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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 00:34, 24 November 2010 [1].

2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl

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2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): –Grondemar 17:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl, one of 34 bowl games played in the 2009–10 NCAA bowl game season, featured two teams that had suffered adversity and then redemption during the season. The South Carolina Gamecocks' story was more conventional; after a hot start where they beat the No. 4 team in the country, they went on a long losing streak in the second half of the year. They redeemed their season in part by beating their arch-rival Clemson in the final regular season game. The Connecticut Huskies suffered more personal tragedy; their star cornerback Jasper Howard was stabbed and murdered on campus. The Huskies suffered close loss after close loss, only to finally break through with a win against Notre Dame on national television that the UConn coach called the biggest win in program history. The game itself wasn't nearly as interesting as the buildup; Connecticut dominated throughout.

This article was passed as a Good Article by User:Maclean25 and received a Peer Review from User:Finetooth. I believe this article now meets the featured article criteria; please review and concur with this assertion if you agree. –Grondemar 17:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • As noted in the last paragraph of the article, Papa John's revoked their sponsorship of the game after the 2010 contest; the name of the game reverted to "Birmingham Bowl". They have apparently redirected their old website under their old name to their new website under their new name. Should I change the link to point to the current website of the game? –Grondemar 21:02, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is the link useful at all? Otherwise, perhaps add a note mentioning the name change at the external link itself—even with the prior mention, I think it is confusing for the "Official Papa John's Bowl Website" to be pointing to a site mentioning only the Birmingham Bowl. Ucucha 00:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • An explanation of the bowl name change has been added to the external link. The link is useful as the bowl website contains information about the game and surrounding events that are out of scope for the article. –Grondemar 01:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Support Secret account 16:41, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Connecticut took control - sports slang, reword
  • Running back Andre Dixon scored on a 10-yard rush early in the fourth quarter to put the game away for UConn; the only Gamecock touchdown, on a two-yard run by Brian Maddox, came after the game had effectively been decided. - run-on split sentences, put the game away is also sports slang.
  • In 2010, the PapaJohns.com Bowl had contracts with the Big East and the SEC that allowed it to select one team from each conference to participate in its annual game. How they developed the contracts?
    • Are you asking how the bowl game reached its agreements with the conferences? Since these agreements were signed years before the 2010 bowl game, in my opinion that is beyond the scope of this article and would fit better in the main Birmingham Bowl article. Here it is sufficient to say that the bowl game had the contractual relationship with the conferences and for how long, in order to understand why Connecticut and South Carolina were picked to play in this bowl game. –Grondemar 02:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's irrelavent for which teams the Meineke Car Care Bowl selected.
    • Actually, the selection of the 2009 Meineke Car Care Bowl was highly relevant in determining which Big East team would go to the PapaJohns.com Bowl. If Rutgers had been selected by the Meineke Car Care Bowl, it was highly likely that Pittsburgh would have gone to Birmingham and UConn to the St. Petersburg Bowl; I can add that with a source if you wish. –Grondemar 02:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I didn't see in source number 11 "theory that fans are less likely to want to travel to the same destination they were at previously", i only read that they don't like sending their teams to the same bowl games.
  • Reduse some of the overlinking 2009 Pittsburgh Panthers football team is linked twice in two following sections for example, while others are like the football terms, and the links that was only in the lead, needs to be linked.
  • Any reason why they stabbed Howard, not in Howard's page. If you can't find a reason it's ok.
    • This is still controversial and uncertain, especially since the matter hasn't been been in court, but my best understanding is that a member of the football team who was academically ineligible and thus not actively playing with the team, got into an argument with another person over a woman. This argument continued as the Student Union was evacuated; at some point the other person and his companion left the scene, returned to their cars to retrieve knives, and returned to the front of the Student Union where Howard and several other football players still were. Both Howard and the academically-ineligible player were stabbed; only Howard's wound proved fatal. –Grondemar 02:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source 28 "best win" in UConn football history. It mentions only "best win" but nothing about best win in UConn football history.
  • After the two teams traded touchdowns - reword traded
  • They sure didn't lose the Outback bowl 118–30, reword accordingly.
  • "wild contest" - prose
  • explain what is batted down to the non football readers.
  • subsequently sacked four times and threw two interceptions - was that the reason why they lost to Florida, was it all in the fourth quarter?
    • The four sacks and two interceptions definitely highly contributed to South Carolina losing to Florida, and as indicated by the world "subsequently", all of the mentioned sacks and interceptions occurred in the fourth quarter. This is directly supported by the provided source. –Grondemar 04:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cody Endres was hurt later in the season. - How he got hurt
  • had a stout defense - reword stout
  • Prose needs work in Game summary, alot of confusing sports terms or slang that are unclear to a non football reader
  • For example "threw a pass down the right sideline", "Reaching out, Moore", "again went three-and-out" "tried a trick pass" "was in good position" etc.
    • Wikilinked sideline; "Reaching out" isn't American football jargon, it is simply the act of extending one's arm from one's body; wikilinked Three-and-out at first usage; wikilinked "trick pass" to Halfback option play which was the specific type of trick play; "in good position" isn't really jargon, it simply states that the Huskies were relatively close to their opponent's end zone when the quarter ended. –Grondemar 15:49, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • irrelavent stats like "Wide receiver Stephen Flint lost nine yards on one rushing attempt".
  • Why Papa John's decided not to renew the bowl contract.

Thanks Secret account 23:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jargon alert Gee cricket articles would've been hauled over right away.... US bias again.....lol

YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 00:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Source checking – One look at the FAC talk page is enough to show that some spot-checks of sources are a good thing for multiple reasons. Before offering support for the article, I wanted to go through a few of the references myself, to see if there were any issues. Unfortunately, I did find some items of concern, most relating to close paraphrasing. With what's been going on lately, it's best not to take any chances in this department.

  • From ref 64: "where (Spurrier) has some history. The 1966 Heisman Trophy winner played there while in the USFL in the 1980s, and guided Florida to SEC title games there in 1992 and 1993." From the article: "Spurrier had history in Birmingham and Legion Field, having played there while in the United States Football League in the 1980s as well as having coached the Florida Gators in SEC championship games there in 1992 and 1993." The "history" phrase is the same in both, as is much of the wording and structure.
  • "In UConn's last four games prior to the bowl Frazer performed well, throwing six touchdown passes against only two interceptions and helping the Huskies score an average of 41 points per game." The passing statistics aren't the same in the source (they look to be from the full season), and the points per game is also different, perhaps for the same reason. A bit confusing if you're doing actual fact-checking.
  • Source: "is quarterback Stephen Garcia, who enjoyed a breakout season under Spurrier. He finished second in the conference with 2,733 passing yards—ahead of former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow of Florida...". Article: "Garcia had a breakout season in 2009, finishing second in the SEC with 2,733 passing yards—more than former Heisman Trophy-winning Florida quarterback Tim Tebow...". Again, the structure and some wording is close to the source.
    • Rephrased as "in 2009 Garcia passed for 2,733 yards, 17 touchdowns, and nine interceptions; this performance was second-best in the SEC that year." I removed the part about Tebow as I could not think of a way to rephrase it and the detail isn't really relevant to the article. –Grondemar 06:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • From ref 81: "Garcia completed just 16 of 38 passes for 129 yards while gaining 56 yards on 15 carries. He lost a fumble, was intercepted once and didn't get much help." From the article: "For South Carolina, quarterback Stephen Garcia completed 16 of 38 passes for 129 yards while leading the team in rushing with 56 yards on 15 carries. He lost a fumble and was intercepted once by Connecticut safety Robert Vaughn". Some of the statistics would be hard to re-word well, but don't you agree that this is still a little too close to the source for comfort?
    • I'm going to have to rewrite this section completely. This sentence and the next one were carryovers from the article from before I started editing it [2] and I never noticed that they were almost direct copies of the AP source before I copyedited and rephrased them. I deeply apologize for this. I will work on rewriting this section tomorrow. –Grondemar 06:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Rewritten as "For South Carolina, quarterback Stephen Garcia completed 16 out of 38 passes for 129 yards and no touchdowns. He threw one interception, to Connecticut safety Robert Vaughn; this was the fifth consecutive game in which Garcia had thrown an interception. He additionally turned over the ball a second time on a fumble recovered by UConn. Garcia was also the Gamecocks' leading rusher; he ran the ball 15 times for 56 yards." –Grondemar 05:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source: "South Carolina didn't even manage its initial first down until midway through the second quarter, and that took Garcia converting a third-and-16." Article: "South Carolina did not earn its initial first down until midway through the second quarter, when Stephen Garcia converted on 3rd-and-16." I'd say close is an understatement.

I checked a few other sources and nothing caught my eye. Still, you can understand why I'm somewhat worried at the moment. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 02:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support the content is very good. Is "on the season" an Americanism for "on the team/squad"? as it sounds very odd YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 01:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • "On the season" generally refers to an individual person or team's performance during a particular season of competition: for example, "In 2009, the quarterback threw for over 3,000 yards on the season" would mean that, during the 2009 season, the quarterback had thrown for over 3,000 yards. –Grondemar 05:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose—1a issues still linger. The prose has made huge strides, but two passes from editors unfamiliar with the text would help put the cherry on top. It usually takes a half dozen passes from different editors before an article is truly ironed out. Here are a handful of examples from the first few paragraphs:
    • Overlong sentence: Connecticut was selected as a participant in the 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl following a tumultuous 7–5 regular season marked by the loss of five games by a total of fifteen points among them, a double-overtime victory at Notre Dame, and the murder of cornerback Jasper Howard.
    • UConn represented the Big East Conference (Big East) in the game; South Carolina represented the Southeastern Conference (SEC). — "in the game" might be redundant, but that's more of a nitpick than anything else.
    • Redundancy: Connecticut was selected as a participant in to the 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl... There are probably better solutions to that example. For the sake of precision, you could change it to "selected to participate in...".
    • Pregame coverage focused on the tragic circumstances of the Huskies' season — I know many editors are wary of using terms like "tragic", "unfortunate", and "horrible", as they can seem either over dramatic or non-neutral for an encyclopedia.
      • I strongly believe any sports season that features the murder of a player on the team can safely and neutrally be described as "tragic"; certainly virtually every single source used language like that to describe the season. –Grondemar 05:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Big East's contract with the PapaJohns.com Bowl stated that the bowl would make its selection in coordination with the International Bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl, following the selections of the bowls with higher priority. — the last clause is a bit vague and/or awkward.
    • Bowls generally dislike inviting the same team they had at the bowl in recent years. — this sentence feels a little awkward; I know there are several ways it can be improved and/or reworded for crispness.
      • Reworded as "In general, bowl games and conferences prefer to have different teams play in each game each year rather than have the same team appear in the same bowl game in consecutive years." Let me know what you think. –Grondemar 05:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • ...which by the rules resulted in a safety. — I believe the standard practice is "by rule", but you can probably restructure the entire clause for conciseness.
      • Changed back to "by rule"; I originally had "by rule" but it was copyedited-out by User:Diannaa diff. I think the "by rule" part is important here, since even people familiar with American football might not know that a penalty in the end zone results in a safety. –Grondemar 05:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Connecticut rebounded from the loss in its next game at Baylor — it's clear we're talking about the loss based on the context.
    • In the third quarter, with the score 21–13 in favor of Connecticut, Louisville running back Bilal Powell ran off left tackle near the end zone but was caught by UConn cornerback Jasper Howard, who forced a fumble. — missing comma. The sentence is also a bit of a snake; you may want to reword it.
    • Coach Randy Edsall was summoned to officially identify the body. — does the word "officially" really add anything here?
    • Connecticut came back in the fourth quarter to take a 24–21 lead with 38 seconds left in the game; — "in the game" is clearly redundant in this case.
    • After the two teams both scored traded touchdowns in the first overtime....
    • There also seems to be some overuse of Dixon's full name. Are there multiple Dixons in the game here?
  • In my opinion, more work is needed before this article can attain our highest standard. Nevertheless, it's easily one of the best football-related articles on the site. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 01:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
I'm likely not the best person to ask to review this article, as my strongest memory of this game is wanting it to be over!
"Acknowledging that the team had underperformed both his and the fans' expectations, he promised that he would resign or retire rather than let the program degenerate to the point where he might be fired or forced out." Can't say I like that being the final word on Spurrier in the article. Since it is mentioned that Carolina had not won the East, Saturday's game against Florida merits a sentence in the last section.
  • Sentence added: "The Gamecocks did indeed perform better in 2010; with a 36–14 win over Florida, South Carolina won the SEC East division and clinched a spot in the SEC Championship Game for the first time in school history." –Grondemar 04:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Check your date on Ref 87. I know Spurrier said that sometime in the Spring, and not on 1 January... before the game was played.
Relating back to one of my points, the "aftermath" of a bowl game has to include the next season, not just what the coaches said afterwards and the draft.
  • I randomly selected four bowl game featured articles (2009 International Bowl, 2008 Humanitarian Bowl, 2005 Sugar Bowl, 2000 Sugar Bowl), and only the 2000 Sugar Bowl article discussed future seasons in any depth. (The International Bowl article mentions that the two teams played a couple of years later, but that was because earlier in the article it mentions that the two team were frequent opponents and had signed a four-game contract the season before the bowl game.) Other than mentioning South Carolina's SEC East championship and championship game appearance (and I fully agree that the results of the championship game should be added once it is played), I'm not sure what could be said; adding anything coherent on UConn's 2010 season would be difficult, as they could either win out and go to the BCS or lose out and miss a bowl game altogether. Perhaps something could be added in a few weeks, but not now. –Grondemar 04:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Scoring summary. Check leading zeros in times.
The prose... is rather dull. The problem with this is that the game was rather dull, so I'd be mightily impressed if anyone made this sound interesting.
  • Like you said, the problem is that for a large portion of the game the two teams repeatedly punted to one another; there was no scoring in the entire third quarter. I think unfortunately there's a limit to how much this article can be "livened-up". –Grondemar 04:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Roughing the punter" Never heard anyone say it like that before, instead of roughing the kicker.
  • Technically the penalty is roughing the kicker, but I thought it would be confusing to a casual reader as to who was being roughed if I suddenly called the punter a kicker. I changed it to "roughing the kicker", and added a note that explained that, even though the penalty is announced as "roughing the kicker", the player fouled was the punter rather than the placekicker. –Grondemar 04:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see a lot of "Stephen Garcia" instead of just Garcia.
"and opted for LSU." Unexplained abbreviation alert.
  • I had originally thought that the school was so commonly refered to as "LSU" that expanding the abbreviation was unnecessary, but I changed it to "Louisiana State University (LSU)" at first mention in the bowl selection section. –Grondemar 04:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"In the four seasons since 2005 Steve Spurrier had been head coach of the Gamecocks the team had a record of 28–21; they were bowl-eligible all four years." That sentence needs work.
"the Huskies traveled to West Virginia and lost a close-fought game" Would probably be better to say "lost by four points" rather than "close-fought" without a source. I'm sure we've both seen plenty of four-point games that weren't really close, after all.
  • The source cited does say the game was "close", but I clarified to "the Huskies traveled to West Virginia and lost on a late long run" and add the West Virginia game recap as a cite. –Grondemar 04:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't it make more sense to discuss matchups in terms of offense against defense?
"While South Carolina's passing attack was passable" I cringed a little at this sentence. "passing... was passable"?
  • Oppose, 1a. This is nice work and well-researched! However, I don't think the writing is up to standard at this time. It could use at least one unfamiliar copyeditor to dig in and sift through. I just read through the lead and "Team Selection"; here are some random examples:
      • Thank you for your review; if you have a chance I strongly encourage you to read through the rest of the article. It could use another set of eyes and the remaining text shouldn't be quite as dry. –Grondemar 05:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The Huskies faced the South Carolina Gamecocks" Unsure why you've restated "South Carolina" here when it's specified just above; plus, it does away with any potential parallel structure.
    • I appreciate that you're switching between Connecticut and UConn to provide variety, but it's actually a bit distracting in my opinion. Better to alternate between Connecticut and Huskies or UConn and Huskies.
      • I respectively disagree. Both "Connecticut" and "UConn" are common nicknames for the team; I don't see how it's distracting, especially when it is made clear from the first sentence of the lead that "Connecticut", "UConn", and "the Huskies" are all equivalents. If you want some background on the usage of "Connecticut" versus "UConn", see the RfC at Category talk:Connecticut Huskies, where is was decided that "Connecticut" was the preferred primary usage but "UConn" can and should be used secondarily. –Grondemar 05:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • "In 2010, the PapaJohns.com Bowl had contracts with the Big East and the SEC that allowed it to select" Mmm, not crazy about the writing here. You've written as if the "Bowl" is a thinking entity that selected teams.
      • The "Bowl" in this case refers to its selection committee in the corporate sense, just as "Citigroup hired a new CEO" refers to Citigroup in a corporate sense; you wouldn't normally write out "Citigroup's board of directors hired a new CEO". Nevertheless, I rephrased as "In 2010, the PapaJohns.com Bowl selection committee had a contractual arrangement with the Big East and the SEC that allowed the committee to pick one team from each conference to participate in their annual game." –Grondemar 05:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • "which resulted in them playing in the 2010 Sugar Bowl" I admit I've had a Macallan after dinner, but I think "them playing" is ungrammatical.
    • I have to say, I'm American and I barely comprehend the whole bowl system and selection process—I'm afraid your description of the bidding process here may muddy the waters even further for non-American readers. It needs a good cleansing by someone completely unfamiliar with the system.
      • I'm afraid the entire bowl selection process is very convoluted and confusing almost by nature; 35 games are trying to promote their best corporate interest while also (to varying degrees) rewarded teams that "deserve" better bowl bids due to their performance on the field. Essentially what this selection explains is why Connecticut and South Carolina were selected for the PapaJohns.com Bowl versus some other bowl game in their respective conference lineups. Unfortunately, as the PapaJohns.com Bowl is one of the last bowls in the selection order for both the Big East and SEC, the description of the selection process is necessarily long. –Grondemar 05:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • "This left three remaining bowl-eligible Big East teams" Always avoid the ambiguous "this". This what?
    • It appears overlinked; of course, a two-minutes session of mouseovers allowed me to discover what you really did. There may be more elegant solutions than the constant easter-egg linking, which is discouraged in the MoS.
      • This is a Catch-22; see User:YellowMonkey's feedback above. Non-US readers will be confused by American football jargon which is completely necessary to know in order to be able to describe the game without becoming completely bogged down in explaining the sport. The best way to explain the terms without slowing down the article is to link the jargon to the appropriate article. In many cases, the name of the linked article is not exactly the same as the jargon term used in the text (for example Down (American football) explaining 4th-and-16), thus making the "Easter-egg" links necessary. There is no good way to avoid this; it also has been standard practice on necessarily jargon-heavy sports FAs for not just American football, but also cricket and other sports.

        Regarding the frequency of linking, I had tried previously to relink terms at the beginning of every level-2 header on the theory that a casual reader might jump directly to a section and then not understand the American football jargon. If that is too frequent in your opinion, it can certainly be reduced. –Grondemar 05:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

--Andy Walsh (talk) 03:21, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much echoes my sentiment, especially the overlinking issues—the article is only half-pruned at this point. I haven't had a chance to dig into the "team selection" section yet, mainly because it looks like it'll be the hardest nut to crack. Sadly, I'm going to be a bit too busy with schoolwork to finish this one up in the next few days. Also, you're right about "them playing"—it should be "their playing". Grondemar has been doing such good work and I don't want my IRL workload to drag it down—maybe it's best to come back in 2-3 weeks? —Deckiller (t-c-l) 04:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would personally prefer to continue this FAC as multiple people have supported; I'll contact some of the people who have commented but not yet returned to comment on my response. –Grondemar 05:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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