Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive-Jul2009

Possible removal of sports team logos

For those that are unaware, there has been discussion over the last several (many) months about the image policy and whether most (if not all) of the team sports logos should be removed from articles. (see the links listed here for the background discussions) The discussion was never resolved one way or another, and seems to be spilling over into Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Overused non-free images for those that are interested in discussing it. Just fyi for anyone interested. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 23:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion is now archived, here's the working link for those interested Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive196#Overused non-free images. I've noticed them switching logos over to text only versions when possible. Ryan2845 (talk) 14:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Games in a regular season

I could use some input here on an article about a coach from the 1940s who regularly pursued a 12-game season. It wasn't until 2005 that this became regular practice in Div I (this is an NAIA school, but was before the NAIA played football and before there were NCAA divisions). Anyone with expertise on number of games in a regular season, please take a look and let's see if we can restore this article.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I've beefed up the Nolan article a fair bit -- though not on the length of schedule. With the additional information, I can't see how it would not meet notability standards. Should be good to go. Cbl62 (talk) 22:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Notability concerns at The Choke at Doak

An editor has raised concerns about the notability of the article, The Choke at Doak. I invite others to join the discussion and add their comments on the talk page at that article. Thanks. Strikehold (talk) 00:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Notability of Chenry Lewis

Join the discussion at Talk:Chenry Lewis. DeFaultRyan 16:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

All-Americans in team template

The Template:NCAAFootballSchool infobox, which is used on each team's 'main' football page (e.g. UCLA Bruins football), has a field that says simply "All-Americans". Without any further qualification, this phrasing is far too vague to be of any use to any reader. I suggest that the infobox be changed to read "Consensus All-Americans" since that is a definitive and objective number to use. I saw someone suggested using whatever the school claims (as the "claimed national championships", also used in the same infobox), but that doesn't even necessarily work since they might not claim any specific number. The NCAA-recognized selectors are as good as any other to use, and it is easy to check in one place, the NCAA Record Book.

Another part that is somewhat vague: are we counting the number of individuals or the number of selections? That is, is a player who was named an All-American three times during his career counted once or three times? I think with the current wording, instead of "All-American selections" or "honors" that it would mean the number of players who received it at least once. Any other thoughts on this? Strikehold (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Good questions, I also wonder if it should say "first team"? Ryan2845 (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I think "Consensus All-Americans" is too narrow. For most of the first 30 or so years (e.g., 1889 -1920), the NCAA uses Walter Camp and Casper Whitney as the "official" selector, but Camp's selections were exceedingly controversial at the time, with many newspapers claiming that he was biased toward the "Big Three" (later "Big Five") Ivy League schools. Whitney's choices were also, with a couple exceptions, the exclusive province of Ivy League schools. Other selectors, such as Walter Eckersall (a respected former All-American and sports writer for the Chicago Tribune) and even Parke H. Davis were more expansive in considering and selecting players from other schools. While these other selectors were very prominent and highly regarded in the 1900s to 1920s, the NCAA football guide (perhaps due to lack of good compilations of historical selections by others) is limited to Camp and Whitney for most of this time period. Other major selectors in the early days include the New York Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Tribune, Frank G. Menke (Sporting Editor of Hearst's International News Service) and others. One of the things I have been trying to do with the early All-America Team articles is to survey the reliable newspapers of the day to identify the teams selected by reputable sources. If someone was designated as a first-team All-American by one of the major sources, I think it's appropriate to identify them as an All-American. Don't think we should be deciding that the New York Sun's AA team should not be included simply because whoever put together the NCAA guide relied exclusivly on Walter Camp and Casper Whitney for the first 30 years of the sport. Cbl62 (talk) 18:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I feel the exact opposite way. I think wikipedia should stick to what is recognized by the NCAA in their awards book, regardless of what sources they use. Ryan2845 (talk) 19:30, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

(Response to Cbl62) That is kind of my point, though. The term "All-American" without any further qualification can be interpreted so broadly or narrowly that, in itself, it doesn't really convey anything useful. I also think it may border on WP:OR to try to determine that the Chicago Tribune selections count, The New York Sun count, the Esso Gas selections don't count, or whatever. Consider that, to this very date, there are still accusations of an Eastern bias in football (the BCS, wire titles, Heisman, etc.). If there is or was an Eastern bias, the reporting of the facts in a neutral and objective manner is our purpose, not to attempt to correct it retroactively. (Although reporting on the allegations of systemic bias could possibly make an interesting article).

Also, this is just for the purpose of the infobox field, nothing further, so it should have no bearing on the rest of the article. Other players selected by other selectors can and should be included in, for instance, a table or the main text. Also, as a parallel example, there is a field for "Heisman Trophy" winners, which is surely another very narrow qualification, and one that has been accused of bias, including regional and other biases. The NCAA is by no means an authoritative determinant for All-Americans or anything else, but it is a verifiable (and widely recognized) baseline. That's the reason why I suggested it. Strikehold (talk) 19:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Response and Proposal. I realize that there are many, many erroneous, vague or dubious accounts referring to someone as an "All-American" without saying who gave the designation, whether it was first-team or third-team, and without any citation to reliable sources. The reason I've put so much time into the annual College Football All-America Team ("CFAAT") articles is to bring clarity and objectivity to such vague claims of "All-America" status. Personally, I think the best way for us to shed light on dubious claims is to use the annual "CFAAT" articles to list all of the notable All-American teams that can be verified though reliable sources. The only limit should be the general notability standard. If Joe Blow picks an All-American team and self-publishes it on the web, it's not notable. But teams selected by the likes of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, New York Sun, Parke Davis, Walter Eckersall were widely reported in the national media and pass notability standards. I do understand the concerns, but think it can best be dealt with as follows: Use bold (or a "Key" or some other mechanism) in the CFAAT articles to identify which selectors are recognized in the NCAA awards guide. That way, readers have accurate, comprehensive, objective information from which they can form their own judgments. Wikipedia's purpose is to provide objective information and not to make qualitative judgments about which selectors are legitimate and which are not. For these reasons, it would be inappropriate in my opinion for Wikipedia to decide who is a legitimate All-Amerian. We should include the data from all notable selectors, use bold to designate selectors recognized by the NCAA guide, and leave the business of making qualitative judgments to the reader. Cbl62 (talk) 20:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I may have not clearly articulated what I was proposing. Cbl62, I agree with all of that; the yearly AA articles should include all AA selections that pass the reliable source metric. My original post was only meant in relation to the infobox (Template:NCAAFootballSchool) located on each team's main "football" article (e.g. in this article, Michigan State Spartans football, where it says "73"). I suggest changing the field in that infobox that currently says "All-Americans" to say "Consensus All-Americans". As this discussion has shown, to give a number for "All-Americans" a team has produced throughout its history isn't trivial. The number of "consensus All-Americans" on the other hand, is readily available in the latest NCAA Record Book. Strikehold (talk) 22:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand the limited nature of your proposal. But the decision may be used as a precedent for the proposition that the AA's in the NCAA guide are the only real, legitimate AAs. Any player who has been named to one of the notable AA teams, in my opinion, meets notability standards. The suggested limitation, if adopted by the College Football Project, could be used to question the notability of players designated as AA's by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, Parke H. Davis, etc. Cbl62 (talk) 01:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

After looking at the Michigan State template, I see your point. If there is no criterion used for the number of AAs in the template, it becomes totally arbitrary. A standard is needed for the number in the template, and your proposal is a good one. However, we should not let that be deemed a precedent in other contexts that these are the only legitimate AAs. Cbl62 (talk) 04:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad we could reach an agreement, and I don't think precedent will be an issue. "Consensus All-American" is a term that has a very specific meaning, so I can't really see attempting to apply that very narrow term to the more generically named All-America team articles, which as indicated by their titles cast a much wider net. I see no reason to throw out any reliable source's All-American selections, provided it is adequately sourced. Strikehold (talk) 21:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for being a late comer to this discussion, but I agree with Strikehold. The issue of All-American accounting is something that has bothered me since we first started including it as a field in the team infoboxes a few years ago. With the proliferation of All-American teams and without a uniform criteria, the statistic is meaningless, easily manipulable, and extremely difficult to verify. I'm all in support of making the switch to "Consensus" All-Americans, a distinction that is firm and easily verifiable.-PassionoftheDamon (talk) 14:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I came around to agreeeing that a uniform criteria is appropriate for the infobox. On looking at the NCAA awards guide, they list the "first team" AAs for each school and give a total. I'd suggest using the published "first team" figure. See here. Cbl62 (talk) 17:56, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I might be missing something, but the "first team" lists is for players in below Division I FBS only; the consensus list is the only one with Division I FBS schools. You do bring up a good point, though: There is no such thing as a "Consensus All-American" for below Division I FBS/I-A as far as I know. Perhaps this can be addressed in the infobox by making separate, conditional fields for either "Consensus All-American" (for Division I-A / FBS / major college teams) or "First-team All-Americans" for teams that historically have performed at a lower level. A note will have to be added to the documentation instructing editors which field to use. Strikehold (talk) 21:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I think you are reading it correctly. And it does mean we'd be comparing apples with oranges depending on whether the school is Division I. Delaware is a case in point. It is listed with 46 first-team all-americans, which number would rank in the top 10 for schools if you were comparing it with consensus all-americans. Thus, Delaware's number would be higher than most Division I schools including Alabama, Penn. St. and UCLA. I can't imagine a good reason why the NCAA guide would not use the same metric for both types of schools. Cbl62 (talk) 23:16, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Since a few days have gone by and it sounds like everyone is in agreement, i've gone ahead and updated the Template:NCAAFootballSchool infobox to say "consensus". So now the figure shown there should reflect what is shown in the NCAA awards book. Obviously most of the infoboxes are wrong now, so please update any you come across. Ryan2845 (talk) 01:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

loads of original research

A lot of football programs templates have links to "Notable players" or "Prominent figures". Examples: Template:Florida State Seminoles Football and Template:OregonStateBeaversfootballnavbox. This is an area that requires a lot of opinion. This has already been addressed in WP:HOCKEY (archived here) and WP:WikiProject Football. There are a lot of issues with navboxes, such as others like Template:Michigan Wolverines football that are just a pointless mess of sub-navboxes that need serious cleanup. Sorry, one issue at a time... JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 17:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with some of the ideas that WP:HOCKEY came up with. Do away with the POV nightmares that "important figures" and its ilk bring up. Keep it down to verifiable criteria. "Head coaches" is one such criteria. "Retired numbers", and "Heisman winners" can be others. Let's get that subjective stuff cleaned up. DeFaultRyan 21:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

As a general rule, I'm in favor of objective and consistent standards, but I'm not sure one can be used here, at least not across the board for all teams. I think Notre Dame -- which has seven Heisman winners, numerous national championships, Knute Rockne, the Gipper, Rudy, the Four Horsemen, etc. -- should probably have different criteria than, say, a school like Akron, which has made one bowl appearance and one conference championship. Those two schools are going to have different measures by which people have made a significant impact on their program. Strikehold (talk) 23:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree with User:Strikehold here. I'm not really sure a uniform template would be appropriate considering the different level of schools and history. The Notre Dame's, Alabama's and USC's just have an significantly more "important people" than most schools. Obviously common sense needs to be used, but I have never come across a navbox that didn't strictly have the logical essential people that should be listed (until I just looked at that FSU template). I've never really had a problem with any of that type of stuff and as the old saying goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."Rtr10 (talk) 03:43, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree with User:Strikehold. Cbl62 (talk) 04:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Since the original question was about nav templates and not article contents, I think it's ok to be pretty lax on the criteria for inclusion. Maybe what we need here is just a simple clean-up of terminology. Make all the templates say "Notable people", rather than "Important" or "Related" unless there is some specific category grouping for multiple people like "Heisman winners". If the person has an established article on wiki then we can assume it already meets the criteria for notability defined by WP:N and should be ok to include on a nav template under a "Notable" heading. Ryan2845 (talk) 04:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I think JohnnyPolo24 is confusing editorial discretion with original research. Including an "Important Figures" field doesn't require one to generate or seek out original information; it only requires editors to exercise the same type of judgment about which information to include and how to present it that they exercise when editing anything else on Wikipedia. Furthermore, using a uniform standard for which figures to include, such as "only Heisman winners" or "Retired numbers" or "Ring of Honor inductees," is inappropriate, as (1) many programs don't have any Heisman winners or follow the aforementioned traditions, and (2) doing so results in the anomaly of very prominent figures being left out because they don't meet the rigidly narrow criteria (e.g., Joe Montana at Notre Dame, Joe Namath at Alabama, Pat Haden and Ronnie Lott at USC, etc., would all fall through the cracks). Who to include within the field is a question best left to the normal case-by-case, consensus-through-editing process, and, ultimately, those editors most familiar with a particular school's history will be in the best position to exercise sound judgment and serve as guardians of reason.PassionoftheDamon (talk) 04:15, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. I see how some of those navboxes could be a bit excessive or seem POV if mishandled. I agree that "notable people" seems to sound better than "important people". A team like Michigan which has played consistent, high-level football since the time where teams like Princeton were national powerhouses would have a lot of people (which its navbox reflects). Its hard to use a firm standard: An interesting example would be George Gipp. He was an All-American, but I doubt anyone would agree that every All-American is equal when it comes to a list of the most notable figures at a given school (and it could open up a can of worms). Heck, the Heisman and retired jerseys don't go back to the early years. However, his impact was tremendous --especially given the magic of Hollywood. He's in the College Football Hall of Fame, but should that also be considered an automatic inclusion? I think the history of the sport and its nature may lead to better case-by-case handling. --Bobak (talk) 05:19, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I realize that different schools have different levels of tradition, success, etc., so that wasn't something I had not thought about. Using fans of one given school to come up with notable criteria is a good idea, but people from elsewhere have to have heard about the player, team, coach, game in order for it to be notable. Don't take the following examples to mean that I think articles about Pitt football have all been done correctly – it's just an example. As a Pitt fan, I could mention that Jock Sutherland is notable in Pitt history because he coached them for 15 seasons and they were selected as national champions by various selectors for 9 of those seasons, or that Tony Dorsett is notable because he's the only Heisman trophy winner in school history. But what else should I use as criteria? Retired numbers? Different schools have different criteria for such an honor while some don't retire numbers at all. What about some other way of honoring an individual's contributions such as a "Ring of Honor" or a prominant statue or mural what have you? What about coaches? They don't wear numbers at all. There's just a lot of subjective areas or study/discussion that require opinion or original research or use varying scales of assessment. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 11:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)