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DragoLink08: ANI discussion regarding requested range blocks

Gentlemen, Cuchullain and I have filed ANI reports regarding User:DragoLink08's continued disruptive editing and sock-puppetry. I have also requested appropriate range blocks for the University of South Florida IP addresses that have provided him with an escape hatch to continue his sock-puppetry for the past three years. Many of you have had to deal with Drago's disruptive editing of the color schemes for navboxes, infoboxes and tables. Your input at ANI is requested. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:24, 25 January 2013‎ (UTC)

Abbreviations for college names in infoboxes

There was a related discussion at WikiProject College Basketball about how to handle schools like University of Southern California, whose sports programs typically go by initials e.g. USC Trojans. The consensus over there seems to be to use the WP:COMMONNAME chosen by the Wikipedia sports team article. For example, in the case of University of Southern California, a player's infobox would list "USC" as his school, not "Southern California". If there is an issue, the respective school's football article should be renamed after a discussion at WP:RM. I propose that this project follow the same convention as well.—Bagumba (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Do we need navboxes for the cover athletes for college and pro football video games?

NCAA Division I FBS playoffs

NCAA Division I FBS playoffs could use some attention. I'm not even sure what the article should be named, but NCAA Division 1-A football playoff was surely not it. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:14, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

The current name looks good. Still could use a rewrite though, I may take a crack at it.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 06:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Opening up a discussion here devoted to item #2 above as listed by Dirtlawyer1 above. NThomas has introduced redundant links to the trophies that redirect to the article about the rivalry in which they are awarded. A clean example of this can be seen at Template:Navy Midshipmen football navbox. We have a link to Navy–Notre Dame football rivalry and then right next to it a link to Rip Miller Trophy, which redirects to the former. Why? I agree with Dirtlawyer1 that "such links are redundant and disfavored per WP:REPEATLINK and WP:OVERLINK." Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:00, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

  • Against redundant direct rivalry and redirect trophy links per Jweiss and my comments above. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Trophies in the navbox should at a minimum be wikilinked to the specific section of the rivalry article about the trophy and not the rivalry article as a whole. If there is not a subsection on the trophy, then they should not be included in the navbox. I know this doesn't constitute a yes or no vote, but I do think there should be some flexibility based on if the trophy is notable to an individual program. Patriarca12 (talk) 23:10, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Patriarca12, it's hard to understand exactly what you mean here. I no see reason why there couldn't be a subsection in any rivalry article about its trophy, provided there is a trophy, even if that trophy is rather obscure. So, you are in favor of the redundant links to the trophies provided they point to the right place in the rivalry article, correct? What exactly do you mean by "notable to an individual program"? Jweiss11 (talk) 05:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the redundant links if they actually point to the actual trophy. In the example you gave above with the Rip Miller Trophy, there is no cited information about it, so therefore it should not be included in my opinion. However, my overall thought is tied back more to what Crazypaco has been saying about allowing for more flexibility based on individual programs unique history. For example, in the Alabama realm, when the James E. Foy, V-ODK Sportsmanship Trophy is ultimately merged into the Iron Bowl article, I don't necessarily have issue with the Foy Trophy being excluded from the navbox as casual fans of both UA and AU don't "brag" about winning the Foy Trophy, rather about winning the Iron Bowl. Heck, I bet many fans do not realize the trophy exists, let alone are able to name it. I understand it is subjective, but if primary editors of a particular program can identify the trophy itself as notable to the program as a whole, then they should be included. To be honest though, I don't really care either way and will simply agree with whatever consensus is agreed to. Patriarca12 (talk) 12:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Bingo on the flexibility. Wikipedia is to reflect "expert knowledge", per WP:TPA, which is why WP:Alabama and the editors of University of Alabama articles themselves are not to be excluded in reaching a consensus about how to navigate readers to the articles that will provide the best overview of the topic of "Alabama football". There simply is no precedent in Wikipedia for anything but that. Best practice guidelines are fine for style and so forth, but that does not assert ownership over article-by-article or template-by-template consensus about what information to include or exclude. CrazyPaco (talk) 11:23, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Comment - The introduction of uniform mass changes to the navboxes of 100s of individual topics is poor practice because it assumes a uniformity between all of those topics that does not exist. Each navbox represents an individual set of related articles shared by a consensus of multiple Wikiprojects and Wikipedia editors; not a collective single set under the singular topic of college football. This is substantially different than, for instance, the College Football Awards navbox whose scope is uniform across the entirety of the topic of college football and much more easily standardized. Per Patriarca12's reasoning directly above, as well as Dirtlawyer's original objections to the recently introduced rivalry changes, there is not a single clean way to standardize the presentation of rivalries across hundreds of individual football programs. Florida's navbox with no rivalry game trophies is not going to be ideally fitted with the same style that would best serve Notre Dame's or Alabama's. This lack of unanimity argues equally against adding or removing links en mass, but instead for a thoughtful, informed approach for the construction of any individual topic's navigation template.
Specifically regarding redundant links to article subsections, the WP:NAV essay recommends to "avoid repeating links to the same article within a template". That said, there is no Wikipedia guideline or policy that speaks directly to the linking of article subsections, especially from navboxes. Because of this, the issue may be better addressed by the wider Wikipedia community, particularly at WP:NAV. However, it would be remiss not to point out the hypocrisy of calling for a prohibition of section-specific links when many current CFB navboxes are full of them, specifically in their Seasons sections.
Regarding WP:OVERLINK and WP:REPEATLINK, these are MOS guidelines for articles, not navboxes, and their citation in this case is completely out of context. Multiple links to the same article should be avoided per the WP:NAV essay noted above. However, one cannot predetermine for every topic whether or not a link that navigates a reader to specific information in a subsection of an otherwise large article could be useful without first determining the importance of that section's information within the overall topic of the individual college football program. This likely can only be determined on a template-by-template basis, and as described by Patriarca12, by the editors best informed on the topic and thus reflecting the Wikipedia ideal of "expert knowledge", per WP:TPA. CrazyPaco (talk) 11:23, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Disfavor link to articles (via redirects) multiple times in same navbox. --GrapedApe (talk) 12:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Not in favor however I could imagine that one small college or even one major university that would uniquely need just that. Again I reference my comments for the main discussion above, the more I think about it the more I realize all the expertise and mental resources existing in this discussion is similar to the coaching staff of Alabama, but instead of applying it to a package of a few navboxes that can meet any challenge . . . a package of plays so to speak . . . we somehow are trying to invent the most perfect, awesomeist, errorless play ever and just keep running that for 60 minutes or on 60 wikipedia articles. I know I am coming in a bit late to this discussion but as a Panthers, Tars, Mountaineers and Presidents fan who am I to tell some editor that is familiar with Idaho State that I know best what their navbox template should look like, just like a very wise coaching staff has a "package" of plays, can we gain consensus on a "package of navboxes" maybe even some guidelines on which package should be applied to which type of program even. Market St.⧏ ⧐ Diamond Way 22:59, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate everyone's comments here. The discussion has spiraled off a bit into other related topics in a few places, and there are some things I'd like to address there, but for now I'd like to keep the focus on the subject as stated in the section header: redundant links to trophies that are redirects and not stand-alone articles. Patriarca12 has expressed support for these links provided there is a dedicated section in the rivalry article devoted to the trophy. NThomas has not commented yet, but as the author of these links he is presumably in favor of them, even when there is no dedicated section in the rivalry article. Dirtlawyer, Grapedape, and I are clearly against these sort of links. Crazy Paco as well, I think? Marketdiamond seems to be generally against these sort of links, but "could imagine that one small college or even one major university that would uniquely need just that". What I wonder there is if that trophy really needs its own link in the navbox, doesn't it deserve its own stand-alone article? For the record, if we decided that a trophy needed a stand-alone article separate from its rivalry article, I would absolutely support its inclusion in the navbox. Would anyone like to further clarify their position? Would anyone else like to chime in? Other thoughts about this subject, redundant links to trophies that are redirects and not stand-alone articles? Jweiss11 (talk) 00:38, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, to clarify my often verbose responses, I do not see the redundant links as necessary in these cases (regarding the trophies and rivalry articles). However I can't exclude that hypothetical that some redundant links could be useful in some instances, particularly for linking specific sections in some longer articles, and those instances might need to be examined on a case-by-case basis. CrazyPaco (talk) 10:45, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to setting the name of the trophy in plain text, but to put a link to the redirect right next to a link to the article is definitely overkill. Ejgreen77 (talk) 22:21, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:1990 Washington football

I have nominated Template:1990 Washington football for deletion. Please comment here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:05, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I have also nominated Template:1984 Washington football for deletion. Please comment here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
These could use some more feedback. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship Games

I have nominated Category:NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship Games for deletion. Please comment here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 06:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

This one could use some more feedback. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Recruiting template

The recruiting template (Template:College athlete recruit entry) has inputs for Rivals, Scout, and ESPN. Since that template was created, 247Sports has emerged as a fourth recruiting ranking service. Could 247Sports be added as an input to the recruiting template? Thanks! -AllisonFoley (talk) 06:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I think one could also make an argument for MaxPreps. --bender235 (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
I think it would be nice to see it with a few more myself like ESPN also has the star rating as well as the power number. Who has the power to edit the templet? MDSanker 07:28, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
In time, we will probably be able to add dozens of them, eventually. When I google high school and college athletes ESPN, Scout and Rivals almost invariably show in the highest position on the search results. I'm in favor of adding a 5-star parameter for ESPN. I Oppose other additions.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:04, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
It's already programmed for you to add star rankings for ESPN. Use < espn stars = >. -AllisonFoley (talk) 17:22, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
here is a source that suggests there are a big three and a bunch of other rankings.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:27, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Opinions sought for navbox design

I am seeking opinions on creating the best navigation box for the topic of Pittsburgh Panthers football at Template talk:Pittsburgh Panthers football navbox#Navbox contents. Three possible examples are provided in addition to the current version. Any comments and additional suggestions would be appreciated. CrazyPaco (talk) 17:36, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I would encourage everyone to keep the discussion here and focused on the best way to format navboxes for all college football programs as there is nothing particularly unique about Pittsburgh Panthers football. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Unless the editor believes that policy, which this project has no grounds to create, is to forgo customization of topic (ie football program)-specific links and categories of links within individual navboxes, I would encourage everyone to discuss contents and category inclusion or exclusion on the talk pages of the individual navboxes themselves because the topic is specific to the individual college football programs, fall under the domain of multiple WikiProjects, and must take into account the individual idiosyncrasies of each topic to construct the best possible navigation aid. No less would be done about removing sections or adding sections to individual college football articles. While specific guildelines for navbox construction are appropriate for discussion here, as well as the design of skeletal navbox structures to implement across articles with little editor activity, the standardization of navbox links/categories irrespective of specific topics violates the spirt if not the letter or WP:NAV and WP:WPA, and has no previous precedent. CrazyPaco (talk) 05:32, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Default cfb team navbox style for Seasons

Regardless of above disagreements over "allowed" customization of individual navbox topics, which has no precedent, policy or guideline behind it, there is good reason to have a minimal default navbox ready for inclusion on college football team articles.

I think many would agree that as team articles get created at any level of play in college football (from NAIA to FBS), a skeletal navbox structure for the editors of those articles would be good for this Wikiproject to provide, just as it is good to provide infoboxes. This is also true for article topics that are notable and deserve to exist, even as a stub- or start-class article, but otherwise have minimal editorial activity. Jweiss11, admirably, has spent considerable time adding navboxes to every existing CFB team article. However, in doing so, he has merged various college football season templates that typically list 100s of sequential dates, into the CFB team navboxes. For a few teams, this may be efficient. However, for the vast majority of teams, this seems to violate several guiding principals of the WP:NAV essay. In particular,

• The goal is not to cram as many related articles as possible into one space. Ask yourself, does this help the reader in reading up on related topics? Take any two articles in the template. Would a reader really want to go from A to B?

  • They should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value. For navigating among many articles, consider:
    • Split them into multiple, smaller templates on each sub-topic. For example, {{EMD diesels}} lists all models of diesel locomotives built by one manufacturer, but is too large to be transcluded on each of their articles. Instead, the individual sections of {{EMD diesels}} were split out into their own templates: {{EMD GPs}}, {{EMD SDs}}, etc.

• Navigation templates provide navigation between existing articles

  • Red links should be avoided unless they are very likely to be developed into articles, and even if they do, editors are encouraged to write the article first.

Across most college football articles, the majority of these listed years are redlinked and, following a year of this style of implementation, only a tiny % of these articles has actually been developed. In addition, the majority of the linked years are actually repeated links to individual sections of list articles, not stand-alone articles themselves. In light of the discussion above which seems to frown on this practice for trophy sections in rivalry articles, does that discussion apply to years in the Seasons category of the navbox as well?

So, in other words, is it appropriate to have 100+ seasons listed in the default navbox style that is currently being implemented by this Wikiproject? This is particularly an issue for any future articles that may be developed as those football programs' cadre of articles are likely to be even less robustly developed than the football programs that already exist.

The issues are:

  • 1) Does inclusion of 100s of sequential years such it makes them unnecessarily large (and will grow infinitely over time). Should they be split out to a separate navbox as is possibly suggested by WP:NAV?

  • 4) Do the listing of 100s of sequential years provide an useful navigation tool for a reader interested in understanding the topic of the individual football program?

  • 5) Perhaps related to #4, does such a listing overwhelm and swamp the navigation to the most relevant articles that would provide the best knowledge of the topic? (ie. would selective years, like championship season, be more useful and is the relevance of such seasons otherwise lost in the midsts of a list of 100s of dates.)

  • 6) Even if the above are true for new football program topics, or lightly edited existing ones, and would suggest removing such sequential lists of years, would the list of all years otherwise still be appropriate for football topics like {{Nebraska Cornhuskers football navbox}} or {{Michigan Wolverines football navbox}} that do in fact have separate articles for every year?

  • 7) Would a "List of X team football seasons" provide adequate navigation to individual season articles and serve as a viable alternative, at least to lists of seasons swamped by redlinks or section redirects?

  • 8) Do any of these reasonings warrant mass editing of all existing college football templates or should they be done more gradually on a case-by-case basis or is this most appropriate mostly as a guideline for future articles' navboxes?

Thank you in advance for your participation in this discussion. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:29, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

CrazyPaco, thanks for opening this discussion here. I intend to respond sometime in the new next days. I've said all I have the energy to say about navboxes tonight at Template talk:Pittsburgh Panthers football navbox. Stay tuned... Jweiss11 (talk) 04:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
I support some flexibility in allowing knowledgeable editors to tinker with, customize, or modify a program's team navbox. Allowing folks to experiment and do things a bit differently can be an engine of constructive innovation for all. On the specific issue of populating navboxes with 100+ redlinked years, I agree with Crazypaco. Where the seasons list is mostly redlinks that are not likely to ever be filled in, editors familiar with that program should be free to remove the list and adopt an alternate approach (e.g., national championships or conference championships -- which is a format applied in most of the templates linked below). Frankly, even where there is an article for every season (such as Nebraska or Michigan), the benefit of listing 100 or more years in the general navbox is debatable. In this regard, none of the major professional sports follow this approach. See the team navboxes in MLB (Template:New York Yankees, Template:Philadelphia Phillies), NFL (Template:Green Bay Packers, Template:New York Giants), NBA (Template:Boston Celtics, Template:Los Angeles Lakers), NHL (Template:Detroit Red Wings, Template:Montreal Canadiens), and professional soccer (Template:Manchester United F.C., Template:Real Madrid C.F.). Cbl62 (talk) 16:36, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm all for tinkering and experimentation, but why not sandbox and discuss changes first? I've looked at pretty much all of these professional sports navboxes before. The pro soccer ones strike me as by far the best. First off, the NFL and MLB navboxes indeed list every individual season. There's a collapsible section at the bottom of the navbox for them. People seem to keep missing this. Perhaps that's a testament to poor design. For the NBA there is a set of separate season navboxes, e.g. Template:Los Angeles Lakers seasons. What ends up happening with those is that we find two navboxes for the Lakers franchise in the footer of every season articles; see: 1949–50 Minneapolis Lakers season. The pro navboxes have so many problems. The culture and lore and retired number sections have all sorts of Easter Egg and redundant links. Frankly, the pro sports WikiProjects are so far behind this WikiProject in terms of thought and standardization when it comes to things like navboxes. Look at the huge mess at the footer of Los Angeles Lakers. Anytime we look to those subjects areas for inspiration here, it needs to be done with a serious grain of salt. The reality is that this WikiProject has provided thought leadership for them, e.g. the adoption of the coaching navboxes launched here. More to say about all this, but I've run out of time for now... Jweiss11 (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I have seen no support for your idea that the current college football navboxes are superior to these others. Not that they are perfect, but I personally find all of the above examples provided by Cbl62 to be superior as tools for navigating readers to the most important and relevant information about their individual team topics. Why? because they actually are able to provide links to the most important and relevant information about their topic. The teams are their own navigation topic, per WP:NAV. The idea that 100s of navboxes rigidly fall under the inflexible control and review of a singular Wikiproject is without precedent across the entirety of Wikipedia. CrazyPaco (talk) 06:36, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Mass TfD this project will probably have interest in

Found here. Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 02:42, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

MOS discussion regarding linked NFL seasons in player infoboxes

Please be aware of this discussion at MOS: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Years; reverts. This discussion grew out of a feature article review for an NBA basketball player Juwan Howard. Before jumping into the discussion, I suggest that you read the relevant MOS section, MOS:YEAR. As I'm sure you can see, this has the potential to significantly change the currently used year span conventions in the NFL player infoboxes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:17, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

DL, on a similar note, there's been a mass renaming of multi-season team articles, e.g. Wake Forest Demon Deacons football, 2000–2009Wake Forest Demon Deacons football, 2000–09; see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/College football articles by quality log. My impression was that for multi-season ranges in tables, infoboxws, and article names the end year is expressed in full four-digit form. This is the prevailing standard used in Template:Infobox college coach in addition to those NFL player infoboxes. Jweiss11 (talk) 13:26, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
JW, "2000−09" is an obviously correct interpretation of the MOS:YEAR subsection that deals with year spans. There is also a subsection that deals with single sports seasons that bridge two calendar years. The current MOS bone of contention is how to deal with team tenures in the context of coach and player infoboxes. Bottom line: should we use the xxxx−xx format or xxxx−xxxx format in the infoboxes when the years are linked season articles? I can argue it either way, but all of the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, association football and college coach infoboxes currently use the xxxx−xxxx convention.
If you want to participate in the current MOS discussion, I suggest you skip to the bottom of the thread, where Peter Coxhead provides a succinct and cogent description of the core issue and the potential solutions. A lot of what precedes Peter's summary is not helpful. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:55, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
DL, yes, the xxxx−xx appears to the correct interpretation of MOS:YEAR. However, the overwhelming standard is to use xxxx−xxxx even when there is no change in century during the span. This forms appear in thousands and thousands of instances across many different sports in infoboxes, navboxes, and record tables. I don't really see how linking season articles in the span changes anything per the form, although I think that is a poor practice for other reasons. At any rate, the massive lack of compliance with the MOS on this point seems to be quite a problem. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:47, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Yup. You got it. And in the back of my head, I have this nagging little thought: should we be linking the seasons to career tenure dates in any event? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:26, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
DL, on the season link issue, here's why I think they are a bad idea. Take the infobox on Bo Schembechler, for example. The last entry in his coaching career reads: "1969–1989 Michigan". Why should we link to link to 1969 Michigan Wolverines football team and 1989 Michigan Wolverines football team or 1969 college football season and 1989 NCAA Division I-A football season? Why are the end seasons of this tenure any more important than the 19 that come in between? Doesn't linking to them give them undue weight? That point aside, linking to any years dilutes the most important link, which is Michigan Wolverines football. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:39, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Timeline for Big Ten Conference's names?

I read the history on Big Ten Conference's article but I'm still confused as to what its official names were used at what points (or, its most popular common name). I've been populationg Category:Big Ten Conference men's basketball seasons but I want to make sure I'm using the historically accurate name for each season, a la Category:Pacific-12 Conference men's basketball seasons. Can someone please break down what name was used during the B10's existence and when? Jrcla2 (talk) 20:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

No easy answer. Most accounts prior to 1917 referred to the conference as the "Western Conference." See, e.g., here. Not sure if that was "official," but press accounts dating back to the 1890s and continuing into the 1910s most commonly referred to it that way. Even after 1917, there was simultaneous usage of both "Western Conference" and "Big Ten." See "Western Conference" and "Big Ten Conference". References to the conference as the "Big Nine Conference" prior to 1917 were not at all common, but did find some usage. See here. My best assessment would be to call it the "Western Conference" from 1896 to 1916, the "Big Ten Conference" from 1917 to 19465, the "Big Nine Conference" from 19476 to 1949 (after Chicago dropped out), and the "Big Ten Conference" from 1950 (when Michigan State joined) to the present. Cbl62 (talk) 22:52, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
thanks Cbl62. This should help me out quite a bit...looks like I'll even have to rename some that I've already made. Jrcla2 (talk) 03:09, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Template:Infobox college football player

I just converted Hameen Ali's infobox to the college football one (Template:Infobox college football player). I don't know how to update the default color schemes for the schools, but can someone make William & Mary's colors a green background and gold lettering? Right now it shows Ali's infobox colors as green font and silver background. Jrcla2 (talk) 17:35, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

The issue was that W&M did not have a color set in {{CollegePrimaryHex}} and had its primary color in {{CollegeSecondaryHex}}. Fixed. Billcasey905 (talk) 18:53, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Bill, thanks for taking care of that. On the issue of Template:Infobox college football player, looks like the heading "Bowl games" ought to be changed to something like "Postseason appearances" for greater flexibility. Hameen Ali is a good example why this would be needed. Any thoughts or objections? Jweiss11 (talk) 19:45, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Agree with the proposed infobox tweak as it pertains to all college football players, not just BCS (or historical equivalent) players. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Destrehan Fighting Wildcats football for deletion

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Jrcla2 (talk) 16:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

AfD's

See: here and here. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 17:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

CFD on college sports venues

See discussion here - Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 5#Category:US college sports venues. Current noms are for baseball, but likely to be expanded to other college sports as well. Billcasey905 (talk) 01:23, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

College names in athletes' infoboxes

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League#College_names_in_athletes.27_infoboxes. —Bagumba (talk) 17:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Tai Streets

Am I the only person watching Tai Streets? His page was blanked for over 24 hours.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:51, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

College Football Playoff

Discussion of article title and move here: Talk:NCAA Division I FBS playoffs. CrazyPaco (talk) 17:05, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Interim head coaches removed from coaching navboxes

FYI, User:2600:1015:B12E:6451:518B:FA34:E159:57D3 has been removing interim head coaches from coaching navboxes and making an array of other problematic edits. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:39, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of Category:National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductees

A recent category for discussion resulted in, IMO, the surprising deletion of Category:National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductees. This rationale for the deletion could impact the future standing of Category:College Football Hall of Fame inductees. The cfd was for the College basketball Hall of Fame was not brought to the attention of Talk:National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, Wikipedia:WikiProject Basketball, Wikipedia:WikiProject College Basketball, nor even Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports. I personally believe the cfd was not properly announced, per cfd instructions to place "a notice on the talk page of the most-closely related article" nor relevant Wikiprojects. Further I disagree with the interpretation of consensus and to reasoning to close the discussion by User:BrownHairedGirl. Any interest in bringing this to Wikipedia:Deletion review? CrazyPaco (talk) 15:39, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Interim Coaches

Interim coaches should not be included in the navigation boxes. They are not the official head coach. They are not under contract. I would like to see this changed. Interims should get credit for the games they coach, but they shouldn't be included with the official head coaches. Thank you for your consideration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.198.133.191 (talk) 03:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Interim head coaches are indeed the official head coach of the team, albeit with the "interim" qualifier. The are the official coach of record during their interim tenures. For complete detailing of the succession of a given program's head coaches, it surely makes sense to include interim head coaches in any list or navbox. Also, please do not delete other editor's comments in a discussion, as you just did. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:47, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Clarification--My take on it is this: Typically "interim coaches" that don't coach a game are not included, such as when Tom Osborne returned to Nebraska as Athletic Director and named himself temporary head coach until Bo Pelini was hired. Osborne's "second tenure" as a head coach is typically not included. Another example is George O'Leary at Notre Dame, who was hired and then fired before he could coach a game. However, presently missing from Notre Dame's head coach navbox is Kent Baer, who coached a game after Tyrone Willingham was fired. This needs to be corrected.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Paul, that clarification is not what's being discussed here. The IP editor above is suggesting that all interim coaches, even those who have been the official coach of record for one or more games, should be excluded from the navboxes. The reason that Kent Baer was missing for the Notre Dame navbox is that he was just removed three days ago by User:2600:1015:B10A:CA9C:B167:20AA:9DC1:950B. There have been a number of edits from accounts of the form "2600:..." that appear to all be the work of this same IP editor who commented above. I've reverted all of the deletions of interim coaches from navboxes that I can find. If anyone else finds any more, please revert them. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 14:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Well done!--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:03, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

There is now an WP:IRC channel for collaboration between editors in various sports WikiProjects. It's located at #wikipedia-en-sports connect. Thanks Secret account 03:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Question

This is a bit random, and would definitely be applicable to other college sports besides just football, but, since I figured this is probably the most watched project page, I thought I'd bring it up here. In the Template:Infobox NCAA football school template there is the parameter HeadCoachYear. Rather than manually putting in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ect. every year, I was wondering if there was some way one could put in the year the coach started the job and have the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ect. calculated automatically? Seems like it would save a whole lot of busy work and keep things more up to date. For example, on the Bucknell Bison football page, it lists Joe Susan as being in his "2nd year," while 2013 will actually be his 4th year on the job. Obviously, no one has bothered to change it for the past two years. Just a thought. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:05, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Roger, that. I'm not a template coder, but I heartily second what EJ suggests. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:17, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
We need a template Jedi for this...--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:25, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Paul & EJ, User:Frietjes is the best template coder I have found to date. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

VCU football?

Should this article even exist at all? Seems like 100% WP:CRYSTAL to me. Ejgreen77 (talk) 21:34, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Probably not. Every organization that satisfies the specific notability guidelines for an organization per WP:ORG and/or the general notability guidelines per WP:GNG might have a stand-alone Wikipedia article. Typically, however, college club teams do not generate enough in-depth coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources to satisfy the notability guidelines. This VCU football club team article is reminiscent of a single-purpose account that was creating stand-alone articles for college rugby club teams last year, and was inserting information about the same club teams into the parent university sports program articles, too. Given that these club teams are not sanctioned and do not represent the colleges and universities in an official capacity, a strict application of the notability guidelines would seem entirely appropriate. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:49, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

New project proposal

Please review the new project proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Wikipedia editor business card project. The hope is that this project will help Wikipedians gain press credentials and make it easier to get higher quality image files for free use.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:40, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Paul, interesting idea. Thanks for posting here. Also, congrats on your new adminship. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Categories for Discussion: Bowl game announcers

Greetings, sports fans. There is a CfD discussion occurring at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 May 29#College football announcers in which you may be interested in voicing your opinion. Don't be late. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:06, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Softball project notice

Hello, everyone. I've recently started the College softball task force, working to help expand Wikipedia's college softball coverage. I thought I'd post a notice around at some of the other college sports projects to give everyone a heads up. If you have an interest in the sport, please consider visiting the project. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 08:04, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Statistics for yearly team pages

There is a lot of variation in the statistics section of each team's yearly page. I think it's best if the format of this section is standardized. The formatting template is rarely used probably because it's too much info. The 2012 Alabama page just used prose to report the stats without any tables. The 2012 Michigan page used prose with a couple tables. There appears to be many other variations to the stats section in addition to those. Do y'all think the stats section should be standardized? If so, what do y'all think the standardized format should be? Thanks! -AllisonFoley (talk) 05:20, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

"Winningest" or "Most successful?"

Is there any consensus or discussion on whether an article should say "winningest" or "most successful" when referring to a coach with the most wins? A colleague and I are disagreeing at Florida State Seminoles football‎ and it would be nice to know if this is already a settled issue. I agree that "winningest" sounds funny and is relatively new to the U.S. English lexicon but it seems to be much more accurate than "most successful" because success is an ill-defined word with many possible meanings. ElKevbo (talk) 14:45, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

"Most successful" can't be right because success is subjective and it is not clear to a reader what criteria a person is using. I'm not a fan of "winningest" either, but it is slightly better. At least the reader knows we are basing it on wins. However, it is a bit "slangy" and therefore shouldn't be in formal prose. Also, it isn't clear whether we mean "highest win percentage" or "most total wins." Of course, a coach could be both, but sometimes those titles belong to different people. —Ute in DC (talk) 16:58, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
i agree that "most successful" is too vague to be useful. But "winningest" is just an awful word. (It even lacks the virtue of meaning the same thing as its logical counterpart "most winning".) I don't see anything wrong for the time being with simply spelling out with all the necessary words, the precise thing that we are trying to say. JohnInDC (talk) 18:33, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Louisiana–Lafayette

Just a heads up that the majority of 2006 Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team's schedule is incorrect, and for some reason 2007 Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team was made back in February as a redirect. Jrcla2 (talk) 12:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Good catch Jrcla2. I just corrected the 2006 article as it was indeed pure crap. Patriarca12 (talk) 14:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for cleaning it up. Should 2007 be made into a stand-alone article? I'm thinking yes. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:25, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree that 2007 should be expanded and now has been...even though I am not a Cajuns fan! Patriarca12 (talk) 01:17, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Help untangling the NFLPA Game?

Hello, I'm working on behalf of the NFLPA to make updates to articles of interest to them; given my financial COI, I'm avoiding any direct edits, and instead trying to find community consensus for changes. I'm currently trying to work on the article NFLPA Game, which is in a pretty sorry state, in large part because it seems to conflate three different events entirely. I've posted an explanation of the issues over at WP:NFL, asking for feedback on how best to untangle situation. If anyone here is familiar with the so-called "NFLPA Game", or would like to help figure out what to do here, please feel free to pop over and weigh in. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Welcome! We like (or at least I like) it when people with potential COI decclare themselves and ask for help. As a comment, I don't think anyone would mind if you posted suggestions on the talk page of the article and declared your potential COI there. Editors could then evaluate that information and make changes as consensus sees fit. Also you could work in your sandbox to make articles and then ask for peer review to move in to mainspace.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:23, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
After some discussion over at WP:NFL about how best to handle the NFLPA Game situation, I believe that we've come to a consensus. I've posted the details of this at Talk:NFLPA Game. If someone from this project has a chance to look at my recommendations, either providing feedback or implementing them, I'd appreciate it. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:17, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

New visual editor

If you would like to turn off the new Visual Editor for Wikipedia, select "preferences" --> "gadgets" and scroll down to "Editing" ... and then check the box for "Remove VisualEditor from the user interface" --Paul McDonald (talk) 04:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Call me old-fashioned but I think the new Visual Editor is even more difficult to use than source editing. Jrcla2 (talk) 12:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm still mad that they took the magneto adjuster out of Fords. So you can imagine how I feel about the visual editor! JohnInDC (talk) 13:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thought you might get a kick out of this...

http://memegenerator.co/Good-Guy-Wikipedia-Editor. Jrcla2 (talk) 04:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

1983 College Football All-America Team

Our 1983 College Football All-America Team article only includes 7 of the 9 selectors. The Pro Football Weekly and Football News lists are omitted. Lots of sources (e.g. [1], [2]) say John Kidd was a first team A-A that year, but he was not chosen by any of the 7 in our article. Any way to find a source with more detail.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

"Giovanni Strassini"

I noticed a new editor removing this name from several Ohio State-related pages, e.g. here, and because the edits lacked an edit summary I was set to revert them all as vandalism - except, Strassini - a putative All American, NFL draftee and TD pass receiver in a Rose Bowl - was redlinked. That struck me as odd so I nosed around a bit, not on Wikipedia, where the fellow seemed to crop up in all kinds of places, but rather at source sites like the Rose Bowl or the OSU Varsity Hall of Fame, and came up with absolutely nothing reliable on the guy. Interestingly, he does appear in other user-edited places like IMDB, but not in any actual, reliable, primary or secondary locations. The upshot is that I think he's a hoax; a very well papered one, but a hoax nevertheless, and I've removed him from every spot I can find him in the encyclopedia.

I haven't been able to find out who added him in a lot of the cases, but this one IP was busy at it back in 2010, see Special:Contributions/24.74.116.215.

Anyhow, that's what I did, and if I've overlooked something really obvious, please accept my apologies and feel free to revert me. If I'm right, then - oops! How embarrassing! That one got by a lot of us - JohnInDC (talk) 19:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Also note Special:Contributions/66.20.189.163, back in 2009, when User:JustAGal reverted most of it quickly. --bender235 (talk) 15:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
This IP editor too: Special:Contributions/70.60.106.190. Both these IPs are out of Charlotte, NC, where the OSU alumni group features a couple of photos of this person Strassini (or of someone claiming his name). It's amusing how thoroughly he's managed to insinuate himself. JohnInDC (talk) 19:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Google news archive and Google books also show nothing about Mr. Strassini. If it is a hoax (as it appears to be), it was an elaborate one. Ridding Wikipedia of such hoaxes is invaluable to the project's integrity. Good work, John. Cbl62 (talk) 22:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Game accounts of the 1976 Rose Bowl reveal only one TD by OSU, and it wasn't scored by Strassini. This is pretty clearly an elaborate hoax. Cbl62 (talk) 22:32, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Plus, there is of course historic footage of the game, showing that no TD pass occured at all, let alone to someone named Strassini. --bender235 (talk) 15:11, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
For the sake of completeness I watched the YouTube presentation of OSU's first possession and was unsurprised that OSU's putative All-American tight end did not even start the game. It is really pretty remarkable that someone would try to create a career for themselves where the facts are so easily checked. OSU All American, Rose Bowl, my goodness. He also said somewhere that he'd played semi-pro football for the Cleveland Lions, which is a lot harder to pin down one way or another. I guess the lesson is, don't be too ambitious if you're going to create a history for yourself. JohnInDC (talk) 15:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Goodness, someone in Charlotte is keeping a pretty close eye on his fictional career - this IP quickly began restoring the deletions. JohnInDC (talk) 02:09, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
The 162nd pick in the 1977 NFL Draft was Tom Schick of Maryland, not someone named Giovanni Strassini [3]. Plus, no player named "Strassini" ever played for the Cleveland Brown, or any other NFL team [4]. Everything points towards this being fake. --bender235 (talk) 15:26, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
PS: Like JohnInDC mentioned, there is this picture of a guy named Giovanni Strassini, allegedly an "All American 1976". Yet this official history of OSU Buckeyes football neither mentions Strassini as All-American (p. 142), nor as All-Big-Ten selection (p. 143). Also note page 130 on the 1976 Rose Bowl. --bender235 (talk) 15:43, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Found another Strassini mention at that same website: "Giovanni played Football & Baseball at OSU from 1973-77 & was an All-American in both sports in '76! He has earned a Rose Bowl Ring, Orange Bowl Ring, & some Gold Pants!! Mr. Strassini is also a member of the OSU Football All-Century Team!" Seems that he keeps getting better and better.--GrapedApe (talk) 23:15, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it's the same information that can be found on Facebook (Giova Stroh), Twitter (@gstrass89), and IMDb ("Giovanni Strassini"), all referring to each other. All fake. It is just as elaborate as it is pathetic. --bender235 (talk) 15:03, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Its amazing how far this hoax went. Look at this picture. Somehow, he managed to duplicate a 1974 Rose Bowl ring with his name on it. It is obviously fake, since No. 89 was actually Leonard Willis' number. Yet, this continues to baffle me. --bender235 (talk) 15:38, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Has anyone thought about pinging the OSU Sports Information Department and the Charlotte Buckeyes Club? I am sure that they would be interested to hear that someone is sullying the reputation of Ohio State through this apparently ongoing hoax. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:09, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
I've thought about it, yeah, but haven't talked myself into it yet. I am sort of weighing the plusses of clearing the record against the minuses of throwing a wrench into what already strikes me as a pathetic situation. I guess I do agree that OSU has an interest in keeping its public face free of charlatans and maybe finally that's the thing to tip in favor of a note. (To be clear in either case, I'm neither volunteering for it or implying that it's a bad idea - so anyone that might want to do that, please go ahead!) JohnInDC (talk) 16:22, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
I just emailed the OSU athletic department communications director and in-house lawyer, as well as the president of the Charlotte Buckeyes Club, with a brief explanation and a link to this page. Curious to see if either will do anything. Given the previous Strassini photo on the Charlotte alumni club's website, it seems apparent that someone affiliated with the Charlotte group is in on the joke. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:55, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
I gave IMDb a note. Looks like they taken this fraud information down now. --bender235 (talk) 07:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
By the way, the Ohio State Alumni Association might welcome a note, too. --bender235 (talk) 07:23, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I'd been thinking they'd been taken in too, but maybe locally it's just something they do for a laugh. Still I dunno. OSU alums don't like people messing with their icons! And too at one point I came across a bowling pin that was signed by Strassini, displayed in a glass cabinet next to one by Archie Griffin (him, I've heard of) - it looked like they were proud of it. In any event thanks for taking that step. JohnInDC (talk) 17:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Possible. Like the George P. Burdell hoax, but, you know, lamer.--GrapedApe (talk) 23:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm an Atlanta resident, but not a Georgia Tech alumnus. Thank you -- I just learned something about Atlanta which I did not know before you made the reference to "George P. Brudell." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:20, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Great detective work--GrapedApe (talk) 03:49, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. The latest round (he's not going quietly into the night) has him adding "Giova Stroh", which appears from a Google search to be the Facebook name for the same person. Giova Stroh is equally unknown to the Buckeyes, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, and like Giovanni Strassini is plainly a hoax as well. JohnInDC (talk) 11:11, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Judging by what my (very brief) Googling has turned up on these names, the hoax seems to be a real-life one. At least, someone by these names is going around claiming to be a former Buckeye All-American tight end and all the rest - with Wikipedia evidently intended to add credence to the claim. Fascinating. JohnInDC (talk) 12:07, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Guys, the underlying problem is that many of these articles are either under-sourced or not sourced at all. If every factoid in a football season article, or every person in a list of college athletes, were sourced and footnoted to a reliable reference per WP:V and WP:RS, then most of these sorts of hoaxes could be discouraged or easily detected. Lists of alumni and/or college athletes that do not include references (preferably online references) for every listed person practically invite these kinds of hoaxes, insertion of intentionally false information, and other kinds of vandalism. When every listed athlete is sourced and footnoted, it strongly discourages such activity.

I learned from my experience in cleaning up several lists of Florida Gators athletes (created before I became active on Wikipedia in 2009) what magnets they can be for various nefarious activities. In one case, List of University of Florida Olympians, I found a half dozen hoax entries of purported Florida alumni who had competed in the Olympics. Hoaxsters only do what they can get away with, and unfortunately many largely unmonitored areas of Wikipedia give them ample opportunity. Properly sourcing these lists can be a massive undertaking, however -- see, e.g., List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members -- a task for which few editors have the time. In my ideal world, editors would not be allowed to create these lists without properly sourcing them in the first place. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:37, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Great find, JohnInDC. Kudos to you! I came across a couple of fake biographies, too, over the years. The lastest I remember was the case of the mysterious Bhaskar Ganti. --bender235 (talk) 15:22, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - but credit too to this new user Blairfitness, who was the first to recognize that Giovanni Strassini didn't belong! (And I suspect we haven't seen the last of this fellow - he seems to have a good bit invested in his faux biography.) JohnInDC (talk) 15:40, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
For what it's worth, here are 15 pages I've identified as victim to these edits -
1976 College Baseball All-America Team
1976 College Football All-America Team
Ohio State Football All-Century Team
1977 Cleveland Browns season
Template:1976 College Baseball All-Americans
Ohio State Buckeyes baseball
Ohio State Buckeyes football
1977 NFL Draft
1976 Rose Bowl
1976 Ohio State Buckeyes football team
1975 Ohio State Buckeyes football team
1974 Ohio State Buckeyes football team
1973 Ohio State Buckeyes football team
Ohio State Varsity O Hall of Fame
List of Ohio State University people
Also, earlier today I filed a report at SSI concerning additional edits last night - evidently they were too old to be blocked at AIV so I reported them there. Here's that link in case this continues and other IPs need to be reported. JohnInDC (talk) 19:58, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Cleaning up: Bender, you and I were the only ones other than the IP to edit the IP's Talk page here. While his selective deletion of material was objectionable, it probably would have been fine for him to empty the page altogether. That discussion wasn't very productive to begin with and it has pretty much outlived its usefulness now. Unless you object, I propose to blank it and maybe lay this thing to rest. JohnInDC (talk) 11:05, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, go ahead. --bender235 (talk) 13:38, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 13:43, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
To sum it up: after all, this pretty much blew up in Strassini's face. He got what he deserved. --bender235 (talk) 14:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Whoah! Any chance that this thread played a role in blowing the lid off this thing?--GrapedApe (talk) 22:10, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, obviously it did. I brougtht the information from here to BuckeyePlanet. And from there, it took off. --bender235 (talk) 22:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Awesome. (I didn't know if you were JustinAgs there or not). This should be in the next Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. --GrapedApe (talk) 22:34, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's all over the place now and I bet that soon it'll be on more major outlets. There may even come a point soon where we'll have to be evaluating the propriety of a new Giovanni Strassini page. Blue linked at last! (Though IMHO if the episode just comes and goes, it won't be enough to support an article. See e.g. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Gregoire_Akcelrod.) JohnInDC (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
hahaha, this is great. Excellent detective work gentlemen :) — X96lee15 (talk) 14:59, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

He's back...kind of

Looks like our friend hasn't given up the fight yet. As of June 13 he was still making threats: User talk:ChrisGualtieri/Archive 2#SEPERATE ISSUE BUT ONLY PLACE I CAN POST IT. Should anything be done? Jrcla2 (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Huh. It strikes me that that kind of persistence is precisely the kind of quality that makes a good tight end. But digressions aside, my view is that we should wait a bit and see if this becomes really active again. If Chris doesn't respond, and the IP doesn't embark on a series of irresponsible or threatening edits, then a block at this point wouldn't make much difference and would probably only throw gasoline on the fire. We'll know soon enough if he's just getting warmed up, in which case seeking a block (for legal threats if nothing else) would be appropriate. It's been, what, almost two weeks and Chris has edited a lot and hasn't followed up, so perhaps this will just go away. Here's hoping. JohnInDC (talk) 15:53, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast! GrapedApe, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You should probably find yourself a safe house or a relative close by. Lay low for a while, because you're probably wanted by the FBI for illegal editing. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:04, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

2006-07BowlChallengeCup.jpg

image:2006-07BowlChallengeCup.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 12:57, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Unnecessary ban on new editor

Looks like we lost a fledgling college sports editor to an unnecessary ban; see: User talk:West Coast Sports. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

100% agree. He followed the procedure to request a new username and he still has to answer those three somewhat arbitrary questions? It didn't look like any of his edits (I didn't look at them all though) were spamming for any websites. — X96lee15 (talk) 17:12, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, none of those diffs seemed spammy. And I'm not even sure that organization the account is supposed to be spamming for. Anyone going to appeal on this guy's behalf? I'll add my 2 cents.--GrapedApe (talk) 23:17, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to join a discussion

Through this way, I inform there is a discussion at WT:Disambiguation about partially disambiguated titles, known as "PDABs". This subguide of WP:D affects articles in this WikiProject, some examples can be found at WP:NCSP. There you can give ideas or thoughts about what to do with this guideline. Note this discussion is not to modify any aspect of NCSP. Thanks. Tbhotch. Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 01:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed category renaming

I just nominated Category:Lists of college bowl games to be renamed. Thoughts on the matter can be expressed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 July 26#Category:Lists of college bowl games. Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:31, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect list of Linebackers for South Dakota Coyotes, 2011

The list of linebackers for the 2011 South Dakota Coyotes Football Team is identical to the comparable list for the 2011 Oregon Ducks Football Team. I believe that the listed names belong to UO, not USD. I don't know where to get the 2011 USD list, or I would fix it. Bro rick (talk) 23:34, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

you could start by just deleting the USD list if it's incorrect, the correct information doesn't necessarily have to be present --96.32.138.125 (talk) 14:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

New user moving rivalry game articles

A new user, AL2896, has been going around moving and renaming a whole bunch of college football rivalry game articles lately. I'm not really an expert on any of the programs whose articles he's been moving thus far, but it seems to me that at least a few of these moves may have been unnecessary. Thoughts? Ejgreen77 (talk) 18:15, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I didn't notice it before, but it also looks like he's been creating some duplicate articles as well. For example, his newly created article, Indiana–Purdue football rivalry, looks like a duplicate of Old Oaken Bucket. Ejgreen77 (talk) 04:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I tagged Indiana–Purdue football rivalry for deletion since it's a duplicate of Old Oaken Bucket, though I do think the title "Indiana–Purdue football rivalry" would be more accurate since Old Oaken Bucket covers the entire football rivalry, even before the bucket was contested. That would probably be true for most of the rivalry trophy articles. --JonRidinger (talk) 05:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

rankings before the game

Is their any standard for when a teams rank should be included in the schedule table? I personally don't think it should be included until the week of the game because with new rankings coming out every week the rank of a team can change all the time and I think its pointless to say a team is ranked something when it can change. Example: on Western Michigan's page the user who makes the most edits to the page says Northwestern is ranked 22 even though that game is not until the third week of the season. I removed it because the rankings will change twice before then so to say they are ranked 22 for that game is inaccurate. The user says he will change it every week but isn't that where confusion can come in? What if someone added all the rankings to an SEC teams page for the rankings one week then never updated them when the new polls come out? (I the SEC as an example because they always have the most ranked teams) Isn't it better just to wait for the accurate ranking a team will have for that week before including it? Any thoughts? Bsuorangecrush (talk) 18:15, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm the user referenced above. IMO the future ranking provides a more useful information to the reader of the page. That's also the way it's done on Yahoo. As far as I can tell, there isn't a standard on what the community agrees on. The schedule entry documentation does not say one way or another (Template:CFB Schedule Entry/doc). In the past (perhaps not on the seasons or teams Bgsuorangecrush has watched), the schedule has been updated with future team rankings. There is no consensus one way or another as far as I can tell. Actually, I don't think a standard needs to exist at all. There's no issue with having different team articles use a different "standard" for future team rankings. — X96lee15 (talk) 18:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
sites like yahoo or espn just associate the ranking with the team name and then it automatically shows up that way on their opponents schedules. They don't have to add the ranking to every teams opponents like we have to so that's a moot argument. There is also no consencus on which poll should be used. Some pages use ap (which is a horrible poll) others use coaches (which is actually meaningful because its used in the BCS). Since different polls are used it can cause confusion when it comes to adding rankings. And northwestern being ranked 22 now means absolutly nothing when it comes to them playing western Michigan. Western Michigan isn't playing #22 northwestern, they are playing northwestern who may or may not be ranked by the time the game comes so their current ranking means nothing. And I think it should be standard for all teams. I have been editing pages for over 5 years and future rankings have always been removed because of it being inaccurate. I think it is ludacrius to have one page do something that the other 119 pages are not. Bsuorangecrush (talk) 19:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
The AP Poll is not horrible. Pretty much all media outlets use the AP Poll when referencing a team's ranking even after BCS rankings are released, and I think that should be the standard that we use on Wikipedia. The AP Poll is definitely the consensus poll used by everybody until the BCS rankings are released. The AP Poll is actually voted on by people who watch the games and don't have a vested interest in the rankings. Very few media outlets ever reference the Coaches Poll. The coaches don't watch all the teams play, and many coaches have their sports information director fill out the poll for them. Often times the Coaches Poll produces some poor rankings. The only significance of the Coaches Poll is that it is part of the BCS formula. -AllisonFoley (talk) 05:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
That is not what we are talking about here. I only brought it up to show that there is no standard among all the FBS pages thus we should not include a teams ranking until the week of the game due to the fact that the rankings could get mixed up from poll to poll. But no, the AP is terrible. Its because of them we have so many subpar SEC teams ranked so high all the time. They push their own agenda way more then coaches do. The AP think they run college football and that's a major problem. Bsuorangecrush (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Bsuorangecrush here. The standard is to include rankings published the week heading into each game. That means for future games it doesn't really make sense to post rankings before the week of because we don't have that information yet. Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, our posture should be one oriented toward long-term, stable reporting of history, not projections about the future. And since we are talking about a standardized, template-based structure here, we absolutely should have a universal rule that is consistent not only across all the FBS, teams, but also across other levels of college football and other college sports like basketball and baseball as well. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:46, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion you're encouraged to participate in

Over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College Basketball#Should these schools have their naming conventions updated? I've begun a discussion that directly pertains to this WikiProject and you are encouraged to weigh in. Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:56, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Input on essay

In several AFDs lately, I've spotted what I interpret as over-interpretation of the WP:ROUTINE guideline. It may even be abusive interpretation. As a basic response, I've written up an essay at Wikipedia:What is and is not routine coverage and would appreciate review and contribution.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:04, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Request for input: Standard on recording vacated wins

User Zaqwert has twice changed the Template:2009 ACC football standings page to show UNC as having an 8-5 record and an ACC record of 4-4. He never provides an edit summary, though, and never seems to want to talk about the changes, so I've reverted the edits twice. The 2009 UNC team page shows a record of 0-5 and 0-4 in the ACC, so it seems that the "standard" is being followed in the template by listing their record as such, as well. I don't really know that there is a standard, though, so I'd appreciate any thoughts y'all have on the question. -Jhortman (talk) 20:16, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

See if these links are helpful:
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_College_football/Archive_9#Dealing_with_vacated_awards.2C_records_and_wins
Wikipedia:WikiProject_College_football/Vacated_victories (see the Talk page there too)
I've seen some pretty puzzling edits by Zaqwert too and suggest that editors mention their concerns on his Talk page. Perhaps he can be brought to heel, and if not, then at least we have a record of warnings. JohnInDC (talk) 20:24, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, those links are very helpful. -Jhortman (talk) 20:40, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

FYI – I've opened up a deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 August 15#College sports retired numbers for retired college jersey navboxes and categories. Some are for basketball and some are for football. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:29, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

oldestlivingprofootball.com

Please see the discussion I have opened here at WikiProject National Football League pertaining to the addition of external links to oldestlivingprofootball.com on a number biography articles for American football players. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:51, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Need help with final resolution on NFLPA Game article

In May I posted here asking for help untangling the situation with the article currently titled NFLPA Game. The problem, as I explained then, is that the article has two separate games confused. Having discussed the issue on the article's Talk page with User:Arxiloxos and User:Dale_Arnett, I've developed separate drafts for a standalone article about each game. (Once that's done, NFLPA Game itself should either redirect to the game with current sponsorship, or disambig the two; after some consideration, I prefer the former option). My drafts for each are as follows:

As of two weeks ago, it seemed that we had arrived at consensus on the two replacement drafts, however since then Arxiloxos and Dale have either been away from Wikipedia or busy on other projects. I would move these live myself but for the fact that I am a consultant to the NFLPA and do not wish to run afoul of COI guidelines nor Jimbo's stated opinion that "paid advocates" should never edit articles directly. Would an editor here be willing to review the articles and take them live, if they agree they are in good shape to do so? Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:14, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

This has been  Done. 17:20, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Articles for creation: Michigan–Notre Dame games

There are two articles for creation pending for the 2011 and upcoming 2013 Michigan–Notre Dame games: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Under the Lights at the Big House, Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Under the Lights II. I don't think either of these are significant enough to warrant stand-alone articles, and certainly not the 2013 game, which hasn't happened yet. I'm not very familiar with the article for creation process, but these should probably be nipped in the bud as soon as possible. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:56, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I think I disagreed with the deletion of the 2011 game when it came up the first time. It was the first game under the lights at the Big House. I don't think 2013 is such a good idea though.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:56, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
None of those seem to be notable enough to warrant a separate article. I'd put that info here: Michigan–Notre Dame football rivalry--GrapedApe (talk) 13:20, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
These two were moved into the mainspace yesterday. I've AfD'd both of them. Please comment here and here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Assistant coaches of questionable notability

Articles for four assistant coaches at Wisconsin were created by the same editor within a few days this May: Chad Kauha'aha'a, Bill Busch, Matt Canada, and Ben Strickland. Notability seems questionable on all four. AfD? Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:17, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

There's no presumed notability for assistant coaches, so each would have to be assessed individually to determine whether WP:GNG is satisfied. Based on past experience, offensive and defensive coordinators at top tier programs (like Wisconsin) are pretty likely to pass. Cbl62 (talk) 02:21, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Of the four, only Canada has been a coordinator. If anyone wants to take a closer look at these, that would be helpful. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 02:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Afd'd: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ben Strickland Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bill Busch (2nd nomination) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chad Kauha'aha'a Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matt Canada.--GrapedApe (talk) 04:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
GrapedApe, thanks for taking care of that. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Multi-column vs. one-column series results table arrangement

Based on a disagreement at Ole Miss–Vanderbilt football rivalry, I've opened a discussion on the talk page about whether a multi-column (in this case, 3-column) or a single-column arrangement is best for displaying series results. Since there are multiple systems in use on the different rivalry pages out there, this hopefully will help address what should be a more standard layout. Your input is appreciated. -Jhortman (talk) 15:25, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Retired jersey navboxes

In a recent TfD, all existing navboxes for college football and basketball retired jerseys were designated for deletion, "or rather redirect to the team navigational boxes in case there is consensus to merge the list of retired numbers with the navbox in the future." There has already been some chatter about this subject on user talk pages that I've noted on my watchlist. I think it's best to bring this issue up again here to take a measure and see if there is a consensus. I have favored separate, dedicated navboxes for retired jerseys. At least two other editors seem to favor integrating them into the team navboxes. If we do that, I want to make sure everyone understands the implications. Let's assume we add retired jersey numbers to Template:Michigan Wolverines football navbox. Then do we transclude that template on Desmond Howard? If we do, where does it go? Inside the "championships, awards, and honors" grouping? Let's also take a look at analogous NFL example: Ernie Davis. You can see there that in the footer, we have both Template:Cleveland Browns and Template:Browns Retired Numbers. This seems less than ideal. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:04, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

In the interest of trying to keep this (relatively) short and sweet, I will just say that in the whole "CrazyPaco vs. Jweiss" navbox feud, I tend to be more on the Jweiss side on this one. I think that the navbox standardization, at least across all of Division I football, is a good thing, and that all of the college football navboxes should have the same format and the same general look and feel to them, just like all of the NFL navboxes have the same look and feel to them, MLB navboxes, ect. Now, as to whether that format could/should be changed & improved, I will say that there have been several interesting ideas that have floated around here in the past, i.e. separating out the "Bowls" and the "Rivalries" into separate sections, making the "Seasons" into a collapsable section, ect. However, if such changes are implemented, they should be implemented uniformly across all of the entire Category:American college football team navigational boxes, not just randomly applied to one particular team. I also think that including links to individual players and coaches in team navboxes is generally a bad idea, and should be avoided. I also question exactly why we need to have retired numbers linked to individual player articles in navboxes, at all. They can, and most definitely should, be linked to in a "Retired numbers" section of the main team page (see Kent State Golden Flashes football#Retired_numbers for an example of this) and there could also possibly be a "Retired numbers" link under the "People" section of the team navbox that would take users directly to that section. The fact that the player's number has been retired by the school should also be included in the "Career highlights and awards" sections of the individual player biography infoboxes (also with a link back the the retired number section of their team's page). As has been pointed out above, the vast majority of players in question for this will already have many, many navboxes cluttering the bottom of their page. Do we really need to add one more generic team navbox to the list? Ejgreen77 (talk) 05:53, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
The issue isn't having a similar look and feel; that is desirable. It is about having the flexibility for variability in the inclusion of topics and articles that best guide a reader to the most pertinent information for a comprehensive understanding of a particular college football program, all of which are unique in their own way, along with adhering to WP:NAV, which the current nav templates do not do. Template:Dallas Cowboys, Template Pittsburgh Steelers and Template:Houston Texans are not the same, nor should they be. Same with Template:Washington Nationals and Template:New York Yankees. Rigid, inflexible enforcement of nav template content, both what is to be included and excluded, can inappropriately retard navigation and thus understanding for a Wikipedia user, which is why such rigidity is not seen anywhere else, not should it be. CrazyPaco (talk) 10:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
If you're going to include retired numbers, then why not include Conference Championships, Divisional Championships, Conference Player of the Year, Rings of Honor, All Americans, Heisman winners, other award winners (Doak Walker, Butkus, ect.), members of the College Football Hall of Fame, and the ever ubiquitous "Legends?" The question is where exactly do we draw the line, and, more importantly, why? Based on the prior TfD of the retired number navboxes, it wouldn't really surprise me to see someone come along someday and TfD the entire class of bowl game and head coaching navboxes and propose merging them into the main team template, too. IMHO, having one gigantic, ugly, unwieldily team template is not a good thing, and certainly is not something that should be approached lightly or without attempting some foresight into the potential real-world issues that may arise from it. Ejgreen77 (talk) 05:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
It is not necessarily appropriate for this Wikiproject to "draw the line". The purpose of a Wikiproject is to "help coordinate and organize the group's efforts at creating and improving articles". Per WP:PROJ, "WikiProjects are not rule-making organizations. WikiProjects have no special rights or privileges compared to other editors and may not impose their preferences on articles." Wikiprojects do not own articles or templates. This is something that this project seems to have lost sight of. Guideline and basic templates are fine for Wikiprojects to suggest and implement, but well reasoned inclusion of information in articles or templates, whether award winners or conference champions, may certainly be warranted based on the consensus of editors working within that specific topic of that team, especially if it is a reflection of expert knowledge of the topic per WP:TPA. For some cfb programs, a conference championship is much more meaningful than it is for another team with many national championships, and thus the conference championships for, say Indiana, are likely to be much more pertinent to the topic of Hoosier football than any individual conference championship team would be for Ohio State. There is no reason, therefore, to retard appropriate navigation to a related article on what would likely be one of Indiana's most celebrated teams simply because of an unrealistic denial of the inherent disparities between the 100s of college football teams that exist. This Wikiproject should guide the template in style and content inclusion, but ultimate decisions on what are the most relevant articles to navigate to from any particular team article are appropriately done at the individual team template level itself. The purpose of navigation templates, per WP:NAV is to "facilitate navigation between [related] articles". Nowhere does it mention nav templates as a mechanism to rigidly standardize the delivery of information across 100s of different related but independent topics. Nowhere is such rigidity elsewhere implemented. This is not a suggesting that consensus and well reasoned arguments shouldn't be used when adding links to nav templates any less than it would be for adding information to the team's articles, but that existing guidelines on editing navigation templates be followed and attempts at implementing Wikiproject policy or ownership of these templates, that also ignores topic variety and traditional consensus building at individual templates level, be rightfully rejected. Damaging the navigation between related articles that would be useful for a readers understanding of a topic is not trumped by some notion of standardization anywhere on wikipedia. Likewise, ease of implementation is not a sufficient reason to deny otherwise superior navigation of related articles for a reader. Such reasons are troubling, and IMO, undermine the primary purpose of Wikipedia. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:41, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
Cbl62, if that's the case, can you please answer the questions I posed above regarding Desmond Howard? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 15:36, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't have a strong view on Desmond Howard in particular, but by having retired numbers merged into the team template, we avoid the proliferation of templates that you worry about in the Ernie Davis example. Can you clarify your position? Do you think that retired numbers should appear in neither the team template nor in a separate "retired numbers" template? If so, and in light of NFL, MBL, NBA, and NHL protocols, isn't that inconsistent with the "need for standardization" that you advocate? Cbl62 (talk) 15:56, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Cbl62, the NFL, NBA, MLB team navboxes are very messy and need work. I would love to see a more global standardization that brings all American sports in concert, not just in the navbox department. I think that if retired numbers need a navbox, they should have their own separate navbox. My second choice would be them not navboxed at all. Third choice would be the team navbox only, although that presents problems I aim to bring to light with my questions about Howard. The worst choice is what we see at Ernie Davis, retired numbers in two navboxes. That shows that the NFL navboxes have not been subjected to sufficient thought and revision. Over in the NBA, I think that Template:Los Angeles Lakers, particularly the culture and lore section, is a minor disaster, and has terrible redundancy with the retired number section there. Merging the retired numbers into the team navbox does not avoid the proliferation of of navboxes seen at Ernie Davis. This redundancy exists (and existed prior to the TfD) no where in the college football domain on Wikipedia. Yes, it would be an improvement in some sense from the flawed status quo in the NFL domain, but not in college football. My point about Howard is that if we add retired numbers to the college team navboxes, where does the team navbox go on the Howard article? The old retired number navbox fit nicely inside the the "championships, awards, and honors" collapse grouping. But again, where does the team navbox go? Can you answer that? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:25, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm fine with whatever you decide on Desmond Howard navbox order. My reason for commenting is the larger issue of whether retired numbers belong on separate templates, team templates, or no templates. I'd go with them being on team templates which appears to be the overwhelming consensus across multiple sports. Cbl62 (talk) 05:38, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm asking because I don't know where you the navbox should go on the Howard article. I don't see a good place for it. It's doesn't quite make sense inside the collapsed grouping, and it's jarring and given undo weight outside. If you want to advocate for it being on the article, I'd like you to specify exactly where it should go. What you describe as "overwhelming consensus" is actually fragmented, coincidentally parallel evolution rife with problems that I have described and more. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:51, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm not advocating anything about D. Howard. Put it first, last, 3rd from last, any of those ok by me. Cbl62 (talk) 06:21, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Cbl62, your insistence on refusing to answer the questions I posed is disappointing and uncooperative, and indicates to me that you haven't thought through your position. Jweiss11 (talk) 13:06, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
He answered more than adequately. WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. Obsession with minutia should not hold back the project. The college football retired navboxes have already been deleted by tfd and redirected to the team navboxes. The place for discussion about where the team navbox should be placed is at the Desmond Howard article itself, not here. CrazyPaco (talk) 03:34, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
CrazyPaco, Cbl62 did not answer the question in any sufficient way, and your defense of him is intellectually dishonest, as is your reference about bureaucracy given that your are are a staunch states-rights wiki-bureaucrat who makes frequent narrow allusions to Wikipedia policies. The place for this discussion is here, not at Desmond Howard, because this is not a Desmond Howard-specific issue. Howard is representative of hundreds of articles that may encounter the same question, that is how do we countenance team navboxes bio articles given the prevalent "championships, awards, and honors" collpased groupings? Jweiss11 (talk) 21:32, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
Not really exactly pertinent to this discussion, but just a testament to some of the poor design and thought process of the navboxes used by other sports. I was looking at some of the MLB templates today, and I noticed that Jackie Robinson's #42 seems to appear as a "Retired number" in all of them (at least it did in the two I was looking at, Template:St. Louis Cardinals, and Template:Chicago White Sox). Now, clearly Robinson had nothing to do with either the Cardinals or the White Sox (or any other MLB team besides the Dodgers), so this presents a bit of a dilemma: do we put all 30 MLB team templates at the bottom of the Jackie Robinson page, or do we only put the Dodgers template there, and leave 29 other templates dead-ending at Jackie Robinson? In addition, when I went to the Robinson page, I noticed that, in addition to the standard problem of both Template:Los Angeles Dodgers and Template:Los Angeles Dodgers retired numbers appearing at the bottom of the page, Template:Los Angeles Dodgers actually links to Robinson twice, under both "Hall of Fame Members" and "Retired Numbers." Again, the whole thing just reeks of poor design and a complete lack of thought process, so I'm not really sure that this type of thing is something that we want to be holding up as an example for all others to use. Ejgreen77 (talk) 16:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
Ejgreen77, thank for adding that. I do think this is all rather pertinent to the discussion. 04:29, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
Jackie Robinson's unique situation is not pertinent at all, since there is no similar situation in college football or any other sport. It is an issue for WP:MLB, that I do agree with. CrazyPaco (talk) 03:34, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
There are no direct parallels in college football, no. But, given that "Everyone else is doing it" (MLB, NFL, ect.) seems to be one of the main arguments for including the retired numbers, I thought it was worth pointing out how poorly the MLB templates dealt with the issue. Just seemed like no one over there had even thought about any of the potential problems that might arise from it. Also, completely off-topic here, but Wayne Gretzky's #99 is not included in all of the NHL templates. As a matter of fact, some of the NHL templates have retired numbers included as a section in them, while others do not. Ejgreen77 (talk) 06:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
No, the main argument is that their inclusion aids in the navigation between related articles of a related topic, per WP:NAV. That is the primary question. Are the articles related insomuch that facilitated navigation via wikilinks added to the teams templates aids in the understanding of the topic of those teams for a reader? That is the clear consensus for every sports team template that includes links to that particular team's most honored and celebrated individuals, or in other words, the vast majority of all other sports teams' nav templates. Perceived flaws in how that is implemented in other templates, or specifically, a perceived flaw in the implementation of linking to one article in a subset of baseball templates that has no possible corollary in college football, serves no purpose in this discussion other to confound the primary question. Similarly, indecision over where or how to neatly incorporate a nav template in one related article as a matter to withhold the insertion of dozens of useful navigational links into multiple templates is merely an exercise in wiki bureaucracy. They are arguments for throwing the baby out with the bathwater and violate the spirit of WP:IMPERFECT. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:41, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
CrazyPaco, the reason this is relevant is that, as Ejgreen77 explained, the MLB team navboxes are addled by "poor design" and "lack of thought", therefore they are not the exemplar that you and others suggest they are. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:43, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Support including retired jerseys in team template per Clb62. Appropriateness on inclusion can also be determined on a team-by-team, topic-by-topic basis as it is for every other template navbox. CrazyPaco (talk) 10:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

AfD: Northwestern–Notre Dame football rivalry

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Northwestern–Notre Dame football rivalry. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 06:19, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randall Cunningham II

No one is commenting at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Randall Cunningham II. Since his father is a two-time All-American, I thought some people here might care to take a look.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:30, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Bo Pelini audio tape controversy

Can a few editors, especially those experienced with BLPs, please stop by Bo Pelini to ensure the new "audio tape controversy" is being handled appropriately? I have some concerns that I've laid out in Talk and it would be wonderful to have additional input. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 02:11, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

AP or Coaches poll for current team articles

I'm new to editting/updating College football articles but do we use one poll over the other if the AP/Coaches polls differ on teams? Or maybe the highest of the two if they differ? This edit summary is why I ask. Thank you, — -dainomite   07:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

There has never been a standard for which poll to use. It's always best to look at the bottom of the schedule table before you make any updates to the rankings. But the poll should stay listed with whatever poll the page started with. Personally, I think the AP should not be used. I never win that argument but the AP has absolutely nothing to do with the BCS. The coaches poll does, that's why I believe it to be the more meaningful poll. The AP wants to control college football but doesn't even want to be part of the formula used to determine its champion, thus I believe they are the inferior poll. Bsuorangecrush (talk) 15:18, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
The two major polls of rough equivalence in terms of notability and importance. I'm hard-pressed to find a reason why one should be favored over the other. The best standard would suggest that both should be used. I don't agree with Bsuorangecrush's argument that because the AP poll has nothing to do with the BCS that it is less meaningful. After all, the 2003 USC Trojans football team is generally recognized as a national champion by virtue of finishing atop the AP Poll even though they didn't play in the BCS title game that season. Plus, the BCS is done after this year anyway. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
Bear in mind that the discussion of AP/Coachs' poll applies to Div I FBS. There are other levels that have different polls by name. For example, NAIA uses a Coaches Poll only. I'm not as familiar with Div II and Div III, or Div I FCS. But I'd say that's one of the reasons that we haven't come up with a "standard" poll. Another reason is that different polls have been used over time. If my memory serves, the UPI poll is an example of a poll that was prominent back in the 70's but doesn't exist today.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:05, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Missouri Valley Football Conference map

South Dakota is missing. A link to the map. DandyDan2007 (talk) 05:18, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Peer review

I've been smoothing and tweaking the College Football Playoff article for awhile now, and I think it's gotten to be in pretty decent shape. Hopefully not too CRYSTAL. I was hoping somebody could give me some feedback. I'd like to try to get it to GA or even FA this year, perhaps, if that's possible. (It's currently rated Start class.) I've never done this before, so I'm sort of unsure of the next steps for this. Thanks for any help! Woodshed (talk) 21:28, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Cowboys Stadium/AT&T Stadium

There is a discussion at Talk:Cowboys Stadium#Requested move about the name of that article that may be of interest to members of this group. --JonRidinger (talk) 07:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Start of a checklist page

Hey gang, I've put together a start on a "checklist page" at Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Current college football article checklists. This will allow active editors to "sign up" and maintain the current articles in Wikipedia such as 2013 season, 2013 polls, etc. Please take a look and comment. Improve if you have a better idea!--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:16, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello; I have recently nominated an article tagged by this project, 2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game, for featured article. If anyone is interested in providing an unbiased review, please feel free to do so on the review page. Thanks! Toa Nidhiki05 21:39, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

editing of CollegePrimaryStyle hex values?

Where is the escalation process for {{CollegePrimaryStyle| changes located?

The various navboxes of University of Washington athletics:

are styled via CollegePrimaryStyle, like:
32127A     
CFB53B     

Rather than the style guide values:
363c74     
e8d3a2     

Thank you UW Dawgs (talk) 05:30, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Not really a "process". I updated the template as specified by your link.»NMajdan·talk 18:21, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:COLOR compliance

This has a bit of history, but I'll be brief. First of all, I'm greatly interested in color compliance (or, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines compliance), since I think it's the least I can do. Second, I happened to run into some edits by a sock yesterday (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DragoLink08/Archive), and realized that they reverted an earlier edit of mine at Iron Bowl, and I redid it, here.

Now, some of you may not like my changing that color scheme, but the purpose of the edit is simple: to make it legible. And I see now, clicking around and following some Drago-related links, that these color schemes (I removed another one here) appear to be enshrined by the project: navboxes have templates that automatically stick in the "right" team colors. For Notre Dame, that's gold on blue, "sort of" compliant. (I use this tool.) For LSU, it's gold on purple: illegible. Look at the Kansas-K State rivalry game--not only is it ugly, but it's also pretty much illegible. (I put all these things up on an LCD projector in class today: the students were unable to make out the text. And they're not even colorblind, AFAIK.) A simple solution that works for the ones I looked at is to turn the text color white (I just did this one). All that purple and blue is still ugly as sin, but at least it's legible.

But what this issue really needs is you all, the Project, to figure this out. The two team colors is real nice and all that, but we're not in high school anymore and the goal is not to "represent" the team in a font color, but to make legible articles. As far as I'm concerned, WP:COLOR trumps everything; it's a simple matter of accessibility, and purposely disregarding that because the purple on gold or whatever is traditional and all that is unacceptable. And a solution should apply to the templates as well, such as Template:LSU Tigers football coach navbox, where the colors are dictated elsewhere. I urge you to take this matter seriously. I really don't want to go around and slap {{Overcolored}} on tons of articles, but this is a Big Deal. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 16:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. Accessibility and legibility trump all other concerns; it doesn't matter what kind of information we have or how good it is if people cannot read it. ElKevbo (talk) 16:29, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed, would love to see #FFF standardized for consistency and credibility of pages. Ninadang (talk) 17:55, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Trophy game before trophy existed

Should games in a trophy rivalry series be listed under that trophy if the games in question were played 20-25 years before the trophy existed? The Black Diamond Trophy didn't exist until 1997, but games played in the 70s are listed as part of that trophy series. DarkAudit (talk) 04:09, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I like what's been done with Arizona–New Mexico football rivalry; where the "Series" tab has been subdivided out into separate "Overall" and "Trophy" sections. As far as the naming of rivalry articles, just like the names of any other articles on Wikipedia, WP:COMMONNAME is the guideline that should be followed when naming them. Ejgreen77 (talk) 05:35, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
See below. Do you all realize how incomparably non-compliant those colors are with accessibility guidelines? Those Arizona sections are completely illegible. Drmies (talk) 16:34, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move: Louisiana–Lafayette

There is an open move discussion that the members of this project may be interested in, please see: Talk:Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns baseball#Requested_move_2. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:24, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Oppose - Consensus had already been reached on this issue for the family of pages to be "Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns." Somebody is changing and moving all of these pages without any additional discussion. These changes should be reverted back to Louisiana–Lafayette immediately. Treydavis3 (talk) 01:38, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Article about teams ranked #1 - should it be deleted?

There is a Wikipedia article titled Most weeks ranked number 1 (NCAA football). It is, in my opinion, an article that should either be merged into the AP Poll article or simply deleted. The current text of the article is: This is a list of college football teams by the number of weeks they have been ranked number 1 in the AP Polls. Updated 09-22-2013. This is followed by a 3-column list (Number, School, Weeks) of the 11 teams that have been ranked at #1 most often in the AP Poll. That, plus a list of references (most of which are other Wikipedia pages), constitute the entire article.

This article is an orphan, and while it is being updated, it hasn't had any substantial text added to the body of the article since it was created, other than the list itself. Can some other folks visit the page and let me know if there's anything I'm missing? Because as I see it, this information doesn't need a separate article to exist. Mdak06 (talk) 21:45, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I added some "citation needed" and unsupported attribution clean-up tags to the lead of the list Most weeks ranked number 1 (NCAA football). They were then inappropriately reverted by an anonymous IP citing vandalism. Please keep your eye on or discuss on the article's talk page, where I also started a discussion about the Coaches' poll or renaming the article to fix its sole reliance on the AP poll. CrazyPaco (talk) 17:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Ugh, that article is, and always will be, a wasteland.--GrapedApe (talk) 23:50, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

"2008 NCAA Div I FBS Football Season" Article Missing Big 12 South Tiebreaker Controversy

I'd like to request a section be added to this article detailing the controversial three-way tie of one-loss teams in the Big 12 South in 2008 since it had BCS bowl game and National Championship Game implications. Thanks! -- Scorched1 (talk) 18:35, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Reformatting of college football player bio infoboxes

I am noticing that High School names are being reformatted to have a city (state abbreviation) in front of them and that bowl games are being removed — mostly by an IP/. Was this decided somewhere?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Scout.com recruiting rankings

One or more unregistered editor (e.g. 128.223.223.220 has been adding tables to articles listing rankings of recruiting classes. Is this a reliable source? Is this information worth including in articles? ElKevbo (talk) 21:02, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

If those tables were reliably sourced, they would be worth including, IMO. Scout is one of the big three recruiting databases.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:12, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Generic noob question I suppose but the other two are 247sports and espn I assume? —  dainomite   22:34, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
Rivals.com, Scout.com and ESPN.com r the big 3. I think 247sports is some sort of average of those three and maybe a few others.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:51, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move: UT Martin

There is an open move discussion that the members of this project may be interested in, please see: Talk:Tennessee–Martin Skyhawks men's basketball#Requested_move. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 18:33, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

User:Ucla90024 has been adding links to individual Rose Bowl articles that are generic resources related to the Rose Bowl game in its totallity, not specifically related to subject at hand; see 1950 Rose Bowl and 2000 Rose Bowl for examples. I have removed these sorts of links, but he has persisted in re-adding them. I have attempted to start a discussion about this on his talk page here, but I have not gotten a response. Thoughts? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 17:33, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be a good link for an External links section but it might be a useful source to add material to the articles. In any case, it looks like he or she has not only ignored your posts on his or her Talk page but has also reverted some of your edits to begin some edit wars. That is unacceptable and I've placed a warning on his or her Talk page. I don't know how successful that warning will be, though, given his or her lack of response to other messages left there so we may have to take this to other venues for more direct action if he or she continues to ignore others and engage in edit wars. ElKevbo (talk) 17:42, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
ElKevbo, thanks for your reply. Doesn't look like Ucla90024 has gotten the message. He has continued to add these links. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:39, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Sorry to jump in here, but in case either one of you hadn't noticed his user page says "There shall not be any talk. Talk is too cheap." I'm guessing this is his M.O. for how he wants to go about Wikipedia, too. Maybe a block will get his attention. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:10, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Help with Health issues in American football?

Hello, I'm currently working on behalf of the National Football League Players Association to make some improvements to Wikipedia articles related to their organization, and to football more generally. I'm currently working on the article Health issues in American football, which suffers from a number of problems. Because I have a financial COI, I won't make any edits myself. Instead, I've posted a few suggestions on the Talk page for the article. If anyone here has a chance to take a look and, if my edits are acceptable, implement them, I'd sure appreciate it! Cheers, ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 13:49, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Excellent idea, thank you for asking for help and approaching us. I'm sure we will get to them soon!--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
No problem at all! Since I've prepped language and sources for the changes that I'm recommending, hopefully it won't take someone too long to look at! Cheers, ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 13:00, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

 Done! ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 18:24, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

College Basketball Navboxes

The football team navbox format has begun to spread to other sports, college basketball, although no discussions where had pertaining to those sports before mass edits were implemented. This time, I hope to get a real consensus on a format, with a lot of input, not just the usual handful of editors that normally participate. Hopefully that can lend good suggestions to the other navigation templates. Interested parties please join the discussion at the College Basketball Wikiproject, with the hope that this can be settled by adequate participation and consensus building. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:55, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

1990 I-AA rankings?

I just created 1990 Georgia Southern Eagles football team, the national championship season for 1990 I-AA. I don't know where to find game times, weekly rankings, or attendance, so if anyone can assist it would be appreciated. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The NCAA record books have some of this info, attendance for playoff games are on page 15 of this and the final poll is on page 50 of this. I know the Sports Network was releasing polls in 1992 though the NCAA didn't recognize them, but I'm not sure about 1990. Billcasey905 (talk) 16:33, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks 👍 Jrcla2

Dates on standings templates

On the vast majority of conference standings templates, the calendar date of the most recent game (or the most recent rankings) are used, and I've been updating them that way for as long as I can remember. However, benhen1997 started using the quintuple tilde (~~~~~) to add UTC time to the templates, and he cited Template:CFB Standings End/doc as the reason why. This seems very odd, as UTC time is the next day by the time you hit 7 PM ET/4 PM PT, and most conferences have games finishing after 7 ET/4 PT. Is it time to change Template:CFB Standings End/doc to reflect the general convention, or should we just follow the instructions at Template:CFB Standings End/doc? OCNative (talk) 04:25, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that there should be a consensus to change it (yes, change it) to reflect simply the day only. This way, the user changing the template doesn't have to change the time every single time as another game of the day concludes. So yes, I'm the one who started it, but I would agree with a consensus that would support reporting the date only, as this not only makes it easier for the editor, but also the reader, as 04:31, 1 December 2013 (UTC) can be confusing to those unfamiliar with UTC. Until then, however, I will follow the documentation.
BenYes? 04:31, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
I support just using the date ("As of December 1, 2013") ~ Richmond96 TC 20:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
Just the date.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:06, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
To clarify, I do prefer just the date. I completely understand Benhen1997's rationale since that's what the documentation says, and I'm glad to see he supports changing the documentation to do just the date (assuming we get a consensus to do so). OCNative (talk) 02:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Template:Touchdown Club of Columbus Male Athlete of the Year has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:05, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The current Ohio State win streak

Due to the fact that Ohio State has NOT played a bowl game as others have in the same time period I can not accept it's validity and feel it deserves an asterisk next to the record.

Richard Bruce — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.112.200.133 (talk) 16:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't negate the fact that they haven't lost. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:06, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

New source of financial data

The Knight Commission just released a new tool that has a lot of financial data that might be of interest to some of you. It pulls together information from publicly-available NCAA reports (which USA Today collects) and data from the Department of Education (IPEDS data collected by the Delta Project and reports directly from ED). It has limitations, of course, but it might be useful for some of the articles you maintain or want to develop. ElKevbo (talk) 19:45, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested move: Rivalry articles

There is an open move discussion that the members of this project may be interested in, please see: Talk:Arkansas–LSU football rivalry#Requested_move. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 18:17, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Coaching changes 2014

Everyone: Here is a reference for head coach changes for the 2014 season... so far.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:16, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Can a redshirt claim championships as accomplishments?

I'm hoping to fix the infobox of AJ McCarron but I'm not sure how many national championships he has won (2 or 3). Do we count the one during his redshirt year? Technically he was part of the squad but I'm not sure if it should count as a championship for him seeing as he was ineligible to play. Any advice welcome. Thanks. ---Jameboy (talk) 12:53, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

  • The 2009 championship during his redshirt year does count per NCAA bylaw 16.1.4.2 as he was eligible to play that season (see this article). Specifically relevant to AJ, late in the season he was officially promoted as the second team quarterback behind McElroy and Saban was prepared to burn his redshirt year during the 2009 season in the event McElroy sustained a serious injury (see this article). Patriarca12 (talk) 23:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello, I have recently nominated 2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game, an article tagged by this project, for featured article. This is the second nomination for this article; the first nomination failed in part due to a lack of discussion. All members of this project are invited to comment on the nomination at the nomination page. Thanks, Toa Nidhiki05 19:11, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Standardizing enrollment

Many of these schools have some off-base number as their enrollment. I propose using Collegeboard's official annual reports as a means to standardize enrollment. University "points of pride" pages may use enrollment to glamorize the school. The enrollment listed on those pages may or may not include professional students(MD, DMD, PHARMD, JD, NP, PA, RN, DO, OD etc.) and graduate students. Just like how we use NABUCO to standardize our endowment figures, I think it would improve all articles if we used ONE source for every enrollment. It isn't perfect either, but it's more reliable than no source/university specific source. Any objections?

DMB112 (talk) 19:40, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:29, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

article needs more info

The article on Caesar Felton Gayles is severely lacking in my opinion. This coach lead two national black college championships in football and two more in basketball. Can anyone help with research?--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:00, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Division Co-Champions

What is the consensus regarding divisional co-champions? Do we recognize them in the templates even though their respective conference official websites may not explicitly have a provision for divisional champions, or only recognize them if the conference officially provides for it (which no conference clearly does anyway)? Affected/applicable articles: 2011 Oregon Ducks football team; 2011 Stanford Cardinal football team; 2012 Oregon Ducks football team; 2012 Stanford Cardinal football team; 2013 Oregon Ducks football team; 2013 Stanford Cardinal football team; 2012 Florida Gators football team; 2012 Georgia Bulldogs football team; 2013 Alabama Crimson Tide football team; 2013 Auburn Tigers football team.
BenYes? 02:25, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I thought it was an error when I first saw that Auburn was being called division co-champions. To me that's crazy. They finished with the same record as Alabama and beat then head-to-head. ~ Richmond96 TC 20:25, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
So what is the definition of divisional co-champions? If every team in the division plays each other, how would one get to "co-champion" status? Should the 2012 Florida Gators football team not be considered "co-champions" of their division? I was under the assumption that a division co-champion was one who finished with the same record as the other co-champion, however only one would be the representative in the championship game, thus giving the 2012 Georgia Bulldogs football team the "x" and "y" parameter in their standings template. BenYes? 20:45, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
When teams in the same division or conference finish the regular season in first place with the same record, they are regarded as co-champions whether or not they have played each other.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:07, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
That's what I thought. Do you know of any sources or consensus that addresses this? BenYes? 22:34, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
I was hoping to get clarity by consulting the rules of the various conferences. Regrettably, this only muddles things more. The SEC (see page 4) rules declare division co-champions. The Pac-12 (see page 121) and Big Ten rules do not nor do the C-USA rules (see page 83 of the 2011-12 rules; I couldn't find more recent rules). The ACC rules seem to have changed from 2012 to 2013. Mountain West Rules 6.4 and 6.4.1 seem to conflict on the status of division co-champions. Strangely, the MAC Handbook is password-protected. OCNative (talk) 02:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Tie-breaking rules for the MAC football: "If two or more teams are tied for the championship, they shall be considered divisional co-champions. The following tie-breaking formula shall be used to determine which team will represent that division in the MAC Championship game:" The Big Ten rules simply lay out the procedures for who will represent the division in the conference championship game, but are silent about the use of "co-champions". As far as I know, they would still be "co-champions" of the division as that was the previous way of doing the conference championship prior to creating divisions. --JonRidinger (talk) 02:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Not to make things more convoluted, but here's an ESPN article that touches on the Big Ten co-champion issue tangentially. OCNative (talk) 02:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
My vote is that any teams tied for first place in a conference or division are called co-champions, even if one team beat the other head-to-head. UNLESS the conference specifically says otherwise. The only thing I can think of is the 2012-13 Toledo Rockets men's basketball team where the MAC said Toledo was not division co-champions because of their APR sanctions. — X96lee15 (talk) 12:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
So what I see after reading the materials brought forth by OCNative (thank you) is that we have the SEC and the MAC as the only two conferences explicitly awarding divisional co-champions, and then using a tiebreaker to determine the championship game participant. Should the conference standings "end" template's documentation be changed to clarify this? BenYes? 22:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
While the conferences don't explicitly call out division co-champs, I still think teams tied for first place should be awarded co-championships. They don't explicitly forbid it. — X96lee15 (talk) 02:24, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for not seeing this discussion earlier. I believe they would be co-champs if neither of them faced one another but they both ended up with the same record at the end of the year; but only one could go to the conference championship game. Hope that makes sense. —  dainomite   18:28, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The best way is to declare the team a co-champion of their division (or conference) only if the conference says that they can end as co-champions. Every divisional team must play one another as well. BenYes? 12:45, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

This issue is similar to the declaration of conference champion in conferences with no division. Any team that finishes in first place is a conference or division champion. Only one team may advance to the championship game or aligned bowl game however. Either Champion or Co-champion is technically correct. In a tie situation, either term calls for a footnote about why a particular team in the division or conference was the representative in a playoff, bowl game, or conference championship. "Co-champions" is a courtesy extended between all winners to the others tied for first, which seems prefereable. Group29 (talk) 15:38, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

New head coach articles

I completed at least stub articles all coaches for Arkansas-Pine Bluff. See List of Arkansas–Pine Bluff Golden Lions head football coaches. Pitch in if you can!--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:53, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

An ambitious, yet worthwhile goal for the project

What if we, as a project, worked collaboratively to make all 35 articles on this year's bowl games at least good articles? I think collectively, we can do it. Any thoughts? I am going to ping a few users I have seen around the bowl articles in particular, but of course everyone is welcome to join in the effort: Tom Danson Benhen1997 Stlsportsfan2316 Ucla90024 Mudwater. Go Phightins! 21:47, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Go Phightins! Well, I'm trying to ensure uniformity in terms of the scoring summaries, and making sure that en dashes are used where hyphens shouldn't be. I will be out of town over the span of time featuring the major non-BCS as well as most of the BCS games (except the NCG and Godaddy), and won't be able to contribute very much, but after that, I'd be willing to get them to good article status. I'm also planning on submitting 2013 Florida State Seminoles football team to GA after January 6, as that article is exceptional, I feel more so than 2013 Alabama Crimson Tide football team (Alabama football pages are well-done almost every year). BenYes? 21:54, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
There's no deadline. Thanks for your willingness! FYI - I am working on 2013 Penn State Nittany Lions football team as well. Go Phightins! 21:56, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
@Go Phightins!:Yes, that is an ambitious yet worthwhile goal. I'll probably be too busy with other things to participate a lot, but I'll contribute when and where I can. Mudwater (Talk) 01:47, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
And one item to decide is what the "model" bowl article looks like. There has been some concern that I have encountered suggesting team summaries should not be included, or if they are, should be severely restricted, including comments at Talk:2013 New Mexico Bowl and Talk:2013 New Orleans Bowl that they detract from the main point of the article. My basis for their inclusion comes from previously promoted content, such as 2008 Orange Bowl, a featured article. To me, substantial team information is the only thing in the article that provides context for the outcome of the game, and as such, should be included, however not everyone appears to agree with this view. Before any additional admittedly time-consuming expansion and research on that matter occurs, I would appreciate knowing whether or not consensus is with me on that point. Go Phightins! 05:04, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Also will ping Jweiss11 to this discussion. Go Phightins! 18:53, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm in. Gameplay sections would be helpful, but what would seriously help most of all would be pictures. Anyone got bowl tickets this year?--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:54, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
Great! I agree; pictures would be good ... I know someone going to the Belk Bowl, and can try to finagle a picture or two out of him. Gameplay sections are pretty easy to write thanks to ESPN play-by-play available immediately at the conclusion of the games. The preview sections require amalgamation of sources and stats, which is fairly time-consuming, however. Go Phightins! 05:00, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
And just a thought - with 35 games and thus 35 articles, a great opportunity for some serious WikiCup points! Go Phightins! 05:03, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion the team summaries in the bowl game articles are very appropriate. Of course they should not be super long, and they should have appropriate references, but I agree that they provide a lot of context for the bowl game itself, and so it's better to have them. Mudwater (Talk) 21:24, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Logos in infoboxes for bowl game articles

I have a question about the bowl game articles. Is there a guideline against including the logo of the bowl game as an image in the infobox? I added a logo to a few of the articles, like this one, but they were removed with edit summaries that said "not allowed" or "not permitted", like this. I know that a logo is a non-free image but I was thinking that this would be an appropriate fair use. On the other hand I'm not familiar with any previous discussions on this subject. Thanks. Mudwater (Talk) 21:31, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

"P.S." I'm not sure how much this should figure in to the discussion, but today's featured article is 2003 Insight Bowl, and that does have a logo in the infobox. Mudwater (Talk) 22:32, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
It's very common to use copyrighted images in infoboxes. I think the onus is on anyone who objects to raise the issue in a large forum (e.g., RFC) to try to change the de facto consensus that this is accepted practice. ElKevbo (talk) 00:16, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
I put the logos back in a few articles, and they've been reverted again, for example here, with an edit summary of "removing non-free logo in violation of WP:NFC#UUI point 14". The acronym stands for Non-Free Content - Unacceptable Use - Images. Point 14 says, "A logo of a perennial event (or of its sponsoring company), used to illustrate an article about a specific instance of that event. If each instance has its own logo, such specific logos remain acceptable." My initial thought is that this guideline does seem to say that the annual bowl game articles should not include the perennial logos of the bowl games. To me that seems unnecessarily restrictive, but at least it's an actual Wikipedia guideline. As far as each instance having its own logo and therefore being acceptable, an example would be 2014 Rose Bowl. Thoughts? Mudwater (Talk) 23:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Well that's an indefensibly stupid guideline and I'd be curious to know its history. But accepting the guideline as written it seems to be saying that a generic Bowl Game ABC logo can't be used in the infobox for articles about specific instances of Bowl Game ABC but can be used in an article about the entire bowl game series. Right? ElKevbo (talk) 01:42, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
So it would seem. Mudwater (Talk) 03:29, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Is this notable to be publish in mainspace? FairyTailRocks (talk) 07:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

FairyTailRocks, I think it would be better off to re-purpose this article to cover the entire 2013 NCAA Division II football playoffs. We have similar articles for the NAIA playoffs, e.g. 2013 NAIA Football National Championship. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 22:07, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Agree this should be a playoff article and then we can feature the game prominently. See 2012 NAIA Football National Championship for ideas (but it needs work too).--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:08, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Tagged the article for a merge to 2013 NCAA Division II football playoffs per Jweiss11 and Paul McDonald, btw, I'm will be working on the article. Thanks guys! FairyTailRocks (talk) 14:05, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Help from someone with access to either Philadelphia or Las Vegas newspaper archives

Resolved

As of December 28, 1995, Randall Cunningham and his wife were due to have their first child on December 31 in Las Vegas, according to this source. Does anyone have access to either Philadelphia or Las Vegas newspapers going back to 1995 to figure out Randall Cunningham II's birth date and birth place? If you can find a WP:RS please drop a note at Talk:Randall Cunningham II/GA1.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:23, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to GrapedApe and Go Phightins!-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:00, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Head football coach compensation tables

Today user DMB112 added Head football coach compensation tables to several conference pages which I believe is not needed as the information has nothing to do with the conferences at heart can we please form a consensuses as to whether these tables are necessary for these pages.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 00:44, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how Dcheagle could ever come to the conclusion that head football coach compensation is not integral to the article. I would be hard-pressed to find someone who felt that football wasn't "at the heart" of the SEC, PAC-12, BIG 10 or BIG 12. Football teams are arguably the most important part of athletic conferences, so much in fact, that many refer to them as "football conferences" rather than "athletic conferences." The reason I placed the data on the main page is because the reader will have ready access to the content. (Note: the reader may be a student, alum, a fan, a parent, a viewer, an economist, an administrator, an athlete or anyone) Economics is integral to college athletics(see work of Stefan Szymanski). For a number of years, the endowment of the universities was listed, I presume for the very same reason - to show financial components of football conferences. There is a number of correlative aspects of college sports on the income and revenue distribution of universities(hence my table with profit, expenditure and revenue), academic enterprise, giving, development, alumni relations and endowment and also the marketing/governance of a university. The tables give readers more insight and more content which in turn better the encyclopedia(don't forget, Wikipidea is just that, an encyclopedia) with relevant and up to date data. A reader viewing the table could then turn to use the encyclopedia to learn other aspects of higher education, a university, a coach, a team - what have you. It's a small table with good, safe data that can be updated annually. Along with the revenue and profit tables, the coach compensation data table really delve into the economics of football conferences at large. I am in the process of adding such tables for all FBS teams. Adding this table to the football specific pages don't give readers nearly as much ability to discover new information on Wikipidea. Furthermore, the revenue and endowment tables make the football coach compensation a good fit for comparative purposes.DMB112 (talk) 01:59, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Comment/question Currently these three conference articles contain tables on 2013 Head Coaches salary, citing a USA Today article. Note, the citation has many callouts on school-specific variances of what is considered compensation.

The location within Pac-12 and SEC should be updated to the article's Football section for better context and flow at minimum, barring the addition of non-football coaching salaries such as baseball and mens/womens basketball.

Is there a clean way to get the 2013 HC salary data onto List of current NCAA Division I FBS football coaches and then link within each conference's Football section via "See also FBS Head Coach salaries?" The obvious problem created is the existing List page is continuously updated with HC changes, whereas the 2013 salaries is tied to a specific coach, either current or former. So it would seem to require new '2013 Coach' and '2013 Salary' columns, which would significantly pollute the existing List page. UW Dawgs (talk) 06:44, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Note I'm all for including this information as long as all sports are covered, its all or nothing in my book. If coach compensation can be covered for all sports and be backed up by good RS then include it if not then leave it out. DMB112s main reason to add them and only them was the fact that to him football is the money maker for conferences which is true for some but not all.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 07:12, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposal Perhaps we generalize to a table of the most significant personnel ("Key Personnel") for each university and allow for optional salary information, something like:

Key Personnel

University Athletic Director Football Coach (2013 Salary)[1] Men's Basketball Coach Women's Basketball Coach Baseball Coach
Arizona Greg Byrne Rich Rodriguez ($2,150,000) Sean Miller Niya Butts Andy Lopez
Arizona State Steve Patterson Todd Graham ($2,303,020) Herb Sendek Charli Turner Thorne Tim Esmay
California Sandy Barbour Sonny Dykes ($2,394,000) Mike Montgomery Lindsay Gottlieb David Esquer
Colorado Rick George Mike MacIntyre ($2,403,500) Tad Boyle Linda Lappe No Team
Oregon Rob Mullens Mark Helfrich ($1,800,000) Dana Altman Paul Westhead George Horton
Oregon State Bob De Carolis Mike Riley ($1,417,843) Craig Robinson Scott Rueck Pat Casey
Stanford Bernard Muir David Shaw (unpublished) Johnny Dawkins Tara VanDerveer Mark Marquess
UCLA Dan Guerrero Jim L. Mora ($2,300,000) Steve Alford Cori Close John Savage
USC Pat Haden Steve Sarkisian (new hire) Andy Enfield Cynthia Cooper-Dyke Dan Hubbs
Utah Chris Hill Kyle Whittingham ($2,427,100) Larry Krystkowiak Anthony Levrets Bill Kinneberg
Washington Scott Woodward Chris Petersen (new hire) Lorenzo Romar Mike Neighbors Lindsay Meggs
Washington State Bill Moos Mike Leach ($2,250,000) Ken Bone June Daugherty Donnie Marbut

I would like to see the AD incorporated, as overseers of the university's athletic department, but there is significant local format variation in Chancellor, President, and Provost if we bubble up to the university level. Some ADs lack article pages, as you would expect. The callout sports can vary by conference based on preferences and history. This layout quickly breaks if we cover all 15~25 sports, but that is neither imminent or likely. I still don't love this format, but don't love the football salary table in a vacuum either. UW Dawgs (talk) 19:59, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Would we be including the Salary's for the other coaches as well?--Dcheagletalkcontribs 20:56, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
TBD. USA Today doesn't appear to publish an equivalent document for other sports, although they do have salaries of NCAA Bball Tournament coaches. Perhaps it exists somewhere else. There's no inherent need to pair either the each particular Coach or each Sport with a salary, but trying to support a format that could support either 'Coach' or 'Coach (201x Salary)' layout. UW Dawgs (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It might be more interesting if the tables were actually correct. On the PAC-12 page, the table's figure for the average compensation of a PAC-12 coach was calculated by dividing the total reported salary by 12, thus implying that Stanford's coach works for free and that PAC-12 coaches have the lowest average pay of the AQ conferences, as opposed to an average higher than the B1G and Big XII. 216.57.96.2 (talk) 20:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I moved the relevant table to the football section of the Big Ten Conference and Southeastern Conference articles, as well as removing the conferences averages (due to WP:OR/miscalculations), while reformatting the table as "Key Personnel" on Pacific-12 Conference as shown above. UW Dawgs (talk) 04:06, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion of "Schools ranked by academic measures" sections within Conference articles

A lone editor has been working for an extended period to include some specific academic data ("Schools ranked by academic measures") in table format, within each of the major college athletic conference articles. Here are the six relevant conference articles:

The tables are generally identical, with data columns as follows:

Conference 6-year graduation rate(2012) Freshman retention rate(2012) Average SAT score(CR+Math) of first-time freshman(2012) US News National Ranking(2013) World Ranking(2013) Research expenditures, in millions (2013)
ACC Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Big Ten Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Big 12 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Pac-12 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SEC Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
SunBelt Yes Yes Yes No No No

While the existing table format, layout, and citations could definitely be improved, I've flagged the six article sections with Template:Off-topic (but possibly better described as Template:Undue-section) to spur a discussion on relevance, formatting, inclusion of content, and removal of content, while hopefully achieving a level of Wikipedia:Consensus moving forward. I suspect our discussion will be applicable to each conference article, but there may be unique circumstance or differences applicable only to specific conference articles.

Stipulated, all of these articles generally establish Name, Location, Type (Pub, Priv), Year of Establishment, Undergrad count, Postgrad count, Enrollment, Mascot, Year of Conf Entry via a Current Members table in the upper third of the article.


6-year graduation rate(2012)

  • The university's undergraduate graduation rate is unrelated to the conference's athletics.
  • Valid inline citations for each university.

Freshman retention rate(2012)

  • The university's retention of freshman undergraduates is unrelated to the conference's athletics.
  • No citation per university.
  • Unclear citation for column header.

Average SAT score(CR+Math) of first-time freshman(2012)

  • The SAT scores of the university's incoming freshman (achieved as high school juniors and seniors) is unrelated to the conference's athletics.
  • No citation per university.
  • Unclear citation for column header.

US News National Ranking(2013)

  • Some dispute the USN&WR methodology, but believe these are generally seen as credible.
  • Believe this is most relevant metric within the existing tables.
  • This might have a better home in the opening summary table.
  • No citation per university.
  • Unclear citation for column header.

World Ranking(2013)

  • World ranking of the university by Times Higher Education
  • Similar to USNWR rankings, but global and less relevance to US universities.
  • World academic rankings are unrelated to the conference's athletics.
  • No citation per university.
  • Citation for column header allows discovery of university rankings.

Research expenditures, in millions (2013)

  • Pairs nicely with the Endowment numbers, generally located in the opening summary table.
  • No citation per university.
  • Citation for column header allows discovery of university rankings.


The conference averages, and possibly national averages, appear to be manually-created via WP:ORIGINAL research.

The editor has been working on these sections, continually in good faith including recently. And the tables have somewhat improved over this period. While not WP:TRIVIA, much and possibly all of these sections are outside of the scope of the articles. I'd like to see some discussion on the relevance, format, and weight of this content. UW Dawgs (talk) 05:57, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I am the contributor. I have been a long time editor for topics regarding higher education on Wikipedia. I'm disappointed you don't approve of my tables. However, this is not original research as you suggest. The averages, yes, are self-generated. I suppose I could find a source for that, but I don't think it's necessary. It's hardly acceptable to consider a 14 number average as "original research." The national average is not made up. Thanks for the insult my friend. Again, I suspect conflict of interest from you UW Dawgs. I think you are so against the tables on encyclopedia because of your affiliation to the University of Washington. If that's the case, I see no reason for it. UW is a fantastic institution, and the readers deserve to know more about the member institutions of the Pac-12 and other conferences.
These tables are a very important part of the articles. Athletic conferences are made up of universities. The reader should be allowed to learn more about these "football teams." The tables can be improved, admittedly, I have spent many hours trying to perfect them. I have also been the one who has added revenue/profit/expenditure tables, endowment tables(in the case of BIG 12), head coach compensation, spending per athlete and first-time student tables to the related conferences. This user and I have debated this issue previously. Our talk can be found here. I am open to suggestions and comments, but I strongly recommend the tables remain. Also you are incorrect in that THE rankings aren't relevant to US Universities. To level 1 research universities, global rankings are more relevant than US News. My tables add important data to the encyclopedia for the reader. I'm sure much of the information given in the data tables regarding BIG 10, SEC, PAC-12, Sun Belt, BIG 12 universities was known prior to the reader's article reading. I am in the process of adding all these tables to all D-1 athletic conferences, as it is important for those articles and their viewers. Judging from the amount of effort you've put into creating this discussion, I can tell you're very passionate about this subject. Addressing some of your concerns will be easy. I will be able to do so during the holidays as it is. As far as world rankings go, the readers should know that all members of the big 10 conference are AAU research universities with a global reputation. As for the SEC's lacking, well, frankly most of those universities are unranked. I suppose we could add them for consistency, but it WOULD be out of scope in my opinion given those member institutions are not globally renowned and, therefore, are unranked. Most of the Sun Belt schools are not research universities, and I may find trouble in finding reliable, consistent sources.
I think all this information is very relevant. Much as reading an article elsewhere, this isn't "trivia" but basic information about the demographics of undergraduates(and the institution as a whole) at these schools. Football players, their primary patrons and the majority of college campuses tend to be undergraduate students. Adding average GRE scores would be trivia.. mentioning most big 10 schools producing millionaires would be trivia..or borderline boosterism. Naming famous alums of member institutions like Larry Page for Michigan or Tim Cook for Auburn would be trivia. Providing the reader with some institutional characteristics is NOT trivia. The endowment tables have been on the articles for a long time. I simply expanded on information relating to the universities. The conference articles do not do a good job as it is explaining the sports conferences. Key economic and academic components of college athletics is left out of the picture. As for individual citations, that can be arranged if it would ease your nerves. However, I think your primary concern is the relevance. I will be able to elaborate in more detail to make my case. I hope I don't come off as brash or rude, but I've put a lot of time and effort into improving these articles.
In regards to including redundant information like location, most of these flagship universities have multiple campuses. The location is especially key for my tables because it reaffirms to the reader that the given SAT score, 6-year graduation rate and freshman retention rate correspond to University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and not University of Michigan-Dearborn..or University of Washington-Seattle..not University of Washington-Tacoma.
Furthermore, Big 10, SEC, Pac-12 and ACC already included academic components to their articles(ACC has one of the most elaborate rankings table I have ever seen - and I research higher education as a hobby! I also added the information for SECU on the SEC's article.) I expanded on whatever information was there with detailed visuals. I would eventually like to create separate articles for certain academic initiatives like SECU, something few know much about. Academics and college athletics go hand-in-hand contrary to popular belief, especially now. Without getting into the topic of boosterism or conflict of interest, the presented information gives a better idea of the members of these athletic conferences.

DMB112 (talk) 06:20, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

One problem I have with this response is the allegations of conflict of interest. Please avoid making conjectures like that. UWDawgs has expressed concern with the scope of your edits and if they are applicable and appropriate for conference articles. Many others, including myself, share those concerns.
You state "...and the readers deserve to know more about the member institutions of the Pac-12 and other conferences" but in a later comment you say that "It's not for us to decide what the reader is looking for." First, the articles are about the conferences, not the member institutions. Going into details about the individual universities should be done sparingly. While we don't decide what a reader is looking for, but we do have to stay on topic. I personally think it would be more effective to have, say, an article comparing coaching compensation that shows the differences between schools in a given conference, but also between conferences. That in itself could be an entire article.
My other concern is excessive detail. Where does it stop? At what point do we say, "OK, we have enough data here to compare the conference members." On top of that, we have this abundance of charts within an article. Charts are great and all, but too many clutter the page and make it difficult to read. Having too much info in a chart also makes it difficult to read. Another concern with the charts is how quickly they will become outdated and inaccurate since things like endowment, academic rankings, demographics, etc. change every year. --JonRidinger (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
I apologize to UW Dawgs. You understand how I could have jumped to that conclusion.
Yes, the readers decide what to read, the article must provide the data. It's like having a Chinese(or in our case a pac-12, SEC, Big 10, big 12, ACC etc..) buffet. The customer decides what to eat, but everything is offered to them. If it has to do with the topic, shouldn't we include information? Psychology is an article, and Freud is an important person in psychology. Shouldn't we address Freud? I do agree with you that the articles are about the conferences and not the university of ____. As far as where does it stop, for the academic tables, I think the rankings are unnecessary. Those metrics I provided in the table are more reliable than those used in US News rankings which accounts for nonsense such as acceptance rate. Well, U Kansas has a 100% acceptance rate not because it's an open-enrollment school but because there aren't that many college-aged students in Kansas. I only included them because the articles already include that and endowment. Even small time conference articles include the information. As for the inconsistent world rankings, that was a decision I made on my own. Most SEC schools are not globally ranked. So why include the measure? In contrast, all pac-12 and big 10 schools are globally ranked, so I wanted to give the reader that perspective. You don't think of football U being a global research university, but it often is. I wanted to give that to the reader.
Regarding outdating, higher ed is a passion of mine, and I expect I'll be editing for quite a while. I'll take the unofficial responsibility of updating numbers. It's no different than the winning percentages for a rivalry, school enrollments, endowments, championship totals or conference payouts. Those have to be updated annually anyways. The beauty of Wikipidea is that it can always be made current. I don't see an issue here.
In regards to too many tables, I have been toying with the idea of creating separate articles as you suggested. I want to expand the encyclopedia to include more comprehensive information about the economics of the various football conferences ranging from history to revenue distribution to academic distribution. We could move some of the tables to that article instead and create a "see more" tag. (e.g. Economics of the Southeastern Conference). Similarly, I would want to create "Academics of Southeastern Conference" with hopes of just having the table on the main article to draw the interested reader's attention. The main article(perhaps coupled with the special efforts like Committee on Institutional Cooperation or SECU. The new article would also include legitimate data regarding athlete completion rates, trends and averages. In addition, expanded data on research and academics(% faculty receiving major award, NRC rank, trends, endowment efforts, SAT trends, application trends etc.) All this is provided by the NCAA, Collegeboard or a reliable source. No original research would be done. Would this be a feasible option?
Please don't mistake my passion for stubbornness. I'm trying to compromise. As you can tell, I've invested lots of time into these articles, as I have other articles. I mean to help.

DMB112 (talk) 01:56, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the buffet analogy, bear in mind that Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of everything. Just because something is interesting or even reliably sourced doesn't automatically mean it belongs in an article. Even in a buffet, restaurant owners evaluate which foods are most popular and decide what to put out so they don't waste space with food that isn't going to be eaten. It's hardly a matter of including everything; it's a matter of including what people are most likely to take. For this, these are athletic conferences. Yes, the universities and conferences have their larger academic missions, but those aren't the focus of an athletic conference article. There are articles on each school that go into greater detail about their academics and research. Conferences like the Big Ten that have an academic arm (CIC) have a articles about those that can compare the academic aspects of each school without having to occupy space in the athletic conference article. We certainly wouldn't put athletic charts in the CIC article, of course. Now, the academic arms of each conference should certainly be mentioned in the conference article, but with a summary paragraph and a link to the larger article. The topic is the conference itself, not excessive details about every school in the conference and comparing and contrasting each school in multiple ways. In general, seeing the enrollment numbers, colors, locations, facilities, and sports offered seems sufficient to compare the athletic aspects of each school and give the reader a general idea about the conference facilities, sizes, and locations, since conference members typically share similar characteristics.
I'm sure you're a very dedicated individual, but having been editing Wikipedia for several years, I've seen it's very difficult to keep stats up to date consistently (I try my best). Life gets in the way, interests change, and motivation comes and goes. I have seen far too many charts and articles simply stop being updated because the primary editor either loses interest or no longer has the time to devote to upkeep. Not every piece of info has the same amount of devoted editors who will pick up when someone loses interest. Articles on rivalry games, though, typically do have quite a few active editors (whish is a two-edged sword). Just bear that in mind.
If you do create "daughter" articles, then yes, you would move the charts to the appropriate article and have a summary paragraph on the conference article, similar to a notable alumni or notable people list where the article about a city or school has a summary paragraph (prose) and links to a much longer chart or list. I think that would be a more workable solution. --JonRidinger (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
That's not correct. This is college athletics, unlike the NFL, the member colleges have plenty to do with athletics. In fact, another dataset will include academic payouts from college athletics. Please see work of sports economists and higher ed scholars. These are universities. That means there are students. That means it's relevant. UW Dwags recommending including figures for the athlete graduation rates. I think that's a good idea as well and will add them. I must insist on keeping the table, tweaking it yes, but keeping it nonetheless.
As I said before, the Pac-12 already has an academic section
The SEC has an academic section
The BIG 10 has an academic section, as well as numerous academic references in its article.
The ACC has an academic section.
The big 12 does not have an academic section, but it certainly needs one. I have to beg to differ. Academics have plenty to do with college athletics. There wouldn't be college athletes if it weren't for the universities themselves. The reader gains invaluable information that's hard to discover elsewhere on the internet. It is not independent research, it is all there. However, the tables significantly supplement the article. It's a staple of American higher education(see work of Philip Altbach). Direct examples: How many of you knew that Ohio State had 800 million dollars in research expenditure? So close to Michigan? Power football conferences are comprised of the leading flagship, research university in the state. How many of you how much of a lead conference member universities have over the national average? I live in the South, and it was news to me when I heard Bama was above the national average! It is also news to the readers and editors of the articles.DMB112 (talk) 14:22, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
These are college athletic conferences, not academic conferences. Should we note the athletic success of members of the Annapolis Group? Associated Colleges of the Midwest? Nope.--GrapedApe (talk) 03:11, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
The entire article isn't about academics, just one section. Universities can do without athletics, if the universities go away, college athletics are SOL. I'm amazed at how much opposition you all are creating. The point of athletics is competition, so in that sense, the academic competition is all the more welcomed. These conferences wouldn't exist without the universities and higher education. They are one. It's not like I'm trying to compare SAT scores with NFL players here. This is COLLEGE football.

DMB112 (talk) 03:24, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

  • Remove all:There nice and all but they do not belong in an article about conference athletics they would be better off being added to the individual university articles where most individuals would go in the first place to find such info. Once again people don't go to an Athletic conference page to find info on academics they go there to find info on athletics. Remove all the tables and move any information to the university pages.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcheagle (talkcontribs)
But that's just it. It's not for us to decide what the reader is looking for. Our job is to maintain a quality, comprehensive encyclopedia. I'm going to expand on the academic component for all the athletic conference articles. Twenty years ago, I would agree with all of you, but these days in times of dwindling financial support and academic competition, sports conferences DO double as academic peers. Also, by adding any tables to the individual articles won't allow the readers to get the full picture of the academic nature of athletic conferences. This is about knowledge guys. I hope I don't come off as overly assertive, but I must insist the tables stay. The concept of athletic conferences doubling as academic conferences is a notion held by board of regents of universities across the nation. In fact, when examining even rumor-mill on say, BleacherReport, people often cite BIG 10's reluctance to add non-AAU members to their ranks. From Provosts to ADs, academic components of college athletics has been noted, and I'm not just talking about athlete graduation rates. All the articles we're talking about reference the prestige and academic reputation of the member universities in some manifestation, I've checked. These tables provide an excellent, reliable, standardized visual to go along with the main article. One reason the college athletic conference pages are so popular is probably due to the numerous comprehensive tables. Nowhere else on the internet can the reader find a more reliable database. I think I'm also going to create a separate article that expands on academics of athletic conferences. Initiatives like SECU or the Pac-12's health initiative need their own articles and mini-sections on the main article, but we still need general academic information for the member institutions.
For the Big 10, there is barely any mention of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation - which is a huge initiative set forth by, yes you guessed it, the big 10 conference(the title of the article). Let's not forget that the University of Alabama, for example, is a university before it is a football team. We need to improve our articles! I will be going through and fixing the issues UWDawgs pointed out.

DMB112 (talk) 22:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)


  • Addressing concerns of UW Dawg, I have copied on the citations for each value. I have also removed the SAT subject test data from the tables. There's no need to include information like that. I'll be adding individual sources for rankings and research in due time.

DMB112 (talk) 03:33, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

  • Addressing further concerns, I have removed the profit columns for all articles. There are too many quantitative variables for these averages. The zeros are too big of outliers. I have also removed conference averages for the academic vs athletic spending components. Because the academic table links all power conferences, there is no need for duplicated averages. FCS and FBS averages have remained. Will continue doing individual sourcing per figure. I'm playing around with the idea of putting the expenditure per student in the academic table and putting the expenditure per athlete in the revenue/expenditure table. Either way, we'll have to make a "economics of SEC/BIG 10" section in the article regardless.. some articles do this better than others..good chance to standardize, update and improve.

EDIT: I did just that. "academics vs athletics" and "revenue and profit" tables have been consolidated and reorganized. DMB112 (talk) 19:38, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Section break

These sections are entirely unnecesary for articles on college athletics. It is not relevant to say anything about the academic standings of the schools that are part of these sports leagues on the articles on the athletics. I've removed them from the articles DMB112 added them to without any consensus to do so. On this page there is a clear disagreement from UW Dawgs on this matter. These sections are clearly disputed and because I have removed them and there is a clearp oposition here from UW Dawg, they should not be added back.—Ryulong (琉竜) 16:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I have addressed your concerns and have stated by they are relevant. They don't say anything about the academic standings of the schools? How so? Stop edit warring. We need to reach a consensus. I must insist that the table remain. Please read all I have stated above, and counter my arguments. DMB112 (talk) 16:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
You have addressed zero of my concerns. You are merely pushing your opinion that they are relevant. Articles on college football do not need to have anything on the entire school's graduation rate, freshman retention, average SAT scores, US News ranking, World Ranking, or Research Expenditures. None of this is relevant at all to football which is what these pages are about. It is not about the colleges. It is about their sports teams. Multiple people in this section do not agree with the inclusion. I acted upon it. You are the only one who thinks these figures are at all relevant to a sports page.—Ryulong (琉竜) 16:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
This guy has been blocked before and has caused much trouble. For all the reasons i've stated above, it's relevant and important to include SOME information about member university of college sport teams. I'm not saying let's go add Rhodes scholars and Marshall scholars. I just want to provide the reader with basic information. I've sourced everything, I've removed content, I've consolidated tables. I'm trying to compromise. You're the one that's acting like "my way or the highway" DMB112 (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
My history is irrelevant to this discussion and frankly bringing it up is an ad hominem attack. What matters is that there are five editors above who disagree with your additions to these pages and the only thing you've done is slightly modify what is included rather than acquiesce and remove them out right. No one wants them but you. You need to accept this fact.—Ryulong (琉竜) 17:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Back on topic

  • So this guy is nuts. He's a repeating offender, and I've reported him for edit warring. I have decided to remove the rankings from the tables as well. Unlike the other standardized industry standards of academic performance, US News metrics are too subjective to include on an encyclopedia. After discussing it with another Wikipidea users(and a professor of higher education), I think it makes sense that they're removed. Like I said before, I included them because most conference articles include at least the US News metric.

DMB112 (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You are now in violation of WP:NPA. Stop making ad hominem attacks. The tables as a whole are unwarranted and unwanted by everyone on this page but yourself. Academic facts and figures are not relevant to the discussion of intercollegiate athletics. Just because they're colleges does not mean the content is valid.—Ryulong (琉竜) 17:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Both users have now been blocked for edit warring.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 17:51, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Truly back on topic

Can we now get back on topic and determine if these tables are within topic of sports conferences and wheather or not we should keep them.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 18:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I want to look at these table a bit more carefully but my first impression is that they seem to come bit out of left field, and provide very little in the way of context to assist the reader in understanding the import of the information they are attempting to convey. They strike me as a kind of compilation of information that is present just because it can be compiled. This is not to say that the information is valueless, but rather, the inclusion of summary tables smack in the middle of an article, without preface or explanation, doesn't work for me. A separate article or articles, covering the broad subject of athletic graduation rates, etc., could - I think - weave in the tables effectively. For instance, at least as interesting as learning where Northwestern ranks in the Big 10 on these various measures, is how different conferences line up against one another. As I said, I haven't looked hard at these or really focused on them but I do share the (instant) sentiment that they seem to be kind of shoehorned in, and there may be a better way or place to present the same information. JohnInDC (talk) 18:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree with JohnInDC here. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
My comments BTW extend to the earlier addition to (at least one of) the conference articles re Athletic vs. Academic spending. There's not only a distinct air of synthesis about it but in addition, the inclusion of that particular table and one of several other possible ones - say, "Athletic revenue vs. academic revenue" or "Athletic scholarships vs. academic scholarships" or "out-of-state athletic student enrollment vs. out-of-state non-athletic enrollment" - is a head-scratcher. Other than the fact that these tables can be sorted along a variety of dimensions, they just seem like raw data and ultimately, not very enlightening. Again maybe in a separate, standalone article that pulled together this information, as well as reliably-sourced commentary on those and related issues - then the tables would convey more meaning. JohnInDC (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


Remove all. Arbitrary university academic metrics are unrelated to these conference athletic articles and are fundamentally beyond the long-standing summary data already present within each article. I have a lot of respect for the effort involved in creating these tables, but don't believe they belong in these particular athletically-focused articles and would defer further discussion on a new/appropriate home to something like WP:WikiProject Education.

Additional comments:

  • Don't believe there is any undue reason to expedite any changes (this discussion is occurring during the football bowl season and men's basketball season with associated visibility of the discussion) and now absent the lone voice of support to date.
  • Committee on Institutional Cooperation (Big Ten), Atlantic Coast Conference Inter-institutional Academic Collaborative (ACC) (created as a stand-alone article), and similar (unknown) academic arms of these conferences might be good homes for this type of data.
  • The recent changes related to improved citations do not address the fundamental question of relevance within these particular articles.
  • Inclusion of Academic Progress Rate data would be WELL received.
  • The column on research spending might pair nicely with the endowment data. Unfortunately the endowment data is inconsistently located per article, so I don't see a clean, global solution for all articles. And there are likely width constraints in the summary table.

"I must insist on keeping the table, tweaking it yes, but keeping it nonetheless." "This is about knowledge guys. I hope I don't come off as overly assertive, but I must insist the tables stay." "I must insist that the table remain."

In addition to the immediately foregoing observation, there seems to be a distinct strain of advocacy running through these additions. "The public needs to know this" is one characteristic of impermissible advocacy, and I see that defense manifested here in statements like, "the readers deserve to know more about the member institutions of the Pac-12 and other conferences", "the reader should be allowed to learn more about these 'football teams'" and "the readers should know that all members of the big 10 conference are AAU research universities with a global reputation. As for the SEC's lacking, well, frankly most of those universities are unranked." I would be much more comfortable with these tables if, rather than a compendium of information pulled together by a WP editor, they reflected research and / or discussions in the media or academic press concerning these issues. It's preferable, I think, to let reliable third party sources pull together the data, and provide informed analysis or dissection of it, which in turn Wikipedia may report on. Self-generated summaries of a variety of data to - apparently - make a point is more problematic. JohnInDC (talk) 12:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

New opinion I've tangentially followed this discussion. I think the topic is notable as there are references that discuss the topic of academic rankings of various NCAA conferences. While they probably don't belong in each individual athletic conferences, I think you could find enough references to create a new article (probably an individual one for each conference with some conferences not having enough refs to warrant an article creation. This is probably a good compromise too, since it allows the articles to be expanded and referenced without having to determine if they fit within the scope of individual conference articles. — X96lee15 (talk) 12:26, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I think a separate article or articles about individual conferences, or NCAA athletics generally, is much preferable. JohnInDC (talk) 12:56, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I concur. Mojoworker (talk) 17:58, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I will just start by apologizing for the problems caused by my interactions with DMB112 two weeks ago that led to both myself and DMB112 getting blocked. I did not mean for such things to happen, but it was my understanding that the group here, prior to the disruption, was in agreement that the content was not wanted, even though DMB112 kept insisting that it be kept, but in different forms. I believe that now that there was a proper discussion on the merits on this data, and it has basically come to the conclusion that it is out of place on the conference articles, as well as it simply being a violation of WP:SYN to have come up with the comparisons, I believe that removal from the remaining articles where it was restored is warranted. I will be removing these sections from Pacific-12 Conference, Big 10 Conference, Southeastern Conference, and Big 12 Conference (it was never restored at Atlantic Coast Conference and it is not found on any other intercollegiate conference articles) and citing the above discussion in my edit summaries.—Ryulong (琉竜) 21:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

One of the big problems with this group of editors is that they are unfamiliar with higher education and higher education research. I highly recommend you all read the work of higher education scholars to grow your understanding of collegiate athletics in the 21st century. In addition, like most of the uninformed public, there is not a working level of understanding of collegiate athletic conferences among this group of reviewers. All articles are incomplete in failing to reflect academic and economic aspects of the respective conferences and their member institutions. The Southeastern Conference is a businesses for institutions of higher education, not a collection of football teams. I will be creating separate articles for conference initiatives(SECU for example) and linking them up to the main articles and respective university articles and returning the academic tables to Wikipidea.
DMB112 (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
The problem here, DMB112, is that you did not listen to anyone here and instead insisted that you were right and you were acting in the best interest of everyone. The pages such as Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 10 Conference are about the intercollegiate athletics and had never really discussed anything regarding the academic credentials of the member schools. You were adding content you yourself had compiled to articles (a violation of WP:SYN), adding content that people disagreed with long before my arrival (a violation of WP:CONSENSUS), and adding statistical information that had nothing to do with the articles at hand but was simply something that existed (a violation of WP:NOTIINFO). It might be interesting to look at this information, but if it is something you and only you have felt a need to compare, then there's not much use of this information on Wikipedia.—Ryulong (琉竜) 21:29, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
CNN recently published an interesting article regarding the relationship between academics and athletics. I believe those two subjects are related. User:DMB112 may have been attempting to make this connection by adding academic information to articles regarding college athletic conferences. I recommend that we at least try to determine what this user is attempting to accomplish by adding academic information to these articles before making any decisions with regards to this issue. - Mistercontributer (talk) 02:15, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Different. That article is about academics among athletes, not comparison of scores across athletic conferences.--GrapedApe (talk) 03:03, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree the article referenced above is related to academics among athletes, but these two issues are related, so we should at least consider whether or not these conference articles should include additional relevant academic information. - Mistercontributer (talk) 03:23, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

GAN

I am looking for someone willing to review 2013 Penn State Nittany Lions football team against the GA criteria. I am more than willing to do a QPQ review if someone is willing. Thank you. Go Phightins! 20:48, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

NFL Draft section

What is the preferred form of displaying players selected in the NFL draft at the end of the season, table or prose? I'm talking about on season articles. An example of a table is this: 2010 Oklahoma Sooners football team#2011_NFL_Draft and an example of prose is this: 2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team#Postseason Just the last paragraph on that last one. Kobra98 (talk) 04:14, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I can't speak to the MOS, because I find reading it rather boring, annoying, and tedious; generally, until a scholar in that area tells me I am wrong, I do what I feel is best in the context of the article. Personally, I think a table is more concise, however I have always thought it was somewhat personal preference. Go Phightins! 01:42, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
I recommend using a table to provide a summary and then add prose below the table as appropriate to provide additional details regarding the players and the draft. Mistercontributer (talk) 04:11, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
I like the table best, but I would welcome a short paragraph preceding the table. Just a short description like "When the season concluded, several players entered the NFL draft. The following players were picked up by various teams in the NFL." You could then also list the disposition of each player, such as "played 2 seasons", "still active", "released before play", etc. I think that would add value and clarity to the article.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:29, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
If there are only a few, then I would go with a short paragraph. If there are more than a handful, I would suggest a table. If there are any interesting facts, like a player taken very early, or a player going on to be very successful, then it's worth a short supplemental paragraph. it's mostly a style question, and what you think looks better.--GrapedApe (talk) 12:49, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for all the responses. I personally think a table is best, but I'm glad I could hear everyone else's opinions. Kobra98 (talk) 00:14, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

"Co-Head Coaches"

Hey, I've been working on List of Valparaiso Crusaders head football coaches and I'm running in to a "co-head-coach" issuer where two people were actually the "head coach" of the program. I've forgotten how we handle that... suggestions? samples??--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

1909 Georgia Bulldogs might cover this, depending on what specifically you are looking for. Georgia Bulldogs football under Coulter and Dobson, James Coulter, Frank Dobson. Template:Georgia Bulldogs football coach navbox, and List of Georgia Bulldogs head football coaches. UW Dawgs (talk) 03:33, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Senior Bowl Section

Need to swap the rosters... North vs. South. The South team roster is listed under the north team heading and vice-versa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.26.160.45 (talk) 21:56, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Redshirts on Champions' navbox?

A couple of months ago, I removed Darnell Dockett from the 1999 FSU champions navbox because of his redshirt status, but leaving a comment that I wasn't sure about it. Today, I found that Mark Jermaine Clayton, a redshirt in 2000, is listed on {{2000 Oklahoma Sooners football navbox}}. This time, I hesitated to remove him without prior discussion. I checked the archives and found this has been discussed in 2011, but (apparently) to no consensus. Could we please decide on a policy now? --bender235 (talk) 00:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

My take: on the in-season roster = in the navbox. Imagine a true freshman QB who runs the scout team every week, but ultimately does not play in games (redshirting at the end of the year, but available and ready to play at any moment during the season). Contrast with a redshirt freshman CB, recovering from a knee injury who doesn't practice or play all year. If "redshirted" alone is the criteria, the non-contributing CB is included while the QB is excluded. UW Dawgs (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
I'd say we use the same rule of thumb as for interim head coaches in "head coaching navboxes": we only list them when they coached (played) a game. So I'd say we list someone who played a couple of games, then got injured and earned a medical redshirt. But we don't list a player who did not play at all. --bender235 (talk) 22:33, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

2013 season articles need quality assessment

There are about 250 or so articles from the 2013 season still rated as Future class or Current class; see here and here. These need to be assessed on quality scale. If you an can chip in, that would be much appreciated. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 08:28, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

We now have about 150 or so 2013 season articles still rated as Future class. Please see here. Please help reassess these if you get the chance. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:44, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Assist on nesting a new Category

I'm weak on Category syntax. Could someone please assist with making this (new) Category:Snow College Badgers football coaches become a child of the existing Category:Snow College. Thanks. UW Dawgs (talk) 22:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Did you know? section

Just wondering, are "Did you know?" suggestions accepted for articles that are not new articles? --162.239.236.97 (talk) 07:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 09:54, 11 February 2014 (UTC).

Dear football experts: Here's an old abandoned Afc submission that will soon be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable player, and should the article be kept? —Anne Delong (talk) 10:33, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

At Tai Streets there is some content warring regarding whether it is relevant to discuss a QB controversy/battle in the article of a wide receiver for a team and whether it is relevant that a player ahead of the subject on the depth chart signing with another team is relevant (i.e., is it relevant in the bio of a player who was at one time a 4th wide receiver that the 3rd wide receiver signed with another team).--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:10, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Matthew W. Bullock

Just did some work to expand Matthew W. Bullock. I wonder was he the first African American head coach in college football at a non-HBCU institution? Jweiss11 (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Category in full CfR discussion

Please visit Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 February 17#Category:Snow College Badgers football coaches for the discussion on the renaming of Category:Snow College Badgers football coaches to Category:Snow Badgers football coaches. Thank you. Jrcla2 (talk) 21:56, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

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The curious case of Dr. George J. Sweetland

If you ever edited a pre-1910 college football coach you get used to various misspellings and reversed initials, wrong first names, missing info, etc. listed in newspapers articles, media guide, and at college football data warehouse. Lately I have been editing Dr. George J. Sweetland. There is a lot of information on his coaching careers in books (see references on George’s article), numerous old newspapers articles (see references on George’s article), and even mentioned prominently in a recent historic fiction [5]. But the various media guides cannot get his name right. Once again not uncommon but his is probably the worst I have seen on media guides.

I do need is some advice (and help) on how to handle the problem with conflicting information in relationship to other article on Wikipedia.

Example 1 Wikipedia article “List of Alma Scots head football coaches” does not list him as coach. It list George B. Wells for 1898. This is probably because the Alma College media guild does not list him as coach. There are articles such as this one [6] that state he was coach at Alma. Also in “Within Our Bounds” [7] a book on the history of Alma College published by Alma College states he was coach during the season. “George B. Wells, a student did the preliminary football coaching, and Dr. George Sweetland of Grand Rapids served as coach during the season.”

What I was going to do was on the “List of Alma Scots head football coaches”was to add Sweetland next to Wells’ and add a footnote that says something like ….” George B. Wells a student coached the team before the season with Sweetland taking over once the season started.” Then site several sources.

Example 2 The Wikipedia article University of North Dakota football list the coach for 1904-1907 as Walter C. Sweetland. This is probably because North Dakota football media guild list Walter C. Sweetland as coach. The basketball media guild does get it right and list Dr. G. J. Sweetland as coach. There are numerous newspaper article though out his career including [8][9] , at his death [10] as well as the books (see references on George’s article) that talk about him being athletic director as well as football coach of North Dakota. In addition Sweetland is shown in the photo of the UND football team [11] is almost a match to a photo of George shown in the Willamette year book [12] (p. 69).

What I was going to do was on the article University of North Dakota football was to switch Sweetland name to George and site several sources. I was also going to add a footnote that says something like ….” The North Dakota media guild list Walter C. Sweetland as coach.”

Example 3 The “Hobart Statesmen football coach navbox” does not list him as coach from 1915-16. Once again this is probably because the media guide does not list him (or any one else) [13]. There are tons of article (see references on George’s article) that list him as coach. I was just going to update the template to include him. I was not going to site any references since they are available on his article.

Example 4 The Northern Iowa (Iowa State Normal School) media guide [14] list a coach for 1899 as Mr. Sweetland. I have a source [15]that this Sweetland played fullback at Union for 4 years. This fits in with Dr. George Sweetland. Right era, right college and right position. I also have a source [16]that calls him Dr. Sweetland. Once again points to George. I have another source (a rival’s student newspaper [17]) that states that the coach was E. R. Sweetland (George’s younger brother). E. R. played one year at Union as a guard but in 1899 he was coach at Hamilton College in New York. I never ran into anything else saying E. R. was UNI coach.

I am 90% sure George was the coach but I did not include any of Northern Iowa info in George Sweetland’s (or E. R.’s ) article. I was hoping someone out there might have a smoking gun on who was the coach at Northern Iowa in 1899. Until then I think it best not to put any false information.

Any advice on how I am handling the various issues is greatly appreciated. 09er (talk) 22:27, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

09er, excellent job with this research. You analysis sounds solid, and I agree that the sources suggest that George Sweetland was the man in question for coaching at all these schools: Alma, Northern Iowa, North Dakota, Willamette, and Hobart. If you look at the database of records kept by the NCAA here, "John George Sweetland" (alma mater Michigan) is listed as the football and basketball coach at North Dakota and the football coach at Willamette for the relevant years. Was Sweetland's name in fact, George John? Have you found his middle name anywhere? I'm not sure where the "Walter C. Sweetland" came from. The College Football Data Warehouse lists "John C. Sweetland" here. That C is probably a typo/mis-copy from the G. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:01, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Jweiss11, First thanks for the clean-up of the article and all the changes to navboxes. I think “Walter C. Sweetland” came from the Wikipedia article University of North Dakota football and was probably a typo. The football media guide actually said “Dr. John G Sweetland.” The Basketball media guild states “Dr; George Sweetland.”
As for his middle name the only thing I can find is this article[18]. The headline reads “James Sweetland Dies” but in the article states his name as Dr. George James Sweetland. I also found what looks to be a family history[19] #97 that says it is James. This is not an independent 3rd party source, but I think it is probably correct. 09er (talk) 15:24, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Yet another request for move - please weigh in

See Talk:UMass Minutemen and Minutewomen#Requested move II. An editor has requested that "UMass" be changed to "Massachusetts." Jrcla2 (talk) 14:15, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Edit warring at Texas Longhorns football

Can someone more knowledgeable that I please double check the recent edit history of Texas Longhorns football? An unregistered editor is insisting that his or her edits remain although several other editors have objected. It appears to me that he or she is making POV edits to the article but I could be wrong and he or she could genuinely be making needed corrections. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 06:29, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Ole Miss - Notre Dame football series

I have nominated Ole Miss - Notre Dame football series for deletion. Please see discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 05:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Alabama head coaches

After doing some research, B. L. Noojin was the successor for Thomas Kelley as head coach at Alabama after Kelly resigned following the 1917 season. However, the 1918 season was canceled due to the effects of WWI, and Xen C. Scott was subsequently hired for the 1919 season. My question is should Noojin be included in the {{Alabama Crimson Tide football coach navbox}} as the head coach for the 1918 season? I ask because Noojin was hired well in advance of the season being canceled in December 1917 and a schedule for 1918 was released as well, but Noojin never did coach a game for the Crimson Tide.

Also, although a team was not fielded for the 1943 season, Frank Thomas led the team through spring practice with a schedule in place for the 1943 season before it was canceled due to the effects of WWII in August 1943. In this case, on the {{Alabama Crimson Tide football coach navbox}} is it necessary to show a break in his tenure for 1943 as he was the coach through spring practice and was to lead Alabama for 1943 season. I know this may set a different precedent, but in each case the argument can be made for their inclusion based on third party sources.

Finally, Mike Price was not, then was and then was not included on the {{Alabama Crimson Tide football coach navbox}}. Personally, I feel he should be included, but there may have been previous discussion as to why he was left off. The fact he did lead Alabama through the Spring in 2003 seems to be significant enough for inclusion on the template IMO. Thoughts? Patriarca12 (talk) 04:36, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes to all three + Kines. They were in charge of the football program in the role of the head coach, without even a qualifier of "# interim."
Price (2003) [20] and Kines (2006) [21] appear to have been removed by an IP editor narrowly focussed on removing interim/partial-year coaches. UW Dawgs (talk) 05:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Patriarca12, the existing standard for college coaching navboxes is only include individuals with at least one official game on record and to only note seasons in which they coached at least one official game on record. Nonetheless, you do make good points in favor of the inclusion of Noojin for 1918, Thomas for 1943, and Price for 2003 on the Alabama navbox. I suspect that if we did the amount of research for other programs that you have clearly done for Alabama, we would find many analogous situations elsewhere. Bo Rein at LSU and Michael Haywood at Pittsburgh immediately come to mind. As always, consistency across programs is important. I think the next step would be to formalize a new set of guidelines around these suggestions, written up as a project document and ideally with buy-in from WikiProject College Basketball and WikiProject College baseball, and also address the implications such new guidelines would have on relevant infoboxes, record tables, and lists. Then once we have a consensus to move forward with the new guidelines, Alabama can blaze the trail. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:49, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
I would be supportive of an initiative to include bona fide coaches for cancelled seasons. I see that as being very different from an "interim head coach" required by the NCAA to maintain recruiting (like when Tom Osborne named himself head coach when he fired Callahan and returned as athletic director and before hiring Bo Pelini).--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Long history sections

After some new edits were added to the Tulane Green Wave football page, I'm wondering at what point the history section of a team's article becomes too long? I've noticed this is an issue with a few different team pages (i.e. Auburn Tigers football), and it seems to me it would make more sense to take the specific sections out (that aren't important in the grand scheme of the team's history) and incorporate them into individual season articles instead. Anyone else's thoughts? Is it preferred to leave everything in the main history section, or have a brief narrative instead? --Bobster687 (talk) 18:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

(year) (league) standings templates

Almost all of those, such as {{1983 Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association football standings}} will be transcluded exactly once. When that is the case, they should be substituted into that article and deleted, according to the guidelines. Mr. Guye is nominating them; he's using the wrong reason, but he does have a point. UCO2009bluejay, please note and comment here.

If this has been discussed before, I apologize, but the guidelines suggest that a template used only once should be substituted and deleted. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:22, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I didn't know if there was a specific template for my particular reason or not. But anyways, I created a Templates for Discussion for it here. --Mr. Guye (talk) 02:27, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
There is the possibility for other teams to link a 1983 team potentially now FCS Southeast Missouri State and Division II power Northwest Missouri State. I appreciate Arthur Rubin asking me to comment, the link to this page as Mr. Guye did NOT notify me of any of this on my talk page as I believe is standard practice. I didn't know of a precedent of a page being transcluded onto a page. I noticed Jweiss11 objected to the deletion of one of these templates. I would also appreciate his input before deletion will possibly occur.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 02:46, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I have commented on the relevant TfD here. Others, please add your input there if you have not done so already. I'm not convinced that these templates will always be transcluded exactly once. They may indeed be appropriate for transclusion on multiple articles yet to be created. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:18, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders/Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders

I know it's not a big deal, but I thought I'd make all the football pages Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders unless there is some objection. Some of the year pages are listed as Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders, so I thought I'd make them consistent moving forward to avoid confusion..Pvmoutside (talk) 11:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there is objection (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College Basketball#Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders/Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders). Middle Tennessee State University is not branded with "State" for its athletics teams. Jrcla2 (talk) 02:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Objection to Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders?......Pvmoutside (talk) 03:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I misread the post. No, no objection to Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders. Jrcla2 (talk) 04:03, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

What are your thoughts on this article? To me this fails notability. The references aren't about the "top ten on CBS," they're merely game recaps and game videos. Also, the wording is too timely, saying things like "Seven of these games were played in the last four seasons" (obviously this can be changed). I was thinking of nominating it but I'd rather have a more active WP:CFB participant do it because you'd probably be able to give better deletion rationale. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:13, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The two references that talk about the "Top Ten" games really just list the games. It's more just a TV listing, not coverage about the "ten greatest games of all-time". The other references on the page don't count, IMO, since they're talking about each of the games themselves, not the "top ten" list. — X96lee15 (talk) 13:23, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2014 April 7#Top Ten SEC on CBS Games. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

This article should be renamed to make it easier to find. The middle initial is not normally used when Kevin Wilson is mentioned. 99.185.58.50 (talk) 15:27, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

False season article info

User:Comedian1018 has created 1977 UCLA Bruins football team, that as far as I can tell is just flat out incorrect. Can someone please fix this? Also might want to carefully comb through 1994 Arizona State Sun Devils football team, another relatively recent season creation of his. I would offer to fix these myself but I'm busy with other projects. Thanks. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:33, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

See UCLA Media Guides and specifically Annual Schedules/Results. The 1977 standings within the article note "UCLA forfeited 7 wins (5 conference wins) due to an ineligible player." which might(?) be related to your concern. UW Dawgs (talk) 19:52, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
Three questions then:
  1. Then shouldn't the article itself have all of those games be shaded red? Look at 2013 Grambling State Tigers football team. They forfeited the October 19th game and it's coded red.
  2. Can somebody write an explanation on the article itself, right in the very beginning, to alleviate concerns? If I, someone who is probably more knowledgeable than an average person about this sort of stuff, got confused, then I certainly won't be the last.
  3. Would the 1977 UCLA team thus qualify for Category:College football winless seasons? I don't think it's ever been addressed as to whether fully-forfeited seasons should count, since technically they won games on the field that year?
Jrcla2 (talk) 20:29, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
Similarly, ASU Media Guides and Annual Schedules/Results. There is not an ASU 1994 forfeit callout. I didn't immediately see any issues at a glance. UW Dawgs (talk) 20:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
@Jweiss11, @Patriarca12, @Paulmcdonald, what are your thoughts on 1–3? Jrcla2 (talk) 12:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

IP editor

I'd appreciate if some others could comment at Talk:Fred W. Murphy. We have an IP editor here who clearly knows a bunch about college football history and general research, but doesn't understand how to navigate Wikipedia in a productive way. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:15, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 20:25, 5 May 2014 (UTC).

Rankings boxes on season articles

The rankings boxes on the season articles are messed up now that the CFP rankings row was added. Can this be fixed somehow? Thanks! -AllisonFoley (talk) 06:19, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Louis Clark (American football coach) - needs creation

Would anyone be interested in creating Louis Clark (American football coach)? He appears on {{Dayton Flyers football coach navbox}} (1913, 1917–1918) as well as the professional {{Dayton Triangles coach navbox}} (1913–1914). The NCAA database also lists his nickname as Louis "Foose" Clark, if that matters. Creating this would complete the former NFL franchise coach navbox as well as checking off another college coach from the queue. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:27, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Man has this WikiProject's talk page died or what. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Right now a lot of Randall Cunningham II's fanbase are people who care about Randall Cunningham, I may be more likely to get help here than at projects on his own talk page. In the first 20 days of this month Randall Cunningham II had 720 hits (36 per day). Today, the article is looking like it is going to get 700 for the day. Can anyone help me find a story that might explain this. Please drop a note at Talk:Randall_Cunningham_II#Unusual_spike.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:45, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Bowl Game names with years

If we continue the current naming scheme of bowl game names with years, some article names will have the "wrong" year. For example, the 2014 Orange Bowl was played on January 3, 2014, but the 2015 Orange Bowl will be played on December 31, 2014. Similarly, the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl was played on January 1, 2014, but the 2015 Heart of Dallas Bowl will be played on December 26, 2014. There are others too. Is this an issue? Or should we just continue with the current naming scheme? Mudwater (Talk) 15:03, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

The precedent thus far is to dab the game with the month, such as: 2010 Alamo Bowl (January) and 2010 Alamo Bowl (December). A hatnote can be used to further reduce confusion. — X96lee15 (talk) 15:22, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
Okay. Thanks. Mudwater (Talk) 15:30, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Rankings template

The current template we're using for rankings on season articles, Template:NCAA Division I FBS football ranking movements, is really messed up. We need to separate this template into four different ones, because different years used different polls, and therefor require different templates. The first will just have AP and Coaches' rankings, and it'll be used for seasons pre-BCS, aka pre-1998; the second will have AP, Coaches' and BCS, and will be used for seasons from 1998 to 2004 (last year without Harris Poll); the third will have AP, Coaches', BCS and Harris, and will be used for 2004-2013 (end of BCS); and the fourth and final will have AP, Coaches' and CFP, dropping BCS because it doesn't exist anymore, and Harris, because it won't be used anymore. I honestly have no idea how to go about doing this, but this needs to happen, because the current template literally doesn't make sense on any CFB season article for any year. Kobra98 (talk) 18:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the existing template can be modified so that each ranking displays only when populated? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm sure that'd work for 1998-2013, where you could just turn off Harris Poll from '98-'04, but before and after those years would be kinda ridiculous. In 20 years, we shouldn't be using a template that still has a setting that allows you to put in rankings for the BCS poll. And for the thousands of articles pre-1998, we shouldn't have the Harris and BCS on those either. Kobra98 (talk) 20:18, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
There is no need to have four separate templates one will work just fine. The current template just needs to be modified. I will take a look and see what I can do to fix the issues.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 20:28, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
To fallow up on my above comment. After looking at the templates code and the code that makes that code work it should be pretty easy to hide the other polls in articles pre bcs, cfp, harris and articles post bcs. I however will need to rewrite the code to make the current template work the way it needs to without completely messing up the pages that the templates already in so this will take sometime to do. But once its down we'll have one nice template that can do every thing we need it to do, and not have the need for four templates.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 21:22, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm telling you, it'll make more sense to at least create two, with the second one not having the Harris and BCS. In 10, 20, 30 years, we don't need to still be using a template with a poll on it that was only used for 15 years. That's just ridiculous. Kobra98 (talk) 21:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
Your not understanding this the poll will be hidden you wont see it unless you fill in the parameters for it. I've all ready done some mock ups here on how it will look.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 21:47, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I see. For the final post-BCS box, you don't HAVE to put the CFP rankings on the poll5 section do you? Can't you just put it on the third one? Kobra98 (talk) 23:28, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
Once I get the new code wrote up things will be listed in new orders. I'm trying to use existing code just in a new way so once its done things will be simple to use and it will hide only the things that need to be used.--Dcheagletalkcontribs 00:18, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject College Football At Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

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One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

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Requested Move at Kevin R. Wilson

For any college football editors who might be interested, I have opened a requested move at Talk:Kevin_R._Wilson#Requested_Move. 99.185.58.50 (talk) 01:04, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Clair Bee coaching tenure?

Does anyone have a reliable source that can confirm Clair Bee coached the 1929 and 1930 football teams at Rider University? That he coached there is not in question, it's a matter of it's just 1930 or if he also did in 1929. Jrcla2 (talk) 01:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Help with article name (DAB issue)

Tomtomm3 noted in this edit that Tom Moore (American football) is a different person from the college coach who served as an Assistant at Clemson and head coach at Gardner–Webb and The Citadel. I went to see about creating a page for the collegiate coach, and see that there is already a Tom Moore (American football coach). Does anyone have a suggested dab should I use to distinguish our third Tom Moore? Billcasey905 (talk) 19:34, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

AfD regarding individual regular season CFB games

Greetings, sports fans. Please be advised that I have submitted an AfD nomination for the recently created Primetime Drama, an article about the 2007 Florida-LSU regular season college football game. As I believe that the discussion regarding the notability of of individual regular season CFB games will be of general interest to most WP:CFB participants, I invite everyone's participation in the AfD discussion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:26, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

  1. ^ [hhttp://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/salaries/ncaaf/coach/ "NCAAF COACH SALARY"]. USA Today. Retrieved 19 December 2013.