's currently looks? SportsGuy789 (talk) 00:56, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Separate indicators for separate entities. It should also be changed elsewhere in the article when referring to current affiliation.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 01:36, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

CfD: Western Connecticut State Colonials

I have nominated Category:Western Connecticut State Colonials and its subcategories for merging/renaming. Please see the discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 00:16, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Module in serious need of updating

There is a bunch of information at Module:College football conference/data that needs a lot of updating with missing teams and missing conference affiliation over the years. From what I can tell this module adjusts of a template that affects conference affiliations on yearly NFL draft pages.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:59, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

List XYZ players in the NFL draft format

I have noticed an inconsistency with these pages. I know several are Featured lists. Shouldn't all of these follow the format that these pages were when they achieved that status. Of particular note, is it relevant or does anyone really care that someone was the 14th pick of the sixth round of the draft? This column doesn't seem like it is that relevant.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 09:22, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

UCO2009bluejay, I noticed you adding NFL Draft sections to college football team season articles, e.g. 2013 Buffalo Bulls football team. First, the D in draft should be capitalized per National Football League Draft. There was recently a discussion about this at Talk:2024 NFL Draft, which ended with no consensus. Nonetheless, we should follow the prevailing style in the article titles. Second, the use of Template:Main to open the section seems inefficient and unnecessary. Why not exclude that and just have body of the section read something like "The following Bull was selected in the 2014 NFL Draft following the season."? As for the question you posed, you want to remove the "Pick" column from List of Alabama Crimson Tide in the NFL draft and the like? The lists found at Category:Lists of National Football League draftees by college football team have an inconsistency in how the D in "draft: is capitalized. This should be fixed as well. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:16, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
I hear that. I added the sentence because we need prose,period I followed what I saw as an existing format. I wasn't the first to add these to articles. The addition of draft sections to season articles, can and should be discussed especially as part of the single season articles campaign. But that should be a separate discussion. The question isn't about titles. This question is about the list of the NFL draft articles. It is about a specific editor who overhauled a lot of these to their prefered format. Adding the pick of the round is WP:Cruft. This could jeopardize featured list status for these articles as many sources don't list the pick of the round.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 20:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
See 2022 Alabama Crimson Tide football team#After the season for what I am referring to regarding my season edits.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 20:49, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Are current season articles formatting getting out of control

The amount of boxes, previous season draftees, and other information is bogging down the season articles. See 2022 Alabama Crimson Tide football team, 2023 Alabama Crimson Tide football team as examples. Much of these are empty boxes. It is making these articles unweidy. It looks nothing like Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Yearly team pages format. I am not saying that much of this information isn't useful in these articles. But it is becoming overkill. Heck there is a section for TV ratings.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 20:49, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

884 words according to WP:Prosesize in a 180k byte article is absolutely unconscionable, imo. Among other things that could be removed (or should be turned into sourced prose) are Walk-ons, most of Preseason, support staff, most/all of individual leaders, and scoring. Alyo (chat·edits) 22:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes! They have gotten out of control. Cbl62 (talk) 23:52, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
I trimmed about 25,000 bytes of dubious stuff. More could almost certainly be cut. Cbl62 (talk) 00:04, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Mike Giddings

Mike Giddings, head coach at Utah in 1966 and 1967 and later an assistant coach and scout in the NFL, apparently died last week. This was was first reflected her eon Wikipedia by a hostile IP editor; see User talk:69.130.165.18. We still don't have sufficient sourcing for all the details of Giddings' death. This could use some more attention. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 01:53, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Colorado–Kansas State rivalry

Is Colorado–Kansas State rivalry notable? SportsGuy789 (talk) 16:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Or any of the other rivalry articles that User:Hatrick24 created? (see User:Hatrick24#College Athletics). SportsGuy789 (talk) 16:59, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Seems questionable. Hatrick24 also just created Arizona–Texas Tech football rivalry. There are a couple sources cited in each article using the term "rivalry". Hatrick24, do you want to weigh in? Jweiss11 (talk) 17:36, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Correct well some others had created links to uncreated pages on rivalries. I was trying to build out those pages. To my knowledge, Colorado and Kansas State fans have referred to the rivalry from the old Big 12. Some articles have indicated a old rivalry between Arizona and Texas Tech. So when authorized tried to offered a red link uncreated page, I took upon to try to create it. Hatrick24 (talk) 00:44, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
The word "rivalry" is often over-used by American sports journalists and we frequently see these articles created because some sportswriter threw one around in an article once. What we need to see isn't a lazy headline, but some sort of GNG-passing documentation these are actual rivalry games - is there a trophy involved? Is every game played part of a team's lore? These don't get there at all. SportingFlyer T·C 19:59, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
However you guys deem a rivalry. At the end of the day not all rivalries have long standing tradition and trophies involved. I can list several, Maryland–West Virginia football rivalry or Cincinnati–Memphis rivalry for instance. Some rivalries pre date what we consider a "current rivalry" so old or renewed rivalries from history in prior conferences. Hatrick24 (talk) 01:09, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Journalists in SEC country seem to think rivalry and series are interchangable.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 01:51, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Hatrick24, thanks for joining in. It's a collective judgement call by all who choose to participate here. There are always going to be some borderline cases. What we want to see for a stand-alone article is sustained, in-depth, independent coverage of a rivalry. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

CFHOF article improvement campaign

Back in June, we started a campaign to improve biographies of players and coaches inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame (CFHOF). We made some good progress, thanks largely to the efforts of User:Dmoore5556, and I've now expanded and formalized the campaign as the "CFHOF article improvement campaign". The linked campaign page lists some 300 CFHOF biographies that were rated as "Stub" class articles. The list is sortable to allow you to search by induction year, article size, page views, and team (via the "Description" column).

As CFHOF inductees are the "creme de la creme" of college football biographies, I am hoping that all College Football Wikiproject participants will be willing to adopt at least one of these stubs and improve them to "Start" class (or higher). If you do improve one of these articles, please strike it from the list and add your User name to the "Expander" column so everyone can appreciate and acknowledge your efforts. Cbl62 (talk) 17:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Administators noticeboard discussion

There is a discussion pending at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#About 300 articles that fail WP:NOTSTATS as to whether articles listing college football/basketball/hockey programs' statistical leaders (e.g., Michigan State Spartans men's basketball statistical leaders, James Madison Dukes football statistical leaders, and Notre Dame Fighting Irish men's ice hockey statistical leaders) should be deleted en masse. Cbl62 (talk) 01:18, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

CFHOF biographies -- high importance

Lots of campaigns have been launched this year, and all are valid. That said, when you think about high priority work for the college football project, none could be higher than biographies of persons inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame (CFHOF). In an effort to encourage this effort, I compiled a list of "stub" level biographies for persons inducted into the CFHOF during the first 30 years of the Hall's existence. Here it is if anyone wants to work at it.

Original list replaced by the above link (which includes an up-to-date list) to avoid divergent efforts. Dmoore5556 (talk) 02:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

CfD: Category:Evangel Crusaders

I have nominated Category:Evangel Crusaders and its subcats for renaming. Please see the discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 20:10, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:K. J. Henry#Requested move 28 August 2023

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:K. J. Henry#Requested move 28 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 11:30, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Mel Tucker

Michigan State is suspending Mel Tucker with pay and has named Harlon Barnett the interim coach (and presumably coach of record). Should {{Big Ten Conference football coach navbox}} be changed? It looks like we never updated it when Urban Meyer was on leave to start the 2018 season. Mackensen (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I would wait until we get confirmation that Barnett is the coach of record. We haven't removed Jim Harbaugh from this navbox, even though it appears that Michigan's four interim coaches are "of record"; see Mike Hart, et al. Although Harbaugh has a scheduled return. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:39, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Just read the USA Today investigative piece (here). Wow. How the heck could he think it's ok to masturbate on the phone with a rape survivor/advocate? I'd say the odds of him returning to the helm at MSU are only slightly better than my odds of winning the lottery (without buying a ticket). But, yeah, due process and all. We'll know for sure in October. Cbl62 (talk) 02:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Sparty said "Tuck coming", but I guess it should have been a different spelling. Too soon? What a train wreck. I concur on the odds of Tucker ever coaching at MSU again. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Redundant data

The data in the "FBS Programs" section of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision page is completely redundant with the data in the List of NCAA Division I FBS football programs other than the Football Stadium column and that information is available on the List of NCAA Division I FBS football stadiums page. So I would propose that the "FBS Programs" section listed at the top of this comment be replace with links to the other two pages. TDinKS (talk) 13:31, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

TDinKS, thanks for posting. I made some edit to NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision including adding a link to List of NCAA Division I FBS football stadiums to that section. Given that we have that stand-alone list, I think we could remove that entire table from main article, leaving just a link to a the list with a short intro. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:11, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Agreed ... go of it! TDinKS (talk) 17:32, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Come, on, do it! Do it now! Jweiss11 (talk) 19:56, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
Done ... may God have mercy on my soul! TDinKS (talk) 22:48, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Adding Homecoming games to season schedules - lots missing

All, if you could please keep an eye out on the season articles' weekly schedules sections as you're updating them. I recently noticed that tons were created without the Homecoming games being noted, so if you might be willing to spend an extra minute googling it to add into the article(s), that would be helpful. Thanks! SportsGuy789 (talk) 14:16, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

External links in articles again

As in 2018 and 2021, User:Wscsuperfan has been adding external links to the scores in Nebraska football articles instead of the source columns. However, this is not isolated as I have found it in at least one other article. We need to systematically check all the 2023 articles now. This whole project is becoming a mess.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 22:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

If Wikipedia page views picked the Heisman, 2023 edition

With four games under their belt, here's this year's first installment of "if wikipedia page views picked the Heisman". As of now, the Colorado hype train is carrying Shedeur Sanders to a commanding lead and places Travis Hunter in second place. From August 27 through September 24, here are the leaders:

1. Shedeur Sanders, Colorado Qb - 1,072,505 views
2. Travis Hunter, Colorado CB/WR - 390,162 views
3. Bo Nix, Oregon QB - 319,110 views
4. Sam Hartman, Notre Dame QB - 259,852 views
5. Caleb Williams, USC QB - 223,707 views
6. Quinn Ewers, Texas QB - 137,094 views
7. Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State WR - 94,016 views
8. Kyle McCord, Ohio State Qb - 82,074 views
9. Jordan Travis, Florida State QB - 72,397 views
10. Jalen Milroe, Alabama QB - 72,507 views
11. Michael Penix Jr., Washington QB - 70,022 views
12. Drake Maye, North Carolina QB - 58,928 views
13. Joe Milton, Tennessee QB - 57,642 views
14. J. J. McCarthy, Michigan QB - 54,765 views
15. Carson Beck, Georgia QB - 51,047 views
16. Keon Coleman, Florida State WR - 47,304 views
17. Will Shipley, Clemson RB - 41,136 views
18. Kool-Aid McKinstry, Alabama CB - 40,208

Did I miss anybody? Cbl62 (talk) 12:21, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

  • Nice to see somebody I wrote (Hartman) in fourth place above Williams :) BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Featured article nomination for C. O. Brocato

I have nominated C. O. Brocato for WP:FAC here. Feel free to leave comments. Thanks, BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:46, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

"Previous season" sections and the general layout of team season articles

Team season articles for reason years, say 2015 to present, often contain an entire top-level section about the previous season. This strikes me as redundant, given that there is an entire article about that previous season one click away. I could understand briefly summarizing the previous season in a section about the offseason or preseason, particularly in the context of a coaching change, championship defense, or conference realignment, but an entire top-level section seems over the top. The current state of affairs produces perverse results. For example, 2021 Houston Cougars football team has more prose about the performance of 2020 team than it does about performance of its subject, the 2021 team, and more prose about performance of the 2020 team than does 2020 Houston Cougars football team.

We have gotten to this point because we have many editors who avidly frame out new season articles during the preseason, and many editors who update the tabular forms of those articles as the season progresses, but neither these editors, nor anyone else, are nearly as avid about going back and updating and expanding the prose of such articles at season's end. Instead we just move on the next new season and begin framing and tabling that. We need some veteran editor leadership here.

More generally, we should also revisit Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Yearly team pages format and discuss the ordering of common sections. This is something Cbl62 and I have discussed in the past, and I see that Cbl62 has made a few edits of late regarding this subject, e.g. this. Rhett8, I'd like your input here as well given your work on recent Wisconsin season articles and some of your edits that have countered mine. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 18:29, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the previous season section should be brief and limited to aspects that have some relation to the present year's season. A related issue for me is the massive growth of preseason sections with multiple charts. I've always felt that the "Schedule" section is the best overview chart for a team's season and should be visible near the top of every season article. The proliferation of charts for "recruiting class", "incoming transfers", "outgoing transfers" and such have pushed the "Schedule" season so far into the weeds that it's difficult to find. One solution that I have started to implement is to restore "Schedule" to a naturally prominent location and collect all the roster, recruiting, and transfer pieces under an overall "Personnel" section. I've done this at 2023 Michigan Wolverines football team#Personnel and 2023 Colorado Buffaloes football team#Personnel. I think this makes a lot more sense. Diffs here and here. Cbl62 (talk) 18:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Cbl62, I agree with your changes. We agreed in the past that the schedule table to follow immediately after the lead section. Does anyone object to this? Jweiss11 (talk) 20:40, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
I would be in favor of 86ing preseason award watchlists. I can see how college football fans find it interesting, and could speak to anticipation of what is to come in the season. However, considering some watch lists include 70+ players... it is WP:CRUFT. I am totally in favor of eliminating the previous season's draftees from these articles. I would be in favor of eliminating the outgoing players as well.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 03:11, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Draftees: I can see having pages like List of UCLA Bruins in the NFL Draft, as it seems notable for schools which are a prominent source of players. However, its really immaterial to a given season, unless we want to track it generally as a reason for departure, but w/o specific details like round, pick, and team. While a player's awards might reflect performance that contribute to a team's success, there are plenty of future NFL players that were just average college players. Shoving it in a season article seems just to be boosterism or an excuse for yet another sports table.—Bagumba (talk) 08:23, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
"Previous season" sections seem to have proliferated to college basketball too (or visa versa). It's overkill to have a dedicated section. I wonder if someone at some point somehow decided it was cool to plop {{main}}'s everywhere.—Bagumba (talk) 08:06, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Bagumba, yeah the college hoops season articles are pretty messy too. Overuse of {{main}} is another bad habit. It's better to simply weave the relevant wikilinks into the prose of the section. We've got a lot of bad habits that tend to get mass-replicated by the aforementioned editors who focus on copying/pasting/adapting and tabular updating of new season articles. Unfortunately, such editors rarely participate in discussions like these. The message has to be delivered though comprehensive implementation into the mainspace of the standards and styles we develop here. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
  • My primary objection is to the ordering of things. Sections on NFL draftees, recruiting classes, and incoming and outgoing transferees are of secondary or tertiary importance in an article about a football team. They should not be the first things included in an article, thus obscuring the key elements of a season article. If they are to be included, they should be placed later in the article and under a "Personnel" section. Last night, I re-ordered 2023 Michigan State Spartans football team along these lines. Cbl62 (talk) 10:59, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Update: I've purged the "previous season" sections from all the FBS programs. Many of the FCS article still have them. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:16, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Update 2: I've purged all of the FCS articles as well. Hhs7, I see you reverted three of my edits, at 2021 Arkansas State Red Wolves football team, 2022 Arkansas State Red Wolves football team, and 2023 Arkansas State Red Wolves football team. Can you weigh in here? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 22:29, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
The page you linked on how the previous season section was supposed to be made it seem confusing as to why you deleted those sections. I honestly feel that the previous season sections on these articles are good for providing information on where the team was. An article on any site is meant to provide the necessary information to its viewers. The previous season section is necessary in my opinion. You also said that the 2021 Houston football article contained more information about the 2020 season than the 2021 season. The 3 on the A-State articles were only 1-2 sentences long. Hhs7 (talk) 23:41, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
Don’t just purge all of the information on the previous season sections. Instead, summarize it in 1-2 sentences if it’s too wordy or way too long. Hhs7 (talk) 23:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
I checked your first post on this topic. I misread it, but it’s still confusing as to why you are purging all of them. Hhs7 (talk) 23:51, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm purging them because they are off-topic sections on articles that have a tendency to get bloated. Take a look at 2022 Arkansas State Red Wolves football team. Nowhere is the 2022 team's won-loss record stated in prose. Yet, instead we have a statement about the 2021's team performance. That's pretty silly. The point is that the development of these articles is being mismanaged, and purging these crufty/off-topic/poorly-sourced "previous season" sections will help get things back on track. I'm not opposed to a 2022 article having an offseason/preseason section that briefly mentions the performance of the 2021 team, ideally supported by a source about the 2022 offseason/preseason that references the performance of the 2021 team. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Jweiss. If folks want to build an offseason/preseason section with various significant preseason develops (and include brief reference to the prior season), that seems lke the better way. I also appreciate Jweiss' taking the first step in reducing season article bloat. Cbl62 (talk) 01:01, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
If you want that, why purge them instead of just move them yourselves? Hhs7 (talk) 01:06, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
It not just a matter of moving something. The form of of the content is wrong as well. 2023 Arkansas State Red Wolves football team should not contain a passage that reads "See also: 2022 Arkansas State Red Wolves football team; The Red Wolves finished the 2022 season with a 3–9 record (1–7 in conference), finishing seventh in the Sun Belt West Division. Arkansas State was not invited to any postseason competition for the third time in a row.", sourced to Arkansas State's own listing of the 2022 schedule with no connection to the 2023 season. The 2023 Arkansas State article might have a passage that reads something like "Butch Jones returned as head coach for his third season. After a 3–9 campaign in 2022 in which Arkansas State finished in last place in the Sun Belt Conference's West Division, the Red Wolves were picked to finish sixth in the 2023 Sun Belt preseason coaches' poll..." with appropriate sources supporting. Again, the point is that the form and perspective of these "previous season" sections tend to be inappropriate for the topic of the article. It's better to just get this sort of cruft out of the way, so that the article can be developed in a better fashion, and so this crufty stuff doesn't get thoughtlessly copied over to other articles, like the 2024 article when it gets created next year. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:10, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Are you wanting me (and other fellow editors) to place it in the preseason section, or were you just giving an example? If it’s the former, were you wanting us to word it differently each time? Hhs7 (talk) 04:47, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
I was giving a theoretical example. There are many ways an editor could improve 2023 Arkansas State Red Wolves football team. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:07, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
I have added something similar to what you listed to the preseason section as a subsection called offseason to the 2023 A-State article. Could you please get back to me here and tell me if that is what you want these articles to look like? Hhs7 (talk) 12:02, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
That's better, sort of. What was your source for what you added? I presume you didn't have one. I ask not because anything you added was factually incorrect. It's just that sources will tell you what's relevant and what's not. Generally, you should not be adding unsourced sections of prose to an article without sources to support it. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:22, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I simply forgot about it, but I’ll add the source today. Hhs7 (talk) 11:22, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Template:Infobox college football team: naming Heisman trophy winners

There's been a recent effort, apparently spearheaded by Birdledew, to expand the Heisman field of Template:Infobox college football team from a simple number, which has been the prevailing standard, to a list of winners and years. See recent changes at Alabama Crimson Tide football, Michigan Wolverines football, and elsewhere. The template documentation states the following for the field: "A number denoting how many followed by name(s)", which doesn't match the prevailing standard either. Thoughts about what the standard should be? I lean toward just a simple number. The lead of a main program article ought to enumerate all the Heisman winners. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

1930 season inaccuracies

I wanted to talk about the inaccuracies with the 1930 season, more specifically with Arkansas State (at the time known as First District A&M). The university says that it used “Warriors” as their athletic names in 1930. The Wikipedia article says that they were known as the “Arkansas State Indians” during that year despite the fact that: A: The university wasn’t known as Arkansas State College until 1933 (later Arkansas State University in 1967). and B: The “Indians” athletic names weren’t used until 1931. The “Indians” name was adopted in 1931 because of it becoming popular through newspapers and other media. I know people and sources from the university that can confirm these in addition to this article from the university itself: http://asunews.astate.edu/MascotRetirement.htm

If people just looked around more on Wikipedia and do a little more research, we wouldn’t have blunders like this. Hhs7 (talk) 22:11, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

  • "Blunders" like this happen. If you have good sourcing on the correct school name and team mascot (if any), we can get it fixed. That's the goal. Cbl62 (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
    • After taking another look, 1930 Arkansas State Indians football team looks like a solid start, and I'm not so sure there was any "blunder". Some contemporaneous sources from the 1930 football season do, in fact, use the "Indians" moniker. What's more, some sources did refer to the school as "Arkansas State College" during the 1930 football season. E.g., here ("Arkansas State" and "Indians") and here ("Indians"). If you believe these uses were not the most common usage, we would need to see some statistical comparison to see which was really the dominant usage in the fall of 1930. I ping @Patriarca12: as the article creator who may also have some valued input on Hhs7's concerns. Cbl62 (talk) 00:52, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
      The university used “Warriors” in 1930. Many sources unofficially called them the “Indians”, so the university officially adopted that nickname. Hhs7 (talk) 01:31, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Per WP:COMMONNAME: "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's 'official' name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)." So, the key is which was most commonly used: Warriors or Indians. Cbl62 (talk) 08:08, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Cbl, none of the contemporary news sources cited at 1930 Arkansas State Indians football team refer to the team as the "Warriors". Neither does the 1931 Arkansas State College yearbook, which also calls the sports teams from the 1930–31 year as "Indians". The only reference I've seen to "Warriors" is from the 2008 press release that Hhs7 provided above. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:17, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. In other words, no blunders here. Cbl62 (talk) 18:43, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
No flaws! :) Jweiss11 (talk) 22:29, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/The Perfect Season

Just a reminder: There are many perfect seasons that lack articles and many others that remain in need of expansion. A list of these articles can be viewed at the above link. Your help with this work would be appreciated. Cbl62 (talk) 22:35, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested GA reviews by the end of the month

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League#BeanieFan11 for a list of some of my good article nominations, which I'm hoping be reviewed by the end of the month to assist in the WikiCup. Thanks! BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:37, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

AfD: List of American collegiate athletic stadiums and arenas

I have nomianted List of American collegiate athletic stadiums and arenas for deletion. Please see the discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 19:15, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Season pages containing excessive information

I'm not very active on this project page, this is maybe the 2nd time I've ever posted here, but this is an important issue. I've noticed a major trend of season team pages containing absolutely ridiculous and excessive amounts of information, most of which is irrelevant or WP:FANCRUFT. Some examples of this information include spring game box scores, TV ratings, jersey color combinations for each game, inclusions of support staff, and as mentioned in a discussion above, sometimes an excessively long previous season section (which I honestly completely object to on football and basketball pages). An example of this, is Arizona's 2023 page before I cleaned it up: here. Another inclusion that seems common that doesn't make sense to me is recruiting class for the following season. I don't understand the purpose of inclusion as none of those players will play during that season. I've also noticed series history boxes attempting to make a comeback thanks to some IPs and inexperienced editors. All of this is making season pages excessively and unnecessarily long.--Rockchalk717 23:50, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I think a lot of that is also just copy catting from NFL articles which have included those for a few years now (jersey combos). I agree with all of this, except maybe box scores for the spring game. The rest of this I could not agree with more. I think some of this is by drive-by editors that WP:AGF want to think they are helping. This is what happens when we allow some differentiation in formatting from one season to the next.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 04:08, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Yeah I get people trying to make them better but when it gets to the point of where the season articles are overloaded with information, that's a little excessive. I just cleaned up articles for Big 12 teams. I hope others follow suit.--Rockchalk717 05:49, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
I should have put "helping" in quotes. I think it is to satisfy their recruiting/preseason hype fetish. They honestly think it is an improvement. I don't think it is vandalism, but it isn't helpful.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 03:06, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
  • I agree with everything Rockchalk said. There is no way a 2024 recruiting class box belongs in an article on a 2023 team. Nor does a directory of the programs's support staff. Cbl62 (talk) 09:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Can we switch all the in-season boxes all to primarystyle. Many of these have to violate WP:COLOR with contrasting issues. I am not even colorblind and some of these are difficult to read.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 18:13, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
UCO2009bluejay, I'm not sure we should be using team colors for all these boxes in the body of the article anyway. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:37, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
@Jweiss11: I am not sure all of these couldn't be consolidated into the game boxes anyway. Or eliminated. Even the NFL articles don't contain game stats category leaders.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 22:03, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
@UCO2009bluejay: The one for my Jayhawks definitely is an issue with it being red letters on a blue background. I used to use a similar color scheme in my signature but eliminated it after others mentioned the contrast policies.--Rockchalk717 06:09, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
To be honest I kinda don't really mind the uniform combos, makes it a little more fun for me to log on with Vanderbilt, considering that we're mixing things up now color-wise.
You do make great points though. I'll probably try to remove the VU uniform combos when I'm done logging in all the necessary information needed. Amanuit (talk) 02:42, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

University of Michigan football sign-stealing scandal

To no surprise, a new article was just created for University of Michigan football sign-stealing scandal. We should keep some veteran eyes on this article and all of the related Michigan football articles, as this subject area had already been and will continue to be a major magnet for vandalism and shoddy editing. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:36, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Help

I've started expanding 2004 Michigan Wolverines football team and have run into a technical/coding glitch in creating the 2004 Michigan Wolverines football team#Roster. If someone can figure out what went wrong, I'd appreciate it! Cbl62 (talk) 23:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you! Cbl62 (talk) 00:01, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
But now the coaching positions have disappeared. I'm too old for these sorts of charts. Cbl62 (talk) 00:03, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Rivalry mess

I am relatively new to college football coverage here on Wikipedia, but I do think that the proliferation of articles on rivalries needs to be addressed. The problem is that few college football rivalries (such as Michigan vs Ohio State or Texas vs Oklahoma) garner much national media interest, and most are of only of local importance. An example would be Cincinnati-Pittsburgh, which according to the AfD, is sourced almost entirely to local newspapers and school press releases. Also look at Nebraska Cornhuskers football's infobox, which has 10 rivalries listed, most I would argue fail to meet WP:GNG.

My suggestions would be to:

  • 1: remove the rivalry subfield from the infobox, as I do believe it exacerbates the problem by giving undue weight to insignificant rivalries.
  • 2: If a rivalry is only of significance to the school itself or the community, the article on the rivalry should have its contents merged into that of the football teams or deleted entirely.

In the end, it is not Wikipedia's purpose to bring attention to schools' big games, which is essentially what these articles do. funplussmart (talk) 19:50, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

funplussmart, if a stand-alone rivalry article exists, it should be included in the relevant infoboxes and navboxes of the participating teams. The solution here is to AfD the rivalry articles that do not past muster to warrant stand-alone articles. We've done some culling in the past, several years back. May be time for another round. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:23, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Rankings after Nov. 1st are only College Football Playoff rankings?

I tried finding a consensus discussion in this project's talk page histories but couldn't. I'm referring to this edit reversal with the description "rankings after november 1 on the schedule section are from the CFP rankings"

The college basketball project is where I spend most of my energy, but I do enough overlap with WP:CFB where I thought I'd be aware of this listed rankings consensus. Can someone please link me to that discussion? Thank you. SportsGuy789 (talk) 21:59, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Style of score on teams page

On a teams page, such as 2007 Missouri Tigers football team or 2007 Virginia Tech Hokies football team, which style should be used on the Championship/Bowl line in the info box? As an example, the two options in the 2007 Missouri case (on the Big 12 championship line) are L 17-38 vs Oklahoma and L 38-17 vs Oklahoma. Does the relevant team come first or the winning team?

I found this discussion that seems to mention a project consensus for relevant team first on team pages, but I can't find the original consensus. Plus, users seemed opposed to the idea of relevant team first, so I wanted to ask.

Thanks. Esb5415 (talk) 14:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

In prose, the winning score always goes first. But in tables like inboxes and schedule tables, the subject team's score goes first. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:34, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

TfD notice

Heads up that I have nominated {{CFB Yearly Record Subhead}} for deletion as it basically only exists to contradict our accessibility guidelines and it needs to be converted into more normal rowspan, semantically-appropriate cells. There's no way to include the notice in the template without breaking a bunch of tables, so I'm trying to give a good faith warning here.

Furthermore, the entire system of making these tables with five or so templates seems like a very clunky kludge that should be fixed soon. If you need help converting this into 1.) just normal tables or 2.) a single template that isn't spread out across a bunch of components and that is semantically meaningful and not hostile to the blind, let me know. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 04:25, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Koavf, I've opposed your nomination. While this template may contradict our accessibility guidelines, that's not why it exists. It exists to render standardized tables on nearly 7,000 articles. The five-template system dates back to 2007. If the code of this template needs modified, or if a template needs to be built to replace this one and its cousins, I'm all for that. But we can't simply delete this one first. Frietjes has helped this project in the past with templates like Template:CFB schedule, which replaced older, clunkier templates. Perhaps she can assist again. There's also the analogous Template:CBB yearly record subhead and its cousins, used for basketball and other college sports. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:24, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
So you're admitting that it's inaccessible, but that's okay somehow? ―Justin (koavf)TCM 20:26, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
It's currently accessible to anyone who can see. If you delete it, it's accessible to no one. That's not an improvement. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:30, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
That is not what Web accessibility means. Have you read MOS:COLHEAD? ―Justin (koavf)TCM 20:31, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Koavf, we've butted heads on this stuff before. And you've butted heads with many others on this as well. You need an attitude adjustment on your accessibility crusade. Try to be more collaborative. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
That doesn't answer my question. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 20:55, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I read MOS:COLHEAD. It frowns upon headers inside tables that span across multiple columns. I also notice that the top of page (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial) states that: "It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting." Jweiss11 (talk) 20:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Okay, so why do you think we should retain something that is inaccessible? As I hope you know, CfD is not a unilateral and instantaneous deletion of a template. As I already wrote above: I am willing to help you convert your inappropriate solution to acceptable tables. Knowing that I would help you and that there's a 0% chance that things will be broken, I am confused as to why you want to retain this kludge from 15 years ago. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 21:01, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Step one should be to build a new template. I look forward to draft versions from anyone! Jweiss11 (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
And to be clear, is there a reason that you think there needs to be a template rather than a table? And a reason why you think there needs to be a distinction between NCAA and NFL (and CFL and etc.)? ―Justin (koavf)TCM 21:16, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
There seems to be some confusion about the deletion process here. No one is proposing to instantly delete the template with no replacement. Please see WP:CFD. The template would be replaced with an appropriate alternative before deletion. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 20:59, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Picking off CFB Yearly Record Subhead from its cousins and putting it in a deletion holding cell does not seem like a good first step here. If we can't have headers spanning multiple columns, the entire template scheme for these tables needs to be redeveloped. And the CBB analogs should be included in that effort. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:03, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
"the entire template scheme for these tables needs to be redeveloped" Agreed, this was my proposal above. "the CBB analogs should be included in that effort". Agreed. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 21:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not all into the technical tables and stuff so I'm not completely sure what this would do: if the result is delete, what would the tables change to / what would be the differences? BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:27, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
If the outcome is delete, the templates would just stay in place on articles indefinitely until the replacement was ready. That's what happened with the NFL coach infobox. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 21:36, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
What would a replacement look like? Or has that not been determined yet? BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
That has not been determined but see the examples below for NBA teams. There may well be some row that has a rowspan.
Furthermore, it's not clear to me why the NCAA should look different or function differently than the NFL or CFL, etc. It's not clear to me how that's an asset. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 21:42, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
The difference would be that there wouldn't be a single row that has a header-like appearance. Look at (e.g.) Hue_Jackson#Head_coaching_record. See how the table for the NFL does not have a single row that says "Below/above this is the Oakland records" and "Below/above this is the Cleveland" records, but the NCAA one has a row that says "After this is Grambling State stuff"? That would not exist in the future. See also (e.g.) this old, inappropriate table and the current, appropriate one. Please let me know if I'm being unclear. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 21:40, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
So, this would be removing the row that says "Grambling State Tigers (Southwestern Athletic Conference) (2022–2023)" and "Grambling State: 8–14 6–10 "? If that's it, I don't see the point to be honest. To me, this seems to be a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Though if I had to choose, I'd lean towards keeping it as I think its better to have the information about what conference the team competed in. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:51, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
The purpose is explained at MOS:COLHEAD. Have you seen that yet? And it would omit the row that reads "Grambling State Tigers (Southwestern Athletic Conference) (2022–2023)" which itself is already redundant and serving no real purpose anyway. If conferences are important, we can introduce a column for conferences and have a table cell that says "Southwestern Athletic Conference". Again, please let me know if any of this is unclear, including the MoS page on accessibility in tables. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 22:02, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Noting conferences is vital in the these tables. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:49, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Then I think the solution is a column for the conference. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 22:51, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Developing new version of templates

I've mocked up User:Mackensen/CFB with Nick Saban's record without the headers. Mackensen (talk) 23:57, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Nice. The columns and rows will also need to have scopes and the ability to add a table caption. (Sorry if these features already exist--I'm responding as I'm walking out the door.) ―Justin (koavf)TCM 00:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
If they didn't before I didn't add them. This is the basis for a discussion; it doesn't handle conference independents well; maybe it doesn't need to. Mackensen (talk) 00:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
The existing templates do have the ability to add a caption and I already added appropriate scopes, so if you copy/pasted, then it's all good. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 01:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
If we're going to redesign this and finally get it all right, the school subtotals from Template:CFB Yearly Record Subtotal should also be moved to the bottom of the table. In doing so, we are then able to make the table's columns sortable, whereas the subtotals would be incorrectly sorted (and misplaced) with the single-season stats. For example, see Saban's Sports-Reference.com table. —Bagumba (talk) 01:28, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
In the mockup, the "Standing" column seems overloaded, with the conference moved and combined in there now too. Make the conference a dedicated column, then even the season-specific conference page can be linked from there. The table can then be sortable by conference with a dedicated column. —Bagumba (talk) 01:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I played around some more and came up with a mockup that's sortable: User:Mackensen/CFB. Mackensen (talk) 02:48, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, the rev you have here still has a few serious accessibility and semantics issues: 1.) you are using color for something meaningful without some other fallback in opposition to MOS:COLOR, 2.) the table includes non-tabular data, and 3.) the key/value pairs at the bottom should be in the form of a definition list which is made in MediaWiki with a semi-colon and a colon. Again, I'm happy to help revise these if you want instead of just giving the feedback. Thanks for everyone trying to address these issues. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 03:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Go ahead, I've forked all the relevant templates. Mackensen (talk) 03:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Merci, amigo. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 03:06, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Stepping back here to look at the big picture, if we are going to reconfigure these templates, we should do so in a way that eliminates the multi-template kluge from 2007 in favor of a new streamlined template, much like what we did with Template:CFB schedule in 2018 with Frietjes's critical coding help. There we also eliminated the cumbersome need to manually turn fields off and on. We should do the same here. I presume that will entail using Lua. As for the layout of Mackensen's mockup, I don't think abbreviating the conference names is ideal, as these templates are also serving historical and lower-division conferences for which common abbreviations either don't exist or are far less obvious to the average reader than "SEC". And two-tiered headings with "Name" under "Conference" are clunky. We also need to think about how we are going to convert the 7,000 instantiations of these templates over to the new scheme. We were able to achieve the changeover with CFB schedule scheme mostly with bots. What we should not do is rush a half-baked solution through just to meet the requirements of a non-policy-based accessibility agenda. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:59, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I really don't understand this kind of comment: no one here is advocating for a half-baked solution (that's what exists now!) and accessibility isn't optional. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 07:11, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
MOS:COLHEAD is "not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting." That sounds optional to me. What we have now is a 7/8th-baked solution and missing 1/8th is entirely on the backend. What I don't want to see happen is a regression to a 5/8ths-baked solution in which we lose something on the front end. A half-baked solution is exactly what happened last time your accessibility agenda collided with template-based college sports tables in 2020, when you force-fed a clunky, clutterly, utterly meaningless "Statistics overview" caption at the top of Template:CBB yearly record start. Let's not have a repeat of that sort of thing. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:29, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
No one is arguing for what you're concerned with. How is there a problem with the caption? ―Justin (koavf)TCM 07:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
That caption is utterly meaningless. "Statistics" tells us nothing. It's quite clearly tabular data with a lot of numbers. "Overview" is also meaningless. Is it an overview? Overview of what? Jweiss11 (talk) 07:35, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
It's a statistical overview. Do you have a better caption? What is the table about? ―Justin (koavf)TCM 08:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
It's certainly a table of data. Should the caption maybe say "Data table"? That's terrible and yet still better than "statistics overview". The data in the table is not an "overview", and "statistics" is so general as to be meaningless. When the table is a head coaching record table, it's about a head coaching record. But these same templates also sometimes render tables for things that are not head coaching record tables, like yearly records for a program. Perhaps we should have separate a template for that. At any rate, you force-fed meaningless clutter into Template:CBB yearly record start, and the fact that you can't understand that gives me pause about your intentions and involvement here. Jweiss11 (talk) 08:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Accessibility features are not meaningless clutter and your conspiratorial nonsense is not welcome or warranted. If you can articulate a problem, that's great. A solution would be even better. If you're so shocked and worried about a two-word line of dialogue, there are also display solutions for that. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 15:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Conspiratorial? What's the conspiracy here? I've only discussed the miscalibrated priorities of one person here, you. You need more than one person for a conspiracy. Yes, the "Statistical overview" caption is meaningless clutter, as explained above. I see no good reason why we couldn't have notes or direction for screen readers that don't unnecessarily clutter the visual display, like the alt fields that describe images. Perhaps employing Template:Screen reader-only? But "statistical overview" isn't helpful even for a screen reader. I've already articulated the problem with that two-word line of dialogue. It's a force-fed piece of meaningless clutter stubbornly implemented to meet the narrow requirements of the accessibility agenda at the expense of the mainstream visual presentation of Wikipedia. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
You keep on telling me that I need to adjust my attitude: please read the posts you've made here. Yes, as I wrote, if the problem is the display, you can make it not display. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 16:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm quite aware of the content and tenor of the posts I've made here. Criticizing bad arguments and poor editing behaviors is not uncollegial nor is it non-collaborative. What is non-collaborative is ramrodding bureaucratic quasi-policy with little to no concern for the collateral damage that such quasi-policy may inflict upon mainspace content. Your advocacy for accessibility has a pattern of such insufficient concern for the standard visual presentation of Wikipedia. Any fallout that your accessibility measures incur appears to be, in your estimation, someone else's problem to fix. That's the attitude I want you to adjust. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:50, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Wow. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Justin (koavf)TCM 23:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I'd step back and forget about MOS and say that empirically, having headers mid table is not elegant, and makes the table non-sortable. (If we're going to nitpick, MOS:DTAB (an actual guideline) reads Because the row header and column header may be spoken before the data in each cell when navigating in table mode, it is necessary for the column headers and row headers to uniquely identify the column and row respectively That's not met if we're overriding a row with content that doesn't match the column header descriptions.)Bagumba (talk) 07:51, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Just curious, what's the accessibility purpose of the "Statistics overview" caption? Shouldn't a screen reader be able to pick up the "head coaching record" header  ? ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 07:55, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Bagumba, for a large table, the experience of having a screenreader read each cell's data preceded by it's corresponding row and column seems excruciatingly laborious and completely lacking in enrichment for the listener. Imagine the screenreader experience for John Gagliardi#Head coaching record or List of college football coaches with a .750 winning percentage. The intrinsic value of these tables lies in the user's ability to scan and compare. There may just be no practical way to make such tables truly accessibly for the visually-impaired. Jweiss11 (talk) 08:04, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
...completely lacking in enrichment for the listener. I dont use a screenreader, and will leave it to those who do and the accessibility experts to determine if its more useful or not than not being able to see the table at all. That aside, as someone who can see the existing tables, the mid-table headers are just not optimal. We're all volunteers, so I respect all the work put in to get where we are at, but we can still be open about how to improve and reimagine this, if some other volunteer wants to invest their time to go that route.—Bagumba (talk) 09:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Technology like screen readers (but also other software) can quickly use this for navigation and to announce "This is what's coming up: you may want to skip it or listen, based on what this is about". See more at MOS:TABLECAPTION. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 08:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes. This also applies to data scraping and AI to be able to make sense of each cell in the table in the absence of sighted humans using intuition to parse non-regular, mid-table headers. —Bagumba (talk) 09:25, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
And search engines and software that makes outlines of pages and styling for print editions, etc. etc. etc. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 15:10, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
@WikiOriginal-9: Are you referring to a section like Nick Saban § Head coaching record? Note that "Head coaching record" just happens to be a dedicated section that only has a table. The table could just as easily be under something like "Career" or "Biography", or the section could have multiple tables. So I'm guessing that the web standards (this isn't homegrown for Wikipedia) say to add a header that is specifically tied to the table's syntax. —Bagumba (talk) 09:54, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Looking at the pages linked to on the college basketball template CBB yearly record start, it appears that they are all head coaching records? So, maybe it should just say "head coaching record" instead of statistics overview? That seems more descriptive. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 13:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Speaking as a web developer, accessibility isn't optional, from either a legal or ethical standpoint. That's a total non-starter. You wrote above It's currently accessible to anyone who can see. If you delete it, it's accessible to no one. We can't treat non-sighted people as second-class citizens just because it suits us. Mackensen (talk) 11:31, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Mackensen, we don't help disabled people by diminishing service for people who are not disabled. That was my point. We don't built a wheelchair access ramp up to the high diving board at the municipal pool. What would be the point? Jweiss11 (talk) 13:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Leaving aside that people do in fact build wheelchair access to swimming pools and high-dives, people with sight issues probably want to access head coaching statistics as much as sighted people do. No one's proposing deleting anything. I don't understand your attitude at all. Mackensen (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Mackensen, people in wheelchairs jump off high-dives? There are wheelchair-accusable ramps that take one right up the diving board at elevation? Citation needed please. As I said above, a sufficiently large data table, like the ones found at List of college football coaches with a .750 winning percentage or John Gagliardi is going to be of minimal use with a screen-reader. No one's proposing deleting anything, huh? This entire discussion began with malformed proposal to delete a widely-used template. Even your mockup, as it stands now, has effectively deleted content included in the existing tables: team fight name, full conference names, and wikilinks to program articles. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:53, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
As has been written multiple times now, deleting the template as a kludge is not the same thing as deleting the information that the template is rendering. Additionally, as has been written multiple times by multiple editors now, please be more collegial. We're all trying to collaborate here. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 17:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Koavf, please refrain from spurious warnings about collegiality. That's not a good way to collaborate. As for deleting the kluge, step one should not be the nomination of one of the five pieces of the kluge for deletion. Step one is to develop a new template. Step two is roll out the new template. Step three is to delete the old kluge of templates. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, okay, going in the exact opposite direction is another approach. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 17:12, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Why do we have templates for these record tables?

I missed Koavf's earlier questions above about the why we even have templates to render these tables. The reason is for standardization and efficiency, which is same reason we have templates for infoboxes, citations, and any other structures that appear thousands of times across Wikipedia. College football is far more expansive and has a longer and more complicated history than the NFL or any of the other major sports leagues in North America. We need standardization to present the topic consistently and coherently across thousands of articles. Consider the example of Bill Walsh (American football coach)#Head coaching record. The manually rendered NFL record table is not something to which we want to aspire. We do not want to manually retype table headings on every article. The headings on the Walsh example are improperly capitalized and misspelled ("Post Season"). Winning percentages, if presented, should be automatically calculated from wins, losses, and ties. And what if we want to change or eliminate the color scheme used to denote various championships? That should be done once in a centralized template instead of hundreds or thousands of times with local coding on each article. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:22, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

In that case, there should be a single template for football records or sports records, rather than multiple templates. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 07:33, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I do think there is value in having it separate, as different versions of football have different things worth mentioning (e.g. there's no bowl games in the NFL/CFL like there is in college football, and there is also no national rankings in those leagues whereas is there is for college. Additionally, while all of them have conferences, conferences are much more important in the college ranks than in the NFL/CFL; I don't think mentioning conference really adds anything for NFL whereas college football it is very important). BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
BeanieFan11, indeed. College football is far more expansive and complicated than the NFL or the CFL. I think we should come up with a new template-based solution for college football first. Then we can apply it to other college sports. And then we may be able to apply that solution to the NFL, etc, with irrelevant fields unused. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

User talk:143.59.16.219 and the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry

An IP editor is engaged in repeated edit warring to impose his will at Michigan–Ohio State football rivalry. They been given mutliple talk page warnings about this by User:Sungodtemple User:Wikipedialuva, User:Chaotic Enby, and User:Materialscientist. See User talk:143.59.16.219. Despite these warnings, the disruption persists. Extra eyes on the article would be helpful. Cbl62 (talk) 04:45, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks to User:Materialscientist for blocking them! ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 04:58, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Frank Howard: Is there more than one in AmF?

Is there another Frank Howard in American football that is preventing Frank Howard (American football coach) from being named simply Frank Howard (American football)? —Bagumba (talk) 06:26, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I can't find anyone else on the stats sites. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 06:32, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
If nobody comes up with anything, I might end up boldly moving it. —Bagumba (talk) 06:34, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't even consider that bold. There is no other article at the moment regardless. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 06:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
Bold in the sense of bypassing WP:RM and its overhead. I just wanted a quick check that say like some Frank Howard politician didn't play college football, but it's not noted on the dab already.—Bagumba (talk) 07:11, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Preemptive conference affiliations

Based on what I have seen in multiple pages, there are already editors that are placing teams in their 2024 conferences in navboxes and on pages. I have WP:BOLDLY started the process of organizing certain navboxes using commented out parameters in a preemtive move but I now think this is ineffective. My point is that we need editors to have eyes on pages such as SMU, and all the other pages where there will be conference realignments.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 20:20, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

AFAIK, the changes are not effective until at least after the spring sports, and surely an exact date is sourceable. Unless people are already creating 2024 team pages, it seems a conference change now is inaccurate and fails WP:V. —Bagumba (talk) 07:38, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
For the new Big Ten teams, it's not effective until August 2024. See here. Cbl62 (talk) 11:14, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

2023 Colorado Mines

I have nominated 2023 Colorado Mines Orediggers football team for DYK with the following hook...that the No. 1-ranked 2023 Colorado Mines Orediggers, "college football's nerdiest contender", feature players with pigtails and drawn-on blue mustache, friar haircut, and Harry Potter cosplay? Extra eyes are welcome to whip the article into shape before it appears on the Main Page. Cbl62 (talk) 19:08, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

AFD: Georgia–Kentucky football rivalry

I have nominated Georgia–Kentucky football rivalry for deletion. Please see the discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 16:44, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

  • There are six other pending rivalry discussions here:
(1) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brain Bowl (MIT–WPI) (closed as "delete")
(2) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holy War (Merrimack–Holy Cross) (closed as "delete")
(3) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/River City Rivalry. (closed as "delete")
(4) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charlotte–East Carolina rivalry (closed as "delete")
(5) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arkansas–Arkansas State rivalry (closed as "delete")
(6) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Border (Lamar–McNeese)
Cbl62 (talk) 18:16, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Just a comment @Jweiss11, I'd suggest review of South Carolina–Tennessee football rivalry. It was deleted in 2015, and I nominated it earlier this year due to a lack of sources. It closed as no consensus, but I strongly feel there is not notable coverage. It was loaded with references by the creator that do not support the notability, but I think someone else should review and nom. glman (talk) 19:18, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
@Glman: The SC-Tenn rivalry was pretty thoroughly discussed. You can, of course, re-litigate that one (for what would be a third time), but there's a lot of lower-hanging fruit. Consider reviewing Category:College football rivalries in the United States and looking for rivalries that don't warrant stand-alone articles. There are some 350 other college football rivalries that should be evaluated. E.g., Holy War (Merrimack–Holy Cross) (two games played), Johns Hopkins–Navy football rivalry, Constitution State Rivalry, Dayton–Drake football rivalry, Gonzaga–Idaho football rivalry, Brain Bowl (MIT–WPI), Mayor's Cup (Missouri–South Carolina), Safeway Bowl, Minnesota–Penn State football rivalry, Royal Rivalry, Catholic–Gallaudet rivalry, Battle of the Valleys, The Battle for Greater Baltimore, etc. Cbl62 (talk) 20:04, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It was, but with no consensus. I think it's a clear example of if I took any of these articles and then flooded it with random sources about the game. I totally am with you that there are many pages that need to be nominated. glman (talk) 20:11, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Here are more rivalry articles under discussion:

funplussmart (talk) 22:22, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

See also:

Still pending rivalry AfDs

For those interested, 10 of the recent rivalry AfDs closed as "delete". Still pending are the following:

  1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Border (Lamar–McNeese) (closed as "No consensus")
  2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mayor's Cup (Missouri–South Carolina) (closed as "Delete")
  3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arizona–Texas Tech football rivalry (closed as "Delete")
  4. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elm City rivalry (closed as "Delete")
  5. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grand Canyon Rivalry
  6. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boston College–Virginia Tech football rivalry (closed as "Keep")
  7. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gansz Trophy

Cbl62 (talk) 22:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

College Football Playoff needs annual article that covers Selection, Semifinal bowls, and National Championship Game

When I google for "2023 College Football Playoff" I get no Wikipedia results, an odd omission. If I add "+ wikipedia" the top google result is 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship... which is the 2022 season's national championship game.

Same for "2017 College Football Playoff".... top result is the 2016 season's 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship. Much lower down in the results is 2017–18 NCAA football bowl games.

Template:College Football Playoff navbox contains the semifinal bowls and final, but does not link to any annual discussion of ranking, selection, or controversy. These are all, let's say, major parts of the College Football Playoff.

The term "20XX College Football Playoff" or "20XX–XY College Football Playoff" is in common use to cover the entire annual process of ranking, selecting, and seeding the four teams, the two designated bowl games, and the culminating national championship game. This is a distinct and more specific article subject from that of the 20XX–XY NCAA football bowl games articles. The obvious parallel is 2023 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament vs. 2023 NCAA Division I men's basketball championship game.

It's currently very hard to find information on Wikipedia for each annual iteration of the College Football Playoff. No single article seems to cover the entire process from selection to champion.

PK-WIKI (talk) 15:38, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I've created the article 2023–24 College Football Playoff.
Help appreciated on expansion, or arguments against at WP:AFD
PK-WIKI (talk) 18:48, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Delaware State season articles at AFD

You may be interested in the following deletion discussions on seasons of the Delaware State Hornets:

BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I voted for a merge to Delaware State Hornets football, 1924–1929 for all. Henry Kendall Orange and Black football, 1895–1899 and Temple Owls football, 1894–1899 are good models for what this should look like. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Template:Infobox college sports team season: stadium capacity, field surface, multiple home stadiums

The infoboxes (Template:Infobox college sports team season) of many team season articles contain stadium capacity figures for the team's home stadium; see "(capacity: 106,572)" at 2023 Penn State Nittany Lions football team. A small number of articles also contain info in that field about the stadium playing surface material, e.g. grass, FieldTurf, etc; see 1950 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. Should we include this information in these infoboxes? If so, this info should be given its own dedicated fields. How about teams that had more than one home stadium, e.g. 1950 Alabama Crimson Tide football team? In addition to the stadium field, should we have stadium2 and stadium3, etc to be service this? Jweiss11 (talk) 19:16, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Would be good to get some feedback here from other editors. Pinging some of the regular who often work on team season article: Cbl62, Patriarca12, TheCatalyst31, UCO2009bluejay. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 18:21, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
I think we are entering WP:CRUFT territory. Yes the stadium should be listed, that is unequivical. I have added capacity to team seasons in the past. However, after working on many different professional articles, they do not include this information. If a reader is so inclined they should follow the link to the actual stadium. So No to turf/grass, and capacity. In regards to multiple home stadiums, I support inclusion for multiple home fields, provided we need a hard and fast rule about what counts as a "home stadium" Tulane in 2021 playing a game in Norman, should not count, OU/Texas in the Cotton Bowl should not count. Legion Field for historical Bama, War Memorial in Little Rock should count for Arkansas because they regularly hosted games for those programs. We need to find where that boundary is located.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 01:08, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
Does anyone object to nuking all listings of stadium capacity and field surface in these infoboxes? Jweiss11 (talk) 20:37, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
No objection by me. Cbl62 (talk) 04:43, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Bot sweep?

@Primefac:: seems that we have a consensus to remove capacity and surface listings from the stadium field of Template:Infobox college sports team season. Do you think we could run a bot to sweep through all the instances of this infobox and make those removals? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:15, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I'll set up some tracking categories to see about the size/scope of the changes. Primefac (talk) 12:55, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
I took care of ~4k pages that had "cap" in the |stadium= field. There will likely be outliers such as one listed above that used c., but without knowing all of the potential alternate options I am going to stick with these results for now. If you know of another common use case I am happy to adjust the tracking category. Primefac (talk) 12:59, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Primefac, thanks for running that bot. Yes, it would be helpful to remove the ones using the "c." I believe there are a few that just have the capacity figure in parentheses with no leading "c." or "capacity". There are also many that have capacity with a capital C, e.g. 1987 Michigan Wolverines football team. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:24, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
There were only 200, so I got those, but anything else is likely going to need manual cleanup as they'll be few and far between. Primefac (talk) 06:26, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
There were only 200 with the "c."? Can we have the bot get the ones with "Capacity" with a capital C? There are thousands of those, I believe. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Dammit, I forgot that the string find is case sensitive. I'll re-populate the tracking categories. Primefac (talk) 07:17, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Okay now we should be sorted. Primefac (talk) 08:38, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Excellent. Thanks for your help on this! Jweiss11 (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Primefac, the bot seems to have missed 1950 Ohio State Buckeyes football team and bunch of the other Ohio State years. Any idea why? Jweiss11 (talk) 21:58, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
I suspect it's a caching issue, in that those pages did not end up in the category to be fixed. Primefac (talk) 08:35, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

In Template:Infobox NCAA football yearly game, field title_sponsor is used to display "official" game names that include sponsorship as a prefix, such as "2023 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl" (see 2023 New Orleans Bowl). Currently, there is no way (or, no good way that I can see) to display an official game name that has suffix text, such the 2023 Starco Brands LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk (see 2023 LA Bowl). The template does not currently have a way to handle the "Hosted by Gronk", which needs to be placed after the simple bowl name.

I suggest adding a field "title_sponsor_suffix" to the template, which would place any provided text after the simple bowl name (in most cases, the new field will be omitted or left blank). For example, in the example above, setting title_sponsor_suffix equal to "Hosted by Gronk" would render the full title as "2023 Starco Brands LA Bowl Hosted by Gronk" at the top of the infobox.

Feedback welcome. Thanks. Dmoore5556 (talk) 01:36, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Update, I added "title_sponsor_suffix" to the template, as it was trivial to do so. Example usages can now be found at 2023 LA Bowl and 2023 Military Bowl. Dmoore5556 (talk) 02:33, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

NCAA 2023 Record Books

Does anyone know where to find the 2023 edition of the NCAA record book? The 2022 one (through the end of the 2021 season) is linked most places, but I can't seem to find the 2023 edition. Most of the others have the same URL with the year changed, but no luck for 2023. 2022 record book glman (talk) 21:44, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

We have it cited at College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS. The 2023 pdf doesn't have the year in the URL.
<ref name="NCAA2023">{{cite book |url=http://fs.ncaa.org.s3.amazonaws.com/Docs/stats/football_records/FBS.pdf |title=2023 NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Records |publisher=[[National Collegiate Athletic Association]] |date=2023 |access-date=August 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826124459/http://fs.ncaa.org.s3.amazonaws.com/Docs/stats/football_records/FBS.pdf |archive-date=August 26, 2023 |url-status=unfit}}</ref>
PK-WIKI (talk) 22:29, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
Thank so much! glman (talk) 16:22, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

All time records, NCAA vs. Teams

Should we prefer NCAA official records or the teams' recognized record in infoboxes? For example, Erskine College recognizes their pre-1950 seasons, while the NCAA only recognizes their seasons since their 2019 return. Old Dominion played from 1930-40, but NCAA records only reflect their post-return records. My assumption is that infoboxes should reflect the offical NCAA stats, while team records can be reflected in the body of the article. Thoughts? glman (talk) 16:24, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

What document(s) are being referenced for official NCAA stats? Dmoore5556 (talk) 18:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
glman, you're talking about the 86–221–11 all-time record in the infobox at Erskine Flying Fleet football and the like for Old Dominion Monarchs football? I see you added a reference at the Old Dominion article to the NCAA records: http://fs.ncaa.org.s3.amazonaws.com/Docs/stats/football_records/FBS.pdf, page 106. I think the all-time record for Erskine and Old Dominion should included those earlier eras. It's been on my to-do list for a while to go around the program articles and make sure the all-time records listed are up-to-date and dated with a note. Perhaps we can make that a group effort? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
The NCAA included the disclaimer "Includes records as senior college only." (page 105). I'm not familiar enough with the history of the programs in question to know if that's why their older seasons are not included, but it's a possible explanation. I'd suggest including an explanatory footnote with any infobox record that deviates from the NCAA document, explaining the deviation. Dmoore5556 (talk) 19:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
The struggle is finding reputable sources that reflect the earlier eras, but I don't disagree. Generally, I think we should go with the official NCAA record, rather than Winsipedia or teams. I agree with @Dmoore5556, in unique cases like Old Dominion and Erskine, where reliable sources of earlier records can be found, they should be reflected in the infobox with a note describing the discrepancy. glman (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
Even the NCAA records can be wrong at times - LA Tech's record is off by one win because NCAA incorrectly lists their 1951 season as 5-4 online, when their paper scans show it was 4-5. Despite this, I think we should rely on these records first, with reputable sources backing up additional wins and losses. glman (talk) 21:26, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Template:American football roster/Player - More positions? Lettermen?

I'm filling in a roster from 1973 and it's not quite old enough to use Template:Old-time American football roster, but it doesn't quite map to the modern Player template either. (Nor am I sure that I can use the old-time template in a college setting anyways.) Would it make sense to add more position options?

I have flanks, split ends, and ends on the roster I'm looking at. I can map these to WR and TE or whatever but I feel like I'm flattening the nuance of the era to serve a template, which doesn't feel great.

It might be nice to have the abbreviations teased out somewhere for the currently acceptable values. I looked through the linked article and still don't know what BB and CD are.

I suppose I'm also not sure if an End should be put under offense or defense, unless I can find some context outside of the roster list itself.

Also, is there a standardized concept of lettermen? I see I can add as notes, not sure if this is desired or commonly done though. Brendinooo (talk) 20:11, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I proposed an edit to the template just now. Question about lettermen still stands though Brendinooo (talk) 13:16, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
  • I am not familiar with the "old-time template", but such a template should not force us to put a player in an offensive or defensive slot. Prior to the 1960s it was common, and prior to 1946 almost universal, for players to play on both offense and defense. Cbl62 (talk) 13:52, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
    This is the template I'm talking about: Template:Old-time American football roster Brendinooo (talk) 14:23, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks. Cbl62 (talk) 17:06, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

QB stats: starts and W–L

I was updating stats for a QB (Dante Moore) and it seems like the number of starts and W–L record are not readily available. Is there a direct source for these for college players? —Bagumba (talk) 08:16, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, it seems like WP:OR and not a "routine calculation" if one need to go thru the game logs and verify which games were starts, then keep a running tally of their W–L record. I'd simply delete it here, except other college QBs have it as well, as do NFL QBs in their college section, e.g. Joe Burrow § College statistics. I suspect its copying from the NFL, except sources do directly track that stat for that league.—Bagumba (talk) 07:12, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
W–L records for college QBs do get mentioned in reliable sources as well. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:46, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not saying it's a foreign concept for college. It's that the stat does not seem to be readily available for every QB and for each of their playing years. —Bagumba (talk) 13:49, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Are these navboxes really necessary?

Are the FCS playoff participant navboxes really necessary? Examples are found in Category:NCAA Division I FCS playoffs navigational boxes. Shouldn't a listing in a category such as Category:NCAA Division I FCS playoff participants by year be sufficient like it is for NCAA basketball tournament participants?- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 22:10, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Could be overkill. Maybe group TfD them? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:46, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
@UCO2009bluejay: I created a number of the most recent ones, but only did so because the 1978 through early 2000s ones had already been made. Even as the author to a number of those, I'd be okay supporting a mass deletion if it went to vote. The category itself should suffice. SportsGuy789 (talk) 17:06, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

All-America Team page format

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2009 College Football All-America Team § Format changes. —Bagumba (talk) 17:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Season articles nominated for deletion

Five season articles have been nominated or deletion. Please see the following discussions:

Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 23:47, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Not found in the list of College All-Star Football Games

I do remember some 30 years ago, for perhaps two years in a row, a very special College All-Star football game that pitted Big 10 All-Stars against Pac 10 All-Stars. It was played in the post season, possibly even in January. Does anyone recall those games? It would be nice, once some documentation is found, to add to the list of the College All-Star Games. Thanks in advance. 98.210.222.10 (talk) 23:41, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I found this question interesting as I'd never heard of such a game, but a few searches turned up this passage in the Kingdome article:

In the late 1970s, the Kingdome hosted both instances of a Pacific-10 Conference all-star game called the Challenge Bowl; the bowl, sponsored by the Olympia Brewing Company, pitted an all-star team of Pac-10 players against a similar team from another conference. The Pac-10 went undefeated with a 27–20 victory (as the Pac-8) over the Big Ten on January 15, 1978, and a 36–23 victory over the Big Eight on January 13, 1979.

Newspapers.com does find various articles about the "Challenge Bowl" in January 1978 and January 1979. The Pac-8 starting QB for the January 1978 game was Warren Moon. These games were more like 45 years ago than 30 years ago, but I don't see anything similar in the 1990s timeframe. I'm not sure a Challenge Bowl article is warranted, but these game should be worth adding to the (yet to be created) 1977–78 NCAA football bowl games and 1978–79 NCAA football bowl games articles. Dmoore5556 (talk) 06:47, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
Quick followup: I've added Challenge Bowl to All-star game#College all-star games, which is the list I believe the original posted referred to above. Dmoore5556 (talk) 06:59, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season

The infobox in 2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season is missing its link to the 2024 season, which should appear at the bottom right of the infobox. I can't figure out why... any help would be appreciated. The links at the bottom of the infobox are automatically created by Template:Infobox NCAA Division I FBS season, but I can't figure out what the issue is. I'd guess it has something to do with the template's use of magic word CURRENTYEAR, perhaps related to it changing from 2023 to 2024, but I'm not sure. Dmoore5556 (talk) 19:40, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

On further review of the template, the noted behavior looks intentional — for the current year's article, it suppresses displaying a link to the next season. I assumed this was done to avoid displaying a red link for many months on a frequently viewed article. Dmoore5556 (talk) 20:50, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
The link to the 2024 season is now showing. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:04, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes—happy new year (wherever CURRENTYEAR has changed)! And the forward link is now suppressed on 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season :-) Dmoore5556 (talk) 04:17, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Suspect edits

There is an IP account that has been making some bold edits to a number of college football articles the past few days, such as removing Army from NCAA Division I FBS independent schools, perhaps because the calendar just flipped to 2024 (I reverted that deletion as WP:TOOSOON) and concatenating table entries of all nature, various of which I've found to be detrimental. While the editor is hopefully acting in good faith, messages I've left on talk pages have not been responded to. Some additional eyes on the edits that have been made, may be helpful: edits here and edits here. Dmoore5556 (talk) 05:36, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Village Pump discussion, concerning the NFL Draft

There's a discussion taking place at Village Pump (policy), concerning the NFL Draft. UCO2009bluejay (talk) 05:53, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vivian Hultman

You may be interested in the deletion discussion for Vivian Hultman, a 30-game NFL player and captain at Michigan State. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:C. J. Johnson (American football)#Requested move 4 January 2024

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:C. J. Johnson (American football)#Requested move 4 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 11:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Antonio Morrison (American football)#Requested move 4 January 2024

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Antonio Morrison (American football)#Requested move 4 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 12:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Alex Ward (American football)#Requested move 4 January 2024

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Alex Ward (American football)#Requested move 4 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 12:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

2023 Kansas Jayhawks football team: article structure

Rockchalk717 and I are engaged in a big of an edit war at 2023 Kansas Jayhawks football team. He's insistent upon keeping the lead to one paragraph and beginning he body with a lead-part-two section of sorts called "Season summary", which is typically not how we structure team season articles. Some third opinions would be helpful there. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:08, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

To give my side of this, adding all the information from the season summary section to the lede makes the lede excessively long. The entire purpose of the lede is to summarize the key points of the article, which for a college football team is the year, the coach, the conference, final record, if they played in a bowl game and what the result was, and if they won a conference or national championships. A season summary section takes things like records broken, beating a opponent for the first time in a long time (like Kansas did with Oklahoma) ending streaks, winning a bowl game for the first time in a long time, etc and makes a section dedicated to just that. There is no specific policy on lede length, just recommendations and one of those is not making it too long (MOS:LEADLENGTH).--Rockchalk717 22:45, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
Okay, but when full-developed, an article should generally have a lead of more than one short paragraph. Take a look at the leads of some season articles that have reached GA status: e.g. 1997 Michigan Wolverines football team, 2007 Texas Longhorns football team, 1906 Vanderbilt Commodores football team; see Category:GA-Class college football articles for more. They include things like key wins during the season, and stats, accolades, and records for the team and individual players. None of these articles have a "Season summary" section in the body either. The body prose of the 2023 Kansas article is not yet fully-developed, but with all the tables, the articles is already quite long. This is not a question of policy so much as a editorial discretion. What he have now at 2023 Kansas Jayhawks football team is poorly conceived. The first paragraph of the "Season summary" section, the content about preseason polls and watch lists, belongs in the "Preseason" section further down. The second paragraph, the content about key team accomplishments during the season, belongs in the lead. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:50, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
I'd tend to agree with Jweiss here - I think the lead should include the content currently in "Season summary" and I certainly don't think including that text makes the lead "excessively long" (or "too long" in any sense). PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 06:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

C6H0 at GAN

Just a notice for anyone that is interested that I have nominated 1921 Centre vs. Harvard football game for GA after doing a thorough rewrite and expansion - any comments, edits, or a review would be much appreciated. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 06:45, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Jack Brewer (American football)#Requested move 5 January 2024

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Jack Brewer (American football)#Requested move 5 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 21:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Realignment adjustments

Some editors are already moving football information specifically of note Template:Southeastern Conference football navbox to post-realignment moves. Since the 2023 season is over should we make those adjustments or wait until the moves are "officially" made (ergo July 1)?- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 14:43, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

My instinct would be to wait since those moves are technically incorrect until they take place in July. Obviously 2024 team season articles can reflect new conference affiliations but other than that I would say it's best to hold off. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 15:19, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Happy new year!

Happy new year, fellas! I just landed in Houston for the big game on Monday. Hold down the wikifort while I’m gone. Go Blue! Jweiss11 (talk) 16:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Wish I was there but the logistics of young kids are keeping me home :( Please take some good photos for 2023–24 College Football Playoff and 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship, including, hopefully, a cloud of Purple & Gold confetti at the trophy ceremony! PK-WIKI (talk) 01:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Congratulations, Jweiss. Enjoy it thoroughly! I was there for the 1997 natonal championship game, but the birth of my third child three days ago makes it impossible for me to attend this year. On a side note, I was tempted to search for baby girl names that would allow her to be "J.J." in honor of Michigan's QB, but was persuaded that was a bridge too far. Cbl62 (talk) 01:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Cbl, congrats to and your wife on the birth of your daughter! I saw the 97 team play early that season against Notre Dame at the Big House. It was an honor see this team finish its three-year arc in championship fashion last night. Historic moment for Michigan. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:02, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Pro Football Archives

Does anyone know what's up with profootballarchives.com? I haven't been able to load it in recent days. Cbl62 (talk) 00:46, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

WT:NFL#Oh no.... ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 00:52, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
What a shame. I long found it to be the most reliable database for basic biographical data on professional football topics. Cbl62 (talk) 02:03, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

College Football Championship at In the News

Note that I have nominated the College Football National Championship to appear at In the News. The article could use some cleanup to match ITN quality standards and you may also be interested in the discussion on it. BeanieFan11 (talk) 04:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I have my doubts as to the possibility of its success (given my previous experiences with CFB at ITN) but I will work on quality and expanding the article when I can later today. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 14:45, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't understand why there is so much opposition to college football when they post little-known events such as darts and yachting. ...sigh... BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:02, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
Eh, oh well, I've learned that ITN is not worth arguing over. We'll get it on the main page regardless, see Template:Did you know nominations/2024 College Football Playoff National Championship. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 01:49, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
FWIW, there was Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/January 2020 § (Posted) 2020 College Football Playoff National ChampionshipBagumba (talk) 11:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Sub-cats of Category:American college football bowl seasons have been nominated for discussion

 

The sub-categories of Category:American college football bowl seasons have been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. –Aidan721 (talk) 15:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Eyes needed on 1945 Oklahoma A&M Cowboys football team

There is quite the back and forth going on, on that page regarding the status of the AFCA's national championship, Army, and some editorializing.- UCO2009bluejay (talk) 04:24, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  • Indeed. A group of (likely related) IP addresses continues to remove clarifying informaation on this team's claim to a national championship. Most recently, they have repeatedly removed important qualifying language that the "AFCA stated that the 1945 Army Cadets football team, voted AP national champion, could also be recognized as co-champion for 1945 'if the school decides to submit paperwork to the AFCA for evaluation by the committee.'" The deletion of this important qualifying langage creates the false impression that the AFCA made a finding that Ok.St was the one and only team that could/should be recognized as NC. @Jeff in CA: for his input as well. Cbl62 (talk) 17:15, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
My point is also that the whole article needs a copyedit because some of the additions from both sides use language that seems not the most appropriate to illustrate some points. Also is the AFCA Trophy picture a free image or copywright? It is cited from the Stillwater Newspaper. Could a page protection be in order?-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 04:50, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
The IP edit-warring has continued on the 1945 Oklahoma A&M article. Should we protect the article? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:13, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
The IP editor here may be the same person as Miguel Sigala. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:26, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Looking through the history, that seems likely. And this issue of deleting the qualifying information dates back to 2019 or 2020. Cbl62 (talk) 13:12, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
There were multiple warnings at User talk:Miguel Sigala in 2020 and 2021 about removing this content. It was at that point that the same removals continued but from that point forward via IP users. Cbl62 (talk) 13:16, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
I think a sockpuppet investigation would be warranted. I would usually try to avoid calling things vandalism that aren't but Miguel Sigala has repeatedly vandalized OU pages and has a clear OSU bias.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 18:40, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:SEC Championship Game#Requested move 16 January 2024

 

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:SEC Championship Game#Requested move 16 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 21:14, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Parameter question

So I have question about the college coach infobox. The "contract" parameter, what exactly should be provided here? It looks like most people put average annual salary. But should it be that, what they will actually make in the current/upcoming season (if available), or the full contract information like "$20 million for 5 years"? The last one I only mention because of the parameter description on the other infobox page. I'll use Arizona's new coach as an example, his average annual salary is $3.5 million, he's scheduled to make $2.2 million this year, and his contract is 5 years for 17.5 million. Which one should be listed?--Rockchalk717 22:06, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

For the Arizona example give, I would think "$2.2 million (2024)" in the infobox, with some detail in the article (e.g. "he was given a contact for X dollars for Y years"), as clear and informative. Dmoore5556 (talk) 05:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Pending AfDs

Recent college football AfDs about rivalries or HBCU classics that need input so that consensus can be reached (one way or another):

Cbl62 (talk) 17:49, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Two AFDs that may be of interest

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1881 Georgetown football team and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1892 Western Maryland Green Terror football team. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

AFD on Georgetown football, pre–1890

You may be interested in the AFD on Georgetown football, pre–1890 (a merger article compiling the history of Georgetown football 1874-1889). BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:23, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Draft:2001 Northwestern Eagles football team

There are still lots of candidates for article creation at Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/The Perfect Season#Seasons without articles. Because the perfect season is rare, such teams generally garner SIGCOV. In other cases, sourcing is a challenge. Draft:2001 Northwestern Eagles football team falls into the latter camp. If you know of good sources for Minnesota college football (Northwestern is in Saint Paul), your help would be appreciated. Cbl62 (talk) 16:34, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Unanimous national champs

User:GBFlyer1 has made a bunch of edits to articles about national champions distinguishing unanimous national champs (e.g. 2022 Georgia Bulldogs football team), from non-unanimous consensus champs (e.g. 2017 Alabama Crimson Tide football team) in the infobox. Not sure this is a good idea. 1909 Yale Bulldogs football team is listed as "unanimous" even though there are other 1909 champs listed at College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS#Yearly national championship selections from major selectors. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 20:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

1909 Yale is listed as the only Champion from any recognized selector.
This list compiles every national champion from every season ever. Unanimous is appropriate for a lot of them: College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS 174.27.77.115 (talk) 20:58, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Every edit I made was indeed an Unanimous Champion. I used the NCAA record book and every year that there was only one champion from the selectors I edited to Unanimous, which is far more appropriate than “Consensus”. That NCAA record book is also compromised on this page: College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS GBFlyer1 (talk) 21:02, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Here is even a wiki-page I created with the complete list. Unanimous National Champions (FBS) GBFlyer1 (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
You're correct about 1909 Yale. I misread the table earlier. Unanimous National Champions (FBS) is not well-named and is totally unsourced. What did you mean by "That NCAA record book is also compromised on this page"? 22:51, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
"Consensus" national champions is a term of art used for decades by college football news media to indicate agreement between the two wireservice polls: AP Poll and Coaches Poll.
"Split" NCs between the two polls are definitely a unique category of national championships majorly covered by reliable sources, which is why we have the table at College_football_national_championships_in_NCAA_Division_I_FBS#Split_national_championships.
"Undisputed" or "outright" national champions are both terms sometimes used by the media to indicate an NC claim by only a single school for the season, perhaps ignoring weird/unknown one-off selections by a lower-tier selectors that aren't claimed by the school. These can be seen at Claims by year.
"Unanimous" national champions is not a well-used term in reliable sources. To me it feels like WP:OR to call them that instead of "consensus", as we don't have years of reliable sources making a distinction between "consensus" champions and "undisputed" champions.
There's effectively no difference in the coverage in reliable sources between teams like 2015 Alabama and 2016 Clemson, despite Clemson not being "unanimous" in the NCAA records book. No reliable sources respect the sole Colley Matrix selection of the team that lost the national championship game. The school does not claim it.
That's very different from the 2017 Alabama team, consensus champions but definitely not "unanimous" due to the claim by 2017 UCF which was bolstered by the CM selection and listing in the NCAA records book.
I'm really iffy on teams like 1909 Yale, which despite being listed alone in the NCAA records book was in reality selected only by ~5-10 total people across a few organizations, decades after the fact. That's not exactly "unanimous". They're not "consensus" either, predating the polls. The NCAA records book isn't the be-all, end-all listing of champions. Do reliable sources ever call that Yale team "unanimous" champions? Better to just list the selectors that selected them.
For example, 1963 Navy was selected by the Washington Touchdown Club and awarded a trophy. That's not in the NCAA records book. Should 1963 Texas thus be removed from the list at Draft:Unanimous National Champions (FBS)? No one is disputing they are "consensus", but they were not "unanimous" outside of the specific group included in an NCAA records book printed 25+ years after the season.
This "unanimous selections exclusively from the major selectors in the NCAA records book" category is a distinction that doesn't really exist in the reliable sources. It's bordering on original research and IMO should be reverted.
PK-WIKI (talk) 23:44, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
The other "selectors" you mentioned were not recognized by the NCAA. I agree the page isn't up to par at his time. GBFlyer1 (talk) 00:19, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
This was my primary source for teams before 2016. But it won't let me attach it. This was an official NCAA Document. Go down to National Poll selectors. Every team I listed was indeed Unanimous according to the NCAA https://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160521052546/http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/2015/fbs.pdf GBFlyer1 (talk) 00:28, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't see the word "unanimous" used anywhere in the document. glman (talk) 14:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

AFD of interest

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of current CFL team rosters. While about the CFL and not the NFL, the precedent this could set is probably of interest to all football editors. BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:24, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Raise your hand if you've ever heard of these football positions before

From Canada All-Stars (1875): "The men were placed in the following positions: ... tenders; ... half-tenders; ... and rushers". BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to the early years of the sport. Compare 1879 Michigan Wolverines football team (player positions included "rusher", "forward", "goal-keeper", "right side", "left side", and "extra man"). If we could travel by time machine and watch these games, recorded in "innings", they would likely not be remotely recognizable as American football. Cbl62 (talk) 03:35, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
If I had Doc Brown's DeLorean, I would definitely check out a Yost "Point-a-minute" game. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Three Rivers Stadium

Three Rivers Stadium has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 18:08, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

RM at USFL Draft

See Talk:USFL Draft#Requested move 13 February 2024 – Lowercase "draft" (multiple articles)? Dicklyon (talk) 10:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Research challenge

The 1961 Earlham football team is recorded as having a perfect 8-0 record, though the Septemmber 30 game against Taylor is shown as a "win" due to forfeit. The contemporaneous newspaper record showed Taylor as the victor. Presumably, Taylor later forfeited the game for having used an ineligible player or some other infraction. However, I've been unable to find a record as to when and why the game was forfeited. Who has the research skills to find the answer? Cbl62 (talk) 22:47, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I have opened a close review regarding the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Capitalization of NFL draft article titles. See here. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

AfD: List of historically significant college football games

List of historically significant college football games has been nominated for deletion. Please see the discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

1904 Arkansas Cardinals football team

Last year I did some expansion on 1904 Arkansas Cardinals football team and found some major discrepancies regarding the team's schedule and record between the Arkansas media guide and contemporary newspaper coverage. The Arkansas media guide has the following schedule for a record of 4–3:

  • October 15, Drury, L 0–12
  • October 22, Fort Scott High School (Kansas), W 22–0
  • November 4, at Dallas Medics, L 0–5
  • November 5, at Baylor, L 6–17
  • November 12, Wichita State (then Fairmount), W 12–6
  • November 19, at Fort Smith High School (Arkansas), W 11–5
  • November 26, Missouri Mines / Rolla (now Missouri S&T, W 11–10

Contemporary coverage from Newspapers.com shows the following:

  • The Drury game was played on October 8, but the score from the media guide is correct.
  • The Dallas Medics game was played on October 29, but the score from the media guide is correct.
  • The Baylor game was played on October 31, and the score was 11–6, not 17–6.
  • The Fairmont game was played on November 7 and was a 28–0 loss, not a 12–6 win.
  • I found an article indicating that the Missouri Mines (Rolla) game was to be played on Thanksgiving, November 24 in Fayetteville, but I haven't found anything reporting the result of the game. The Arkansas media guide reports an 11–10 win for Arkansas while the Missouri S&T media guide has it a 5–0 victory for the Miners.

I haven't found anything confirming the date and score of the games against the two high school opponents. Additionally, I have found coverage of three games not listed at all in the Arkansas media guide:

  • October 22, Kansas State Normal (now Emporia State), L 6–20
  • November 17, at Springfield Normal, L 0–6; not sure what school this is as Missouri State University was not founded until 1905 and the football team began play in 1909.
  • November 19, at Saint Louis, L 0–51

This is a pretty big mess. Would love some input on how to handle this and some help with more research. The 1905 Spaulding guide could shed some light, but I haven't been able to find it online. The other years that I have found, I've assembled at Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Official college football guides. I've also started building out a listing of media guide errors at Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Media guide errors.

Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 02:26, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Cbl62, BeanieFan11, Patriarca12, any thoughts here? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion about college program navboxes

is at WT:CBBALL#Template for men's basketball navbox-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 15:35, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Sourcing request / offer

See here for a football related task with reward that may be of interest. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:25, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Princeton vs. Princeton Theological Seminary games in 1855, 1857

Interesting addition by an IP editor at List of historically significant college football games of several apparent games between Princeton and the Princeton Theological Seminary that pre-date the commonly accepted 1869 Princeton vs. Rutgers football game "first college football game".

I don't think the sourcing is currently there to add these, but is an interesting set of games that could do with further research from interested parties here.

Some more details about the games/sources here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of historically significant college football games

Game Home Visitor Location Final score Notes
1855 Princeton Theological Seminary vs. College of New Jersey class teams unknown unknown Princeton, New Jersey ? First competition between two colleges, albeit the class teams not representing a varsity. One or more games.[1]
1857 Princeton Theological Seminary at College of New Jersey College of New Jersey Princeton Theological Seminary The Quadrangle, Princeton, New Jersey ? First true intercollegiate football game, though rarely credited that way. The two played again in 1858, 1859, 1867, and 1868, with New Jersey winning all.[2]
1869 College of New Jersey vs. Rutgers football game Rutgers College of New Jersey College Avenue Field, New Brunswick, New Jersey 6–4[3] Conventionally, but inaccurately, referred to as the first intercollegiate football game. The game was essentially soccer and was played with 25-man sides.[4]

Posting to the main Wikiproject page in hope that others will track down reliable third party sources about these games.

PK-WIKI (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2024 (UTC) PK-WIKI (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Smith, Melvin I. (November 6, 2008). Evolvements of Early American Foot Ball: Through the 1890/91 Season. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. p. 193. ISBN 978-1-4343-6246-9.
  2. ^ Smith, pp. 194-203.
  3. ^ DeLassus, David. "Princeton Yearly Results (1869)". College Football Data Warehouse. Archived from the original on February 13, 2010. Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  4. ^ "The Birthplace of College Football". www.rutgers.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-08.

Unrecognized national titles in infoboxes

Oh yeah, and this Template:1951 Maryland Terrapins football navbox. Can we agree whether to keep or delete this info?-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 04:54, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  • Keep it. 1951 Maryland has a completely legit claim as national champion. It was "recognized" as such by six different selectors (more than any other team): Billingsley, CFRA, DeVold, Dunkel, National Championship Foundation, and Sagarin. Tennessee is national champion per AP and UP but lost its bowl game -- to Maryland in the Sugar Bowl. By modern standards, Maryland has the superior claim as the true national champion. Cbl62 (talk) 15:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Hm, but Maryland does not claim the 1951 title. Not sure it should be included in the infobox at all, especially if it's already on the 1951 season page. glman (talk) 16:00, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Unclear whether there was a conscious decision by Maryland not to "claim" the 1951 championship, but its status as 1951 national champion is rock solid with six established selectors recognizing them as national champion and a victory over the AP/UP national champion in the Sugar Bowl. Cbl62 (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Maryland does not claim this championship [3]. This isn't about whether they have a legit claim, but whether an unclaimed title should be listed in the header of an infobox. glman (talk) 19:54, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Agree that they would/do have a solid claim, but Maryland specifically does not claim the 1951 national championship and only claims 1953.
    Pure WP:UNDUE weight to say on wikipedia that they were national champions in 1951. The school does not think they themselves were and the most respected selectors did not award it to them.
    1951 should definitely be removed from infoboxes and navboxes until/unless the school claims it. The selections by lesser selectors are should be kept and included where relevant, such as the table of all NCAA-designated "major selections" and in the "unclaimed national championships" field in the infobox at Maryland Terrapins football.
    PK-WIKI (talk) 21:28, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
    Couldn't disagree more strongly. AP and UP quite simply aren't the most reliable selectors in the years when they chose champions before the bowl games, especially in this case where two of the undefeated teams played head-to-head in the post-season with Maryland winning decisively over No. 1 Tennessee, 28-13. Most of the modern selectors (including those recognized as official by the NCAA) agree that Maryland was the national champion. Any effort to "erase" Maryland as the 1951 national champion is ignoring reality -- including the head-to-head match and the collective wisdom of the modern official selectors (Billingsley, CFRA, DeVold, Dunkel, National Championship Foundation, and Sagarin). Cbl62 (talk) 18:22, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    No one is "erasing" Maryland. They simply do not claim the title. It warrants inclusion as an unclaimed title on their main page, and major selections, but is an unclaimed title. glman (talk) 19:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    Giving these retroactive "modern selectors" special status to override the contemporary AP/UP national champions recognized by all national media, then and today, is WP:OR and/or WP:UNDUE weight given to those selectors. The selections are barely notable, listed in a table at the end of an NCAA records book starting in the 1990s. Those selections have no bearing on the national championship unless the school uses them to cement their claim, which Maryland does not. No one is "erasing" anything; the information will still exist in the unclaimed field (and elsewhere) as it does for all other schools' unclaimed selections. PK-WIKI (talk) 19:48, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
    You two are ignoring the clear results of head-to-head play. Maryland convincingly defeated Tennessee in that year's Sugar Bowl. The AP/UP in 1951 operated under the handicap of rules that bizarrely ignored post-season results. The majority of official NCAA selectors recognize Maryland as the national champion. These are not "barely notable" selectors; they are officially recognized selectors that take into account the real world of post-season play. There is noting "undue" or "OR" about recognizing the national-championship determination of six official selectors. Frankly, recognizing Tennessee as the national champion for 1951, after having its ass kicked in the Sugar Bowl, is a kind of a joke. The only historically honest result is to report accurately on both as national champions with clear attribution as to which of the NCAA recognized selectors chose which team. Cbl62 (talk) 04:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
    I personally think Maryland has a great claim for 1951. They should claim it! Once they do, we should list it it on Wikipedia.
    Examining "the results of head-to-head play" is Original Research. Trying to find the "historically honest result" is original research. WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. On Wikipedia we must instead cite the WP:DUE weight of reliable third party sources, which by a wide majority say that the team engraved on the Rev. J. Hugh O'Donnell Memorial Trophy for 1951 (Tennessee) is the national champion.
    The selectors who selected Maryland aren't even notable enough for Maryland to consider themselves national champions for the year. If they were to recognize the national championship, that would change things. They don't.
    Yes it's dumb to award the national championship before the bowl games, but that's The Way It Worked.™
    PK-WIKI (talk) 07:37, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
    Considering head-to-head play is not original research; it's the obvious reality that led virtually every modern selector to deem Maryland as the 1951 national champion. This is not about righting great wrongs; it's about being historically accurate in reflecting the clear fact that Maryland has been deemed the 1951 national champion by not just one, but by six (i.e., the vast majority) of the NCAA-recognized official selectors. This is not about "over-riding" the AP and UP; it's about being historically accurate. The NCAA does not recogize one official mechanism for recognizing a national champion in olden days; instead, it recognizes multiple selectors that have weight as "official" selectors -- and the majority of those "official" selectors, examining the record as a whole (including Maryland's trouncing of Tennessee in the bowl) have designated Maryland as 1951 national champion.
The only thing here that constitutes "original research" is your assertion that College Football Researchers Association, the National Championship Foundation, and the Billingsley Report are "barely notable" and should be ignored --- despite the fact that they are recognized by the NCAA as official selectors.
The reality is that choosing a national champion in the pre-BCS era was both art and science. That's why it was referred to in those days as the "mythical national championship". It is not uncommon to see more than one team recognized as national championship in these years. Nobody's saying that the "national championship" banner should be removed from the 1951 Tennessee article, but neither should we erase a historically-accurate notation from the 1951 Maryland infobox. That's the reality of college football in the pre-BCS: things were not neat and simple. Cbl62 (talk) 17:00, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
Calculating a deserving champion based on the majority of NCAA-designated major selectors is original research. Tabulating and comparing the relative quantity of selectors for a given year is not done by the NCAA or a significant number of reliable sources; doing so to determine a weighting of championship worthiness is original research. National championships are weighted by the media/public according to the respect given to each individual selecting organization, and the multiple NCAA-listed selectors are not recognized at the same level by reliable third-party sources. There is a clear hierarchy. Comparing them 1-to-1 on a quantity basis makes no sense unless the team itself claims a title based on that criteria. Which some teams do, but not Maryland.
The Billingsley Report selection of 1951 Maryland existed for exactly 4 years in the NCAA records book (1996–1999) before his selection changed to Michigan State, the current Billingsley Report champion for 1951. That's what I mean by "barely notable". You're going to find approximately zero independent media coverage of that selection other than the WP:PRIMARY document published by the NCAA. No one noticed or recognized that national championship. The Billingsley Report is notable for its inclusion in the BCS, but not for its retroactive mid-century national championships that weren't well published, aren't claimed by the school, and keep changing.
I agree that the infoxbox banner listing the national championship + selectors should remain at 1951 Maryland Terrapins football team, by the way. That's how it's done at every team's season articles. I took this section discussion to be about the national championship navbox at the bottom of the page and the 1951 & 1953 bolding in the team's main navbox. The consensus in this wikiproject has been to bold the national championship years that the team itself claims, regardless of selectors or the "quality" of the claim. Alabama's 1941 is bolded despite being widely considered suspect, Notre Dame's 1938 and 1964 seasons are not bolded despite winning major national championship trophies. (I would vote to delete Template:1964 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football navbox as well.)
The bolding and navbox for a non-claimed national championship year is a clear break of the existing consensus for teams in this wikiproject.
PK-WIKI (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
But, I have seen some of these "unclaimed" NCs added by IPs over the years and been reverted (I will admit to making some of these reverts) I have brought this up before, and nobody had a problem with reverting back then. What has consensus been? Is consensus changing? What about coach tables? @Jweiss11:-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 12:51, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
I removed the 1951 bolding at Template:Maryland Terrapins football navbox.
Current consensus has been to list unclaimed national championship selectors in the season's infobox, recognizing the selectors that made that selection. Some school's main football page have a table showing all unclaimed, others do not. Consensus in the Navbox is bold seasons for all claimed national championships, non-bold for selected-but-not-claimed seasons.
One place where things aren't very settled is the "champion" field of Template:Infobox college football season. For various seasons, this either lists all of the claimed champions, or the "consensus" champions but not the claimed lesser-selector champions. Two years list unclaimed "consensus" champions as well. 1901 vs. 1938 vs. 1947 vs. 1957 vs. 1964 vs. 2017. PK-WIKI (talk) 00:49, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

QB Lists/Navboxes

There are some significant gaps on some of the quarterback navboxes. Brown and South Carolina come to mind. Cake (talk) 22:52, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Team colors on stats tables

Lawrence283 has made a lot of recent changes to add team colors to bios' college stats tables. For example at Edgerrin James, I see the following issues:

  1. The colors seem to have the wrong contrast. Compare to Template:Miami Hurricanes football navbox, where the text is white on green, not orange on green.
  2. Adding "Miami Hurricanes" on top seems redundant when each year's team is already listed on each row entry.—Bagumba (talk) 05:35, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
I made an edit to the Edgerrin James article making the font white using Miami Hurricanes in regards to the redundancy of Miami being repeated 4 times we can replace the word Miami with "UM" for university of Miami, thoughts? Lawrence283 (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
@Lawrence283 When some players go to multiple schools, we shouldn't have a specific header style that applies only to players that went to one school. For the players bio, it comes off to me as a bit non-WP:NPOV to sort of parade the school colors and make the school program so prominent. As for the color contrast, it seems Module:College color has all the team color and contrast info already. There should be a more systematic way to keep it consistent with other pages if colors get updated, or the contrast crieria change, instead of hard coding the text to white on James' page. —Bagumba (talk) 01:53, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Agreed, there is examples of a clean format for players who have gone to multiple schools, IE: Jahmyr Gibbs Lawrence283 (talk) 17:43, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

College football national champion navboxes

Back in 2009, members of this project began to create navboxes for college football teams that won national championships. E.g., Template:2000 Oklahoma Sooners football navbox, Template:2001 Miami Hurricanes football navbox. At the top level, such navboxes are useful for navigation given that so many players (often 20 or more) have stand-alone articles. More recently, a trend has developed in creating such navboxes for NAIA, Division II, and Division III champions where few, if any, players have stand-alone articles and where the templates thus serve little or no navigational value. E.g., Template:2022 Ferris State Bulldogs football navbox, Template:2019 North Central Cardinals football navbox, Template:2021 Mary Hardin–Baylor Crusaders football navbox, Template:2023 Keiser Seahawks football navbox, Template:2009 Sioux Falls Cougars football navbox, Template:2016 Northwest Missouri State Bearcats football navbox, Template:2010 Minnesota–Duluth Bulldogs football navbox. I have doubts about the usefulness of such navboxes and believe that national championship navboxes should be limited to Division I FBS and FCS programs. What do others think? @Thetreesarespeakingtome: @KingSkyLord: Cbl62 (talk) 16:40, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

As an aside, I think they read better when jersey numbers are included. E. g. Template:Los Angeles Lakers 2009–10 NBA champions Cake (talk) 04:50, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Categories for deletion

A number of college football categories have been nominated for deletion. Please see the following discussions:

BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:52, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Jweiss11 (talk) 16:41, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Jweiss11 (talk) 03:56, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Let'srun, do you plan to CfD every college football category with fewer than some number of elements in it? Can you tell us what that number is? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:59, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Category:Macalester Scots football seasons has been nominated for deletion. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 March 5#Category:Macalester Scots football seasons. A few of nomination above are still open as well. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

1911 and 1912 Tennessee Docs

The Tennessee Docs football teams also had 1911 and 1912 teams. The 1912 team played Ole Miss. Any more info? Cake (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

They also played 1912 Tennessee Volunteers football team and 1912 Mississippi A&M Aggies football team. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:35, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. Interesting how 1910 Sewanee played "University of Memphis" yet the Memphis Tigers don't start until 1912. So who was that? Cake (talk) 00:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps it was Memphis University School? 1912 West Tennessee State Normal football team played them twice. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I think that's right, but it's odd they call them "University of Memphis" even the year after. So Sewanee barely beat a high school. Cake (talk) 03:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

CFB featured article candidate

Hi all - I have nominated 1921 Centre vs. Harvard football game for featured status but the nomination has not attracted many reviewers. If any of you have the time or interest to give the article a read and leave some feedback or a review there, it would be much appreciated. Thanks! PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 15:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Merge discussion at 2023–24 College Football Playoff

Hi all - there is a merge discussion at 2023–24 College Football Playoff that has stalled in the last month - I would like to wrap this up so that either my DYK nom can proceed or the article can be merged and I will know not to work on any other articles of this kind. Opinions would be very welcome here. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 15:54, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

In general, the content is well written and well sourced. However, detail about the 2024 Rose Bowl belongs in 2024 Rose Bowl, detail about the 2024 Sugar Bowl belongs in 2024 Sugar Bowl, and detail about 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship game belongs in 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship. Readers should find detail about notable games in the main game articles, not a higher-level article. Significantly thinning the "Playoff games" section, by moving game details into the game articles (especially for Rose and Sugar, whose articles currently lack prose recaps), would allow this article to focus on "Selection and teams", "Exclusion of Florida State", and "Aftermath", as those sections provide more background and detail than is found in the "College Football Playoff bowl games" section of 2023–24 NCAA football bowl games. Overall, I really don't see a need for this type of article for any of the four-team CFP playoffs, but that may be "the wrong measure for including or excluding an article or topic" (per WP:NEED). That said, I do believe that mis-placed content (albeit well written and well sourced) is an issue with this article and should be addressed. Dmoore5556 (talk) 17:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/The Perfect Season

We now have articles on roughly 740 college football teams that compiled perfect seasons. There are 120 remaining perfect seasons from the last 100 years that lack articles. Please take a look at "The List", and, if you're inspired to do so, create an article on one of these remaining teams. Cbl62 (talk) 22:22, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Cbl62, great work leading the charge on this effort. On a related note, we could some team season article creation to combat the Template:Cfb link call limit crisis on the national season articles, which contains all the standings templates, which in turn make lots of cfb link calls where there is no season article. The following seasons are over the limit:

If you choose to tackle the perfect seasons effort, it would be great if you could prioritize conference-member teams from these seasons. Additionally, there are many more non-perfect undefeated seasons, conference championship seasons, and current Division I team seasons from these years that warrant articles. I've been chipping away on these seasons in "crisis", but I can use some help!

At this point, the conference standings templates for these seasons are largely complete. Among extant conferences, we're only missing a bunch from the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (the data here is readily available from the conference website and newspapers.com) and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (these will be a tougher to pin down). Jweiss11 (talk) 22:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  • Only eight four left "to do" from the last 70 years since 1954 1950. Cbl62 (talk) 03:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I've been working away at 1949, but I could some help with all these seasons in crisis. Patriarca12, BeanieFan11, would be great to get your attention here. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:19, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:National Signing Day#Requested move 28 March 2024

This RM to lowercase the titling of National Signing Day may be of interest to participants of this WikiProject. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:48, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Instructions page

Hello everybody, I'd like to suggest creating a page to follow instructions on how to make a good article. I was thinking just like we do in the NFL with: "Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League/Player pages format".

Why should we have a page like this? If college football players generally move on to the NFL. Well, I personally think it'd be a good idea to have a guide to follow; since I was editing DJ Uiagalelei's page and I noticed that highlights from High School are included in his Infobox. In the Template:Infobox NFL biography, no type of this highlight is included; so I thought about removing it, but I didn't know if that is allowed here. In addition to the fact that it'd help us a lot when organizing an infobox (personally I love editing 'em), for example first the national championships are shown, then the Nationwide awards (Heisman, Doak Walker, John Mackey, etc.), then the All-American Teams , and so more.

If I don't receive a response, I'll feel free of creating such a page, and I will always be open to any changes after an agreement. THX =) Sergio Skol (talk) 17:56, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Or just update Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League/Player pages format, so its easily referenced for most of these that will become NFL players. —Bagumba (talk) 12:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Templates for deletion

A large number of college football navboxes templates have been nominated for deletion. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 March 26. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)