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Nebraska DC Carl Pelini photographer incident

On November 20, after Nebraska suffered a difficult loss to Texas A&M, Nebraska DC Carl Pelini somehow took offense at something a local reporter/photographer did, rushed up to him and knocked the camera out of his hand, apparently damaging the camera. Photographic evidence of the incident exists. While regrettable and indefensible, I question whether a one-off incident of this nature belongs in a WP article. At what point does an article include or not include incidents from specific games? I mean, I know there is a threshold, but don't really think this meets it. I bring it up because user Macae (talk) (a Texas Aggies fan as apparent from his talk page) continues to put this blurb in the Pelini article despite several other parties repeatedly removing it. I myself removed it once because I thought it was mostly inflammatory, but have since just observed. It is no secret that I am a Nebraska homer, so am seeking thoughts here from relatively unbiased parties. I am fairly confident that bringing it up on the talk page or directly with Macae (homer to homer) would probably not be productive. Is he flaming or am I being oversensitive? Fjbfour (talk) 15:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

• I even question if Carl Pelini is notable enough for an article to begin with. Certainly his brother Bo Pelini is...--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
• While I don't doubt that Carl is notable enough, I don't think we need that little section. Describing an incident like that without telling the reader why that is important to the article, or in the person's life, is not necessary. If he had a history of temper problems, we gave that (cited) fact, and used this debacle as an example, I wouldn't mind it. As it is, it comes across as trying to disparage the guy. Furthermore, you need to try and talk to him. I'm sure you know WP:BRD. Discussion is absolutely warranted, and the lack of discussion on your part wouldn't look good to an uninvolved admin trying to settle an edit war (not that it is one now!). I'm going to post this on the talk page and remove the section in question. Nolelover ^{It's football season!} 15:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

FWIW I'm not outright against talking to him, or avoiding it, but wanted to get a neutral idea of what a greater consensus might be before engaging the debate, so that I might see where it would go if it was unproductive as I assumed it might be. However, based on the PROD development, may be a moot point now. Fjbfour (talk) 19:54, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Notability for assistant coaches who have never been head coaches

Per Paulmcdonald's comments about notability above, do we have any standards in place for assistants who have never been head coaches? Guys like Norm Chow and Jerry Sandusky seem to be notable for sure as they have garnered plenty of media coverage including consideration for head coaching positions. I created an article a few months ago for Fred Jackson (American football coach), who's the most tenured member of the Michigan staff, having been with the team since 1992. User:Cbl62 has created some very nice articles for other Michigan assistants like Milan Vooletich. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

We've got an essay at WP:CFBCOACH (scroll down to assistant coaches). It's a start. Certainly an assistant can be notable, but we've pretty much held that they are not inherently notable.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Whoops, not an intended result of my query! LOL... well, I guess I'll just sit back and see how this plays out. Can't help but chuckle, though.... Fjbfour (talk) 19:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

*snicker* - Fjb asks about whether or not a camera-destroying coach should live in infamy here on WP, and now we're discussing the notability of assistant coaches. =P This is why I love this place... Nolelover ^{It's football season!} 19:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Fjbfour, don't worry, I don't think anyone in this crowd is going to AfD Carl Pellini. He's safe unless we get invaded by some pedantic Euros. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I guess I was wrong. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

LOL...looking at the four assistants mentioned by Jweiss11, three have won assistant coach of the year awards (either Broyles or AFCA), making them presumptively notable. Vooletich isn't presumptively notable, but Cbl62 did the digging to find sources to probably satisfy the general notability guideline, though I personally think it's a borderline non-notable case. But yes, I pretty much agree with what CFBCOACH says in this regard. cmadler (talk) 20:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like every assistant coach at Nebraska has their own page. Likely they should be merged to the team article... we'll see!--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Once this blew up, I knew someone was going to go there. I made most of them. I am already working on a merged version for current (and past) Nebraska assistants. I have already copied out what I need, so if someone is compelled to PROD them all, I am already in possession of all that would disappear. But LOL talk about unintended consequences, this is actually quite amusing. After reading CFBCOACH I can't find serious reason to argue any of it. Yeah, this place is fun. Fjbfour (talk) 20:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, on the other hand, despite our penchant for rabbit-trails the dispute about that one section has been cleared up. Also, for anyone with Carl's page not on their watchlist, User:Strikehold removed the ProD, citing 551 G-news hits. Nolelover ^{It's football season!} 22:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:CFBCOACH is a reasoned attempt to establish a guideline for which coaches are inherently notable. In addition, an assistant coach who has received significant, non-trivial coverage can meet the general notability standard even if he doesn't fall into one of the boxes listed in the essay. A. J. Sturzenegger is a good example. He doesn't fit into the boxes listed in the essay, but the Los Angeles Times published multiple stories about him such that he meets the general notability standard. Cbl62 (talk) 00:03, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Quarterback U?

I looked it up on the wikipedia page on "Quarterback U" where it said nothing about the Washington Huskies had been widely considered as a "quarterback u" in any period of time. I think either we need a citation from someone who claimed Washington football as a quarterbacks-productive school. 13:41, 21 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.95.223.158 (talk)

Capital One Bowl history

I'm a little surprised at the lack of Capital One Bowl games history. I noticed how many redlinks there are on {{Capital One Bowl}}. I'm not a die hard college football fan, but are the C.O.B. and its previously named Tangerine Bowls not important bowl games? Jrcla2 (talk) 14:35, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The Tangerine Bowl, relatively speaking is one of the more important bowls, but it's not in the top 5 so it will take some time. I think the articles are slowly being created. Even first tier games like the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl are missing games. I know that about a year ago, the Rose Bowl was still missing quite a few articles. —Ute in DC (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh ok. I guess that just surprises me because I would have figured all bowl games would have been a very high priority in WP:CFB. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:17, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Like many projects we struggle with recentism. We are largely dependent on fans to update pages and fans are most interested in recent history. There aren't as many of us who are interested in games or teams from 20 years ago, let alone 50 years. —Ute in DC (talk) 19:20, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah recentism is annoying to people who like to read about old(er) players, teams, games, etc. in all sports, not just football. I know I enjoyed writing the bulk of the pre-1970s NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans (the consensus All-American players, not the yearly award page) because I learned so much more about old-time players than I ever thought I would (George Munroe is a favorite).

Any reason why the 2003 Capital One Bowl is so conspicuously absent? Jrcla2 (talk) 19:38, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the Capital One Bowls are pretty spotty. I created articles for the 2001 and 2002 games last year in an effort to bang out stubs for every Michigan bowl game. I don't think there's anything that conspicuous about the 2003 article missing. We just haven't had an avid Auburn or Penn State guy or someone else create it yet. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:58, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty conspicuous when it's the only one missing from 1999 through the present, but I digress. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Just putting in my own two cents on recentism. I absolutely loved doing the Nebraska football season pages and reading the old articles while doing research. I'm a long time fan, but have a MUCH better understanding of the history, culture and tradition now. I never noticed recentism until after that, but it is oh so obvious now everywhere you look. Fjbfour (talk) 10:12, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

College basketball head coaches navbox standardization

Hi WP:CFB, thanks to some of you for starting the college basketball coach navbox tenures and full names transition. Before we go any further, I think there's one minor issue that needs to be worked out before proceeding. I started the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College Basketball#Coaching tenures for navboxes. Thanks! Jrcla2 (talk) 18:09, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Nav boxes and succession boxes for coaches

A bunch of us here have implemented some changes regarding succession boxes and nav boxes for college football coaches. Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League#Nav boxes and succession boxes for coaches for a summary, plus a discussion about rolling these out to NFL coaches. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Navboxes for deletion

Two FCS coaching navboxes have been nominated for deletion: Albany Great Danes and Old Dominion Monarchs. If anyone has a history of keeping navboxes around, any input would be appreciated. Geologik (talk) 21:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Likewise Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Template:Milwaukee Panthers football coach navbox, which was a College Division program from 1956 to 1974. cmadler (talk) 13:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC) Correction: it was apparently a College Division program from 1956 to 1972, and Division I for 1973 and 1974. cmadler (talk) 13:20, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Current players cat?

Should we have categories for current players only? I proposed this one for deletion, and I'm looking for comments from project members. —bender235 (talk) 02:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

My first thought is delete on two accounts: 1) maintenance nightmare. 2) If we don't have analogous categories for pro players, who are all automatically notable, then why for college sports, where notably is more limited and populations should be smaller? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. I might also point out that I recently found a current Big XII coaches category while I was working on the CFB coach navboxes this last month. Same logic applies, and it completely duplicates the current conference coach templates. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Template:AFB Game Box - request

Regarding Template:AFB Game Box Start, is it possible without an unreasonable amount of work to create the ability to toggle this to show two periods instead of four? Historically, early football games up into the 1900s only had two periods. When creating game summaries for these early games, I have used HTML to emulate the appearance of the template with two periods, as in this example of the 1905 Michigan-Nebraska game:

Nebraska at Michigan

1 2 Total Nebraska 0 0 0 • Michigan 0 31 31 Date: October 21 Location: Regents Field • Ann Arbor, Michigan

I'd like to be able to convert these to templates so that they will be carried along with any future template formatting changes. Is this possible? Anyone up to it? Maybe it's time for me to learn how to work on templates... Fjbfour (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• I don't know about toggling it within the same template, but it would be trivially easy to create a new such template with just two periods. (Plus optional overtimes? Did they have overtime periods?) But if you really want it within the same template, it can probably be done. cmadler (talk) 18:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • No OT's, time ran out on tie games. Makes things simpler for the "new template" approach. Fjbfour (talk) 18:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
    • OK, I'm putting it at Template:AFB Game Box Start 2 periods. Let me know if it gives you any problems. cmadler (talk) 19:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Nebraska at Michigan

1 2 Total Nebraska 0 0 0 • Michigan 0 31 31 Date: October 21, 1905 Location: Regents Field • Ann Arbor, Michigan

• Hmmm, looks to be slightly broken somewhere. Perhaps someone else could take a look and see if they can find the problem? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 20:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
  • For some reason {{AFB game box end}} wasn't calling properly, but it seems to have fixed now. cmadler (talk) 20:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
    • Wow, you da man! Thank you so much, it's perfect. Now I have some edits to tackle.... Fjbfour (talk) 21:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Same player?

Can anyone verify if Bill Thomas (American football) is the same person as Bill Thomas (football coach)? It strikes me that these two are probably one in the same. If they are then the latter should be merged with the former. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

These are two different guys. I moved Bill Thomas (football coach) to William A. Thomas. There's a Philadelphia Inquirer article from Dec 16, 1983 announcing his appointment as head coach at Tennessee State that refers to him as "William A. Thomas". The NCAA database lists his DOB as October 21, 1948 and that he graduated from Tennessee State in 1970. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:56, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Ahh ok. Did he play football at TSU? If so you could add the category. Jrcla2 (talk) 21:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, just looked that up in the TSU media guide and made some additions. He did play there from 1967 to 1970. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:06, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

TfD?

What are this WikiProject's guidelines on templates like this? At WP:CBBALL we have a strict no–"current" anything except for current head coaches of a particular Division I conference. I feel like this Auburn template shouldn't exist, but I don't know. Jrcla2 (talk) 04:28, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

• IMO it should be merged into Template:Auburn Tigers football. Fjbfour (talk) 04:46, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
  • In addition, I noted that Template:Auburn Tigers football includes all past head coaches, and ironically that is actually something that is worth its own stand-alone template. Fjbfour (talk) 04:49, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
    • That template does exist: Template:Auburn Tigers football coach navbox. There are head coach templates for every Division I program and many lower division ones as well. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Can we get a final consensus on rosters?

There is more than one variety of roster format out there. I've been using a modified version of the wikimarkup one used at 2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team (my mod is to simplify the work by listing all players alphabetically by last name instead of sorting by position). Before bringing this topic up, I did some searching of the talk archives and turned up two existing templates suitable for NCAA football rosters: Template:American football roster/Player (seen here), and Template:NCAAplayer (seen here). I personally prefer the roster/Player one, as it also includes the ability to integrate the coaching staff with it. In both cases, I find the presence of the graphic redshirt () visually distracting and unnecessary. I think I know just enough about templates to add to roster/Player the ability to show redshirt freshmen as "RFr" and forgo the graphic (it is an on/off toggle). Anyway, are there others to consider? Refinements to be made? Consensus to be found? It would be nice to nail this down and have it settled, like we did for the HFC navboxes. Fjbfour (talk) 04:23, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I also like the American football roster/Player one best because 1) look like the best layout, 2) integrates coaches, and 3) has the most generalized name. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Nmajdan did a heck of a job with the roster/Header/Player/Footer combo and it's the one I've used in the past. Gets my vote. Geologik (talk) 04:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think a consensus is necessary. Editor preference. Obviously, I like my latest creation better than the earlier format for the sorting options (which I stole from the NBA templates). I understand your issue with the redshirt graphic. If I get time next week, I'll see if I can make the image optional. I'm a bit out of practice in template design so it may take a little while longer. I'm glad people like the latest one. Obviously, I created it hoping it would be adopted by others. Now I need to go back and add it to the older Oklahoma Sooners articles.»NMajdan·talk 05:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and modified Nmajdan's template (first time I ever edited a template for anything other than a typo, watch out!), and the change appears to have done what I intended. You can now specify a redshirt freshman with the class attribute, which puts RFr in the display. There is no change to the functionality of the redshirt graphic feature, meaning its original function with the graphic remains but that you can now skip the graphic and show redshirts via text only, per individual preference. I also updated its documentation accordingly. Fjbfour (talk) 05:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the redshirt graphic should only be used to designate players who actually redshirted during that season. A player in his first year who redshirted the prior season should be listed as "Redshirt freshman" or "RFr". cmadler (talk) 13:48, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 19:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Luckily for me, OU's official roster specifies redshirt freshman or regular freshman, so I go by that. Also, with regards to the change of the template, while what you did did the trick, I still think modifying the current rs parameter would have made more since. You could have changed it to where if rs=g the graphic was shown or if rs=t then the text was shown. But, it works.»NMajdan·talk 14:32, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Habitual color scheme changer

You guys might want to keep a very close eye on User:DragoLink08 (talk / contribs). He has been going around and screwing up tons of college football and NFL-related color schemes. I don't think he's doing it on purpose, but sometimes the editors with the best intentions who go and make sweeping, non-consensus changes are the most dangerous kind. Jrcla2 (talk) 04:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Assessment of this page

Does anyone why know this page is effectively assessed as a Good Article, i.e. it is categorized under Category:GA-Class college football articles. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

• Fixed. Someone meant to link the category in a comment, and forgot to put the colon at the beginning, so they instead added the page to the category. cmadler (talk) 13:16, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I figured the culprit was something like that, but I couldn't find it. Jweiss11 (talk) 13:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I'll be more careful about that in the future. —Ute in DC (talk) 20:09, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:CurrentAuburnFBCoaches

Template:CurrentAuburnFBCoaches has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Jrcla2 (talk) 02:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

CALL FOR DISCUSSION: Coach Navbox Changes

Hey gang! There's been some changes in several of the football coach navboxes lately. An editor is added expanded information to the boxes, showing not just the original last name, but also the first name and the period of coaching.

Example of differences:

• {{Boston College Eagles football coach navbox}}
• {{Bowling Green Falcons football coach navbox}}

I believe that it is important that we have uniform structures for all the coach navboxes. I see that there are both advantages and disadvantages to making this change. So my questions are the following:

1. Is it important that we have a uniform style for coach navboxes?
2. What should that uniform style be?

Let's get everyone involved in this discussion... I think it's critical.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:26, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• I do not think that coach navboxes need to be absolutely uniform. A certain amount of variation is fine. For example, I like the additional information provided in the BGSU navbox, but it would get unwieldy for a school with a lot more coaches (see, for example, {{Kentucky Wildcats football coach navbox}}). cmadler (talk) 15:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• The point of including a nickname/first name, last name and the dates of service is to eliminate any need for the clunky succession boxes. At some point the succession boxes got out of control, with individual editors inserting succession boxes for every conference statistical leader, starting position and random award. Please also remember that in addition to the coaches who have coached football at several different schools, we also have many pre-1960 coaches who coached multiple sports at several different schools. The College Basketball project has agreed to follow this pattern in their coaches navboxes, and most other college sports projects already pattern themselves on the CFB and CBB projects. By including this information in the coaches navboxes, we are providing our readers with a truly useful navbox that permits them to find a coach by either recognizable name or team era, we may then eliminate one of the major causes of bottom-of-the-page graphic clutter, and we can advance the cause of cross-project uniformity. That's my 2 cents worth.

For good examples of the resulting appearance, please see John J. Tigert, Charlie Bachman and Urban Meyer. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• I hadn't really thought about the relationship of navboxes to succession boxes (which I generally dislike). To the extent it helps eliminate succession boxes, I'm in favor of putting this additional information in the navboxes. cmadler (talk) 12:45, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• In answer to the legitimate question of potentially "unwieldy" length of some navboxes raised by Cmadler above, I would also suggest that those coaches navboxes where the enhanced content exceeds five or more lines, that the unwieldy nature could be eliminated by breaking the coaches into two to three-line clusters by defined time periods in order to make the enhanced content more quickly useful to the readers who use the navboxes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• I like that idea. Can you work up an example?--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• Well, {{Eastern Michigan Eagles football coach navbox}} is broken into sections based on the nickname changes. Right now they're just 1 line each (on my screen, anyway), but the added information would make the sectioning more clear. cmadler (talk) 14:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• Paul and Cmadler, please have a look-see at the revamped Eastern Michigan navbox (link above). I have broken the five to six lines of enhanced text into two clusters and put date headers on each cluster. Because Wikipedia is scalable, and expands to fill the width of whatever computer monitor you are using, it may appear slightly wider or narrower (with fewer or more text lines) depending on the width of your monitor. I use a 19" monitor, and I am displaying three lines of enhanced text in each of the two clusters. Let me know what you think. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• I've reworked the EMU navbox some more, breaking it based on the nicknames rather than an arbitrary break halfway through (which will change, anyway, with each future coach). The total is still (for me, anyway) six lines of content. What do you think? cmadler (talk) 15:15, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• I think it looks better. Maybe centered? I could see arguments for different schools having different "breaks" - some by decade, some by NAIA/NCAA, some by mascot, or whatever. I can also see arguments for some schools not having this robust detail in the navigation. Here's a more general question: What constitutes a "good" navbox?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• I would also vote to eliminate those succession boxes when possible, they really don't blend (that green color? Meh), and create extra work when articles are renamed or moved, etc, because they are frequently redundant to something else already available. Regarding the splitting into groups for large coaching navboxes... is the overall goal of this discussion to reduce the number of consecutive lines of text, or to make the navbox smaller overall? The discussion seemed to start out by focusing concern on the increased size of the navboxes with the addition of full names and years, but splitting into groups makes them even bigger overall. Not that this is necessarily bad, but what is the ultimate goal here? Fjbfour (talk) 17:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Fjbfour, I think the point is to make the names within the navbox as easy to read as possible. I believe Paul and Cmadler's point was to avoid six or seven lines of unbroken text (first name, last names, years of service) that may overwhelm some readers and make the enhanced information less useful than it otherwise might be.
• Cmadler & Paul, I am amenable to any logical cluster-breaks that you fellas can live with. Based on individual circumstances, the cluster-breaks of the names could be done by year, by nickname eras in the case of multiple mascots a la Eastern Michigan, or no cluster-breaks at all if there are relatively few lines of enhanced text. To my eye, it starts to get a little overwhelming when you get six or seven lines of unbroken text. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• One other quick thought: I came across the Western Michigan navbox yesterday, and it already had the dates of service, but the original navbox creator put the dates of service in a "small" font. While this would only reduce the length of the enhanced text marginally, it may allow the reader to more quickly discern the coaches' names from the dates of service. You may want to have a look at it. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• I can hardly see a difference between the size of the "small" font on the WMU navbox and the normal font on the EMU navbox, though that might vary based on computer/browser settings. cmadler (talk) 12:36, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• I would support using smaller fonts for years. Also, would it be worth considering using <sup> tags for the small font, with or without the parenthesis, to move the years slightly out of horizontal alignment with the coach name, making them even easier to differentiate? Or would that violate any WP style standards? Examples of both below. Fjbfour (talk) 15:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

John Smith ^(1959-1965) • Bill Jones ^(1966-1971) • Richard Williams ^1971-1979 • Tom Adams ^1980-1984

• Hmmm. Interesting. I could be convinced. It certainly allows the reader to pick the names out quickly in the lines of text. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:27, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

If we decide to go with any sort of advanced formatting, I would suggest building an underlying template to support all of the navboxes, similar to what has been done with the standings templates, e.g. Template:CFB Standings Entry. I envision something that takes three parameters: coach, start year, end year. That way, we can tweak the formatting dynamically, if need be, and avoid having to type cumbersome sup or small tags on every nav box. JohnnyPolo24 and DeFaultRyan maybe the guys to involve in that. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Since we've been playing with it, I formatted the years on {{Eastern Michigan Eagles football coach navbox}} as small superscript. Take a look and see what you think. cmadler (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Done that way, I think the years could lose the parentheses. cmadler (talk) 17:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Cmadler, I don't think you need to use both "small" and "superscript" coding; I think that's double redundant duplicative coding, because the year spans in your example look REALLY small. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Dirtlawyer1. You don't need an sup and small. Makes it too small.Jweiss11 (talk) 18:05, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

If an underlying template is developed (I like that idea), it will need to have the ability to permit either the start or end year to be blank and not produce errors for single-year coaches. Thought #2: Maybe this is going too far, but can anyone think of a reasonable formatting to also include the ability to add a comment to a specific coach line? Example circumstance: Bo Pelini was the interim head coach at Nebraska for the 2003 season's bowl game only. Before the recent changes and addition of the years, his first entry had appeared as: --- • Pelini (interim) • --- Other early NU head coaches were not season-long but coached for perhaps a single game of a season. I'm certain that Nebraska was not unique in this circumstance. Is there value in adding a fourth parameter to the proposed template to provide the ability to add the occasional comment? Fjbfour (talk) 18:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I am no longer quite so sure I like the superscript option, as it does not look as clean as I thought it might in a large group. I've created a user page with the current version of the Nebraska Football template as well as two variants using the superscript, so they can be compared side by side. Opinions? Fjbfour (talk) 21:40, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Maybe we should try italics for the dates. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I created two more examples there, both with bold font for the names, one with years in italics, and one with years in normal-alignment small font. I think I like the last one best. Fjbfour (talk) 00:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I think I like the small, parenthetical format used in Template:Western Michigan Broncos football coach navbox best. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:26, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, per Fjbfour's concerns above regarding an underlying template solution, Template:CFB Yearly Record Subhead employs logic that can be replicated to handle single-year and present tenures. Another parameter to denote interim tenures could be added. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:29, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I added two more variants to the collection of Nebraska navboxes that I am fiddling with. The one second from the bottom shows coach names in bold, years and notes inside of parenthesis and in small font. The last one reverts to the practice of showing only last names, which I think looks cleaner. Fjbfour (talk) 11:18, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• I like the last one that has the last name only in bold. Looks easiest to read on my PC.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:27, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

• Small difference with Paul----I prefer the inclusion of the first name or nickname, simply because it provides the casual reader with an additional point of recognition, e.g., Bear Bryant vs. Bryant, Snuffy Smith vs. Smith, Lou Holtz vs. Holtz. Also, do we want to include the "interim" or similar designation or not? Is it necessary, or something best left to the subject article? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• I think that if we are going to include an interim coach on the navbox, they should be labeled as so. Sometimes we include interim coaches, sometimes not (I think we should).--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

• Paul, how about we put a dagger footnote on the interim coaches with an explanatory "interim" note at the bottom of the box? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:44, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

• I think I'm okay with a dagger footnote for interim coaches. Should be fine.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

• A dagger footnote is good, as long as there's some on/off switch for navboxes where it is not needed. cmadler (talk) 14:04, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

• A dagger footnote sounds good to me. Just don't cut yourself. ;) An on/off switch could be built in easily to the underlying template I was talking about above. We have the same functionality in the CFB Schedule templates. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, guys, did we ever reach a conclusion on this? It seemed like we were VERY CLOSE to making a decision, or at least narrowing the options, and then got sidetracked on the "dagger" doo-hickey thingamabob. As things presently stand, I support the last variation espoused by Jweiss, the current Western Michigan Broncos navbox, with first and last names in unbolded font and the terms of service in small font. That having been said, why don't we post the five or six major alternatives, and start taking a vote of the project members to reach a consensus. I would suggest that we open a series of voting rounds to last a week each, and after each round, drop the alternative receiving the fewest votes until we have a winner. My father always said: "Son, don't start a job unless you intend to finish it." Let's finish the drill, guys. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:31, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

• It seems to me that we started implementing for a kind of "play-test" of the proposed chagnes (which I suppose is a bad way to do things but what the hey).--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Succession box clutter

I am a proponent of succession boxes and use them quite broadly in articles. I have numerous WP:FA and WP:GA that employ them such as Tyrone Wheatley, Brandon Graham (American football), Evan Turner, to name a few. Cbl62 has deleted several from Denard Robinson and Jweiss11 has deleted one from Jonas Mouton. Now at Talk:Denard Robinson/GA2, the decision seems to have been made to keep most of them out. Can someone tell me what the current policy is on succession boxes and why the following types of succession boxes are considered clutter.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

No decision has been made to keep them in the Robinson article, and I do think they are clutter. I left the Big Ten rushing leader succession box, even though I'm dubious about that one as well. IMO, succession boxes should be limited to major offices, positions or awards. Also major records, like the progression of the world record in the 100 meter dash. Where there is already a navbox for the info, I would not favor a redundant succession box. For the latter reason, I deleted the Succession Box for Michigan Starting Quarterbacks. The Denard Robinson article is already quite long, and he's only a college sophomore. This is an article where we need to be especially conscious of minimizing unneeded clutter. Leading a particular conference in tackles (the box removed by Jweiss) or in total offense (the one I removed from Robinson) or holding a positional record (single-season rushing yards by a college QB) aren't the sort of major records that warrant Succession Boxes. If all such accomplishments warranted infoboxes, articles would get seriously cluttered. Cbl62 (talk) 01:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

On Brandon Graham (American football), I think the redundant infobox/navbox for the Chicago Tribune Silver Football Trophy needs to be fixed. I'd suggest keeping the navbox and deleting the succession box. I'd also favor getting rid of the succession boxes for such things as "Big Ten Tackles for a loss Champion (total)" and "FBS Tackles for a loss Champion (per game)." Cbl62 (talk) 02:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Tony, I'll take a crack at explaining the evolving Big Picture. As a project, we are replacing all coach succession boxes with new enhanced navboxes that include the first name, the last name and years of service for every coach listed in the navboxes. The succession boxes for every Division I FBS coach have already been deleted; most of those for FCS and lower division coaches have been deleted and the remaining work is in progress. We are doing this in conjunction with WP College basketball, where the navbox enhancements are now in progress. Major college football awards, such as the Heisman, Maxwell, consensus All-American selections, etc., already have navboxes with names and dates, and the old succession boxes are being deleted as redundant. Succession boxes for starting positions, team statistical leaders, team awards, conference statistical leaders and minor conference awards are being deleted outright without navbox replacements. I believe that major conference awards (e.g., POY) are being considered on a case-by-case notability basis.

Bottom line: it is the evolving consensus of both WP:CFB and WP:CBB that succession boxes should be replaced with enhanced navboxes when appropriate, and removed in virtually all cases. To the extent that the succession boxes of other WikiProjects overlap with CBB and CFB articles, such as that for a football player who later became a U.S. Senator, we will not remove the other project's succession box (e.g. political office succession boxes) from CBB and CFB articles. Succession boxes for college basketball and football (and presumably other college sports, too) are getting whacked, however. FYI, we have already begun the discussion with WP:NFL to upgrade the NFL coach navboxes and remove the NFL succession boxes, too. Succession boxes are rapidly becoming an endangered species in these parts. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the tide is indeed turning steeply against succession boxes with the result of significant enhancement to the aesthetics and efficiency of our project. As Dirtlawyer explains above, in the past couple weeks, we've executed a big deletion of succession boxes for college football coaches paired with nav box enhancements. Today, I made a run through the succession of Heisman winners and killed succession boxes for college football topics covered by nav boxes, largely stuff for national awards like the Heisman, Maxwell, etc. I deleted similar succession boxes for coaching awards back in the fall. Aside from the clutter, redundancy, and static nature of succession boxes, it seems like a project of its own just to figure out how to format them correctly and consistently. Taking a look at the examples above, I see issues with capitalization, spacing, and less-than-ascetically-pleasing wiki-linking. Moreover, "champion" is not the right word describe Greg Jones leading the Big Ten tackles. There is no individual championship of that kind recognized by any school, conference, or the NCAA that I have ever heard of. Sometimes I hear the word "title" thrown around in this context, but usually with respect to a more touted statistical category like rushing yards. Great Jones "led" or was the "leader" in tackles. He was not the tackle "champion". Verbiage aside, what would be even better than a succession box here would be a link to list of the Big Ten's yearly leaders in tackles. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I will go with whatever the consensus is for consistency, but I have been of the impression that succession box relevance was a case bay case thing. For people where college conference championships was their peak, the succession boxes remain relevant. However, if I were to go put a Pac-10 career home run record succession box on Mark McGwire's page, it would not be relevant because he has surpassed that level of accomplishment. If we are going to wipe them out whether or not they have been superseded by more important accomplishments, that is fine as long as it is consistent. Looking back at a Tyrone Wheatley, his Big Ten statistical championships remain his highest level statistical championships. In the grand scheme of sports, people who have college conference statistical championship succession boxes on their page are less notable than people who have professional boxes. Consensus will go where it goes and I will follow.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:59, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Tony, if statistical leads are notable in the context of the particular athlete's career, that deserves to be included in the article text. If the athlete receives team or conference awards (as opposed to being a statistical leader), that should be included in the text and infobox. The "succession" of starters at a particular position, if relevant, should be dealt with in the text. Think about the hierarchy this way: we have never created succession boxes or navboxes for first-team all-conference honors (a significant honor), but we certainly include such honors in the infobox, right? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

What types of succession boxes can be kept at the collegiate level? Here is one that I am now unsure about from Freddy Barnes.

Tony, I would suggest that the Division I FBS single-season record should be featured in the text and linked to the Division I FBS records page. (If we don't have one, we should: page creation opportunity, Tony!) The MAC record should be mentioned in text. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:32, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

So again, you feel the succession boxes are unwarranted?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Tony, as one of the admirers of your article work, I really hate to rain on your parade because you really are one of the best contributors to the project, but, yes I personally believe that we need to eliminate virtually all sports-related succession boxes from the WP:CFB and CBB pages. I'll let others speak for themselves, but I also believe that is the overwhelming consensus among the project regulars. What sports-related succession boxes would I keep? Well, world track and field records (you break the world record in the mile run, you rate a succession box) and the like, MLB commissioners (although these could easily be incorporated into an enhanced navbox, but they are outside our control). The NCAA and conference statistical leaders need to be moved to text (if they don't rate a mention in the text, why would we even consider them for a succession box or navbox?); and conference awards and honors need to be included in the infobox. NCAA and conference records should be featured in the text. All major national CFB awards already have navboxes, and I have seen navboxes for conference POYs, but navboxes for statistical leaders and minor awards have been whacked, too. If a particular athlete or coach's list of honors and awards overwhelms the infobox, I have seen several instances of a section link in the infobox to a stand-alone "Awards and honors" section immediately preceding the "See also" and "References" sections (see "Percy Harvin" for an example).

Please don't let the anti-succession box consensus discourage you, Tony. Your article work is excellent, but we need to find better ways to incorporate awards, honors, starting positions, and records into the article text and infoboxes, rather than having seven or eight layers of succession boxes piled at the bottom of article pages. Thanks for your understanding.

BTW, I did some searching, and we apparently do not have an NCAA records page for CFB records. You may want to take a look at those for the record progression lists for swimming & diving and track & field; I would whole-heartedly support the creation of such an article and standardized links from athlete articles. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

To add my two cents on the "big picture," I generally don't like succession boxes, and I agree that we ought not have redundant succession boxes and navboxes on the same thing. That said, I'm not in favor of an absolute rule against succession boxes and prefer a case-by-case approach (as I do for most things). I fully understand the need for some standardization, but I think there should be flexibility to allow editors to experiment. There may well be situations where succession boxes would be helpful, and an absolute rule against them could stifle innovation. I do agree that the particular examples identified by Tony do not present a sufficiently strong case for creating succession boxes. Cbl62 (talk) 20:07, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Cbl, I agree with your case-by-case approach. I just haven't seen the CFB example yet that wouldn't be better presented in a navbox, infobox or text. I'll keep an open mind for the inevitable exception. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I personally think that national statistical champions (Brandon Graham (American football)) and national record holders (Freddy Barnes) are two cases where although a succession box is redundant with the text and the infobox, it is helpful in the same way that succession boxes for other projects are redundant with the text and infoboxes. I can see a policy whereby conference statistical champions (Tyrone Wheatley) and conference recordholders (Denard Robinson) might have all succession box content removed, but national stuff should be considered for CFB common policy.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, I am not so sure that all of the conference succession box content at Tyrone Wheatley really belongs in the text. I think it is best presented as it is in succession box. Removing boxes in that case is really removing encyclopedic content that is not truly replaceable by text. Yes you can say he earned those honors in the text and the infobox, but you can not really incorporate his peers very well. Nonetheless, if policy is to remove conference succession box content, I will stop adding such content.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Tony, I just peeked at the Tyrone Wheatley article. The Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year is probably worthy of a navbox that lists all recipients of the award with the years awarded. The other two succession boxes are for conference statistical leaders, and, IMO, should be featured in the text. Mine is only one opinion, however; let's get some of the other guys to weigh in on this, so I'm not making pronouncements that aren't in keeping with what everyone else may be thinking. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

1. I don't think conference offensive and defensive POYs are nav-box worthy.
2. However, you are failing to discuss my first point on national statistical champions and national record holders.
3. Eliminating conference leaders does eliminate peer information that is not easily incorporated into text, but I can understand a consensus toward its removal. I am willing to conceed conference level succession boxes because they are not worth adding on highly accomplished professional athlete pages. E.G. Drew Brees has much better content to worry about than the Big Ten total offense record broken by Denard Robinson. Because conference content can be clutter for some of the best athletes, I can concede removing them uniformly may be a good policy. I think this differs from national level succession boxes.

When I posted an appeal to the NFL project the other day about adopting our new nav box scheme over there, the first responder commented, "I'm in complete support of deleting every single succession box on Wikipedia..." I'm moving more and more toward that position myself and think, perhaps, this project should lead the way. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I just think that as a project CFB should have a policy that includes some succession boxes that are not really navbox eligible. The national content information for Freddy Barnes is a primary example.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Why couldn't you navbox a succession of record holders? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

For an all-division record like one of Barnes' records, it would be nothing but redlinks for the most part. In addition, for Barnes, I could not see two separate navboxes for the two national records. In fact, I don't think there are college sports record succession navboxes. There may be world record navboxes, but not college sport succession navboxes. I am not even a proponent of such navboxes.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The absence of articles on some record-holders suggests that the record might not be that important. Or, if it is important, those articles will eventually be created, and the redlinks will eventually turn blue. In the former case, it might be enough to mention in the text, without either a navbox or succession box; if the latter, then a navbox will help identify those articles as needing creation. That's my thinking, anyway. cmadler (talk) 13:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Hall of Fame cleanup drive

Hey gang! I'm announcing TODAY (using all the WikiAuthority that I have, which of course is none) that our project needs to have a College Football Hall of Fame Cleanup Drive! I thought of it when I checked in on the change Jrcla2 made to Percy Langdon Wendell (it's in my watchlist) and realized that here is an article about a College Football Hall of Fame player and coach, but the article does not look like a "Hall of Fame" player/coach at all. We've got lots of pages like this.

So I'm looking for volunteers to pitch in. The cleanup drive main page is Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/College Football Hall of Fame. Anyone is welcome to join and pitch in!--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Paul, I will do what I can to pitch it. I've already been doing a lot of work to clean up and improve the HOF coaches. In the past few weeks, I pulled down pics from the HOF website for any deceased guy inducted as a coach (and some coaches inducted as players) that didn't have a pic and uploaded the HOF pic under a fair use claim. One infobox pic seems to make a huge improvement in the appearance and character of an article. Check out File:Wes_Fesler.jpg. We can use the summary and license here as a boilerplate for more photos of this sort. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You and a lot of others do a lot just cleaning up after me! We'll start with the Fesler pic!--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:05, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Candidates for Cleanup

• Otto Graham needs "wikification"

Coaches that weren't school's first option

A discussion at Talk:Brady Hoke brought up the question whether a coach's article should mention that he wasn't a programm's first choice, or any kind of similar "controversy". Should Hoke's article mention that he was the school's third option, after Harbaugh and Miles? Similar to Pete Carroll's article, that reports that he wasn't USC's first option in 2000. Or Gene Chizik's article, that states that a number of Auburn people supported the hiring of Turner Gill. (This, of course, not offsets WP:V. I'm only talking about confirmed and well-sourced information.) —bender235 (talk) 12:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I was the editor there who thought it doesn't belong in. My logic is that it's no different than an actor's page, where we don't list other actors who were first choice for movies they were in; similarly, on the page of a CEO, we wouldn't list other people who were first in line to be CEO but who were somehow passed over; or whatever. My feeling is that this information simply isn't important enough. Furthermore, I don't think that it really has anything to do with Brady Hoke's biography what the team might have done with other people. Having said all that, this is all me responding to the request as a general Wikipedia editor; I have literally no knowledge about college football at all. If editors here think that this kind of info is useful information for these types of positions, then I certainly bow to your more informed consensus. I don't see policies strictly forbidding including this info, so it seems like a case where a local consensus should be allowed to dominate. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this probably doesn't have a place on his article, though it might if it hangs over his time as a coach at Michigan. Right now it's all so recent (and even in the future) that it's hard to say for sure, but unless a very compelling argument is presented for inclusion, I'd argue against. That said, this information might have a place in the team season article. But it's got to be WP:V, and I think right now all we could say is that he was rumored to be the third choice (or possibly the fourth; I heard on the radio yesterday that Michigan may have also made an offer to Pat Fitzgerald). cmadler (talk) 13:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The athletic director has explicitly stated that no other candidate was offered the job. So any assertion that Hoke was a second or third choice is questionable. The article currently includes a statement that Harbaugh and Miles were also considered, notes there has been speculation that Hoke was a third choice, and recites the statement from the AD that no others were offered the job. That may be a bit more than is necessary, but it is neutral. As time passes, and the hiring decision ceases to be the central issue, I'd be inclined to cut back on the discussion. For now, I think what's there is fine, but if consensus is that the speculation part should be removed, I'm not opposed to cutting it at this time. Cbl62 (talk) 15:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, given the clear statement by the AD that no other offers were made, fan speculation that other candidates might have been better is nothing but speculation and probably has no place in an encyclopedia article (as opposed to a message board). Cbl62 (talk) 15:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it all boils down to the greatest wikipedia answer of all time: "It depends." If being the second choice is notable, then by all means mention it. If no one cares... then no one cares.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

If no reliable sources state another coach was actually offered the job or in serious discussions, I would lean towards not including it, as it seems to be too speculative. If there was another offer according to an RS, I think it could be included provided that it was worded neutrally. Strikehold (talk) 21:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course, a reliable source is conditio sine qua non. I cited a number of reliable sources for the Hoke-was-not-1st-choice "theory".

"Hoke was clearly not the university’s first choice, no matter how many times Athletic Director Dave Brandon insisted he had not offered the job to Harbaugh or Miles." NYTimes "This is hardly the first time a major football program had to settle for its third- (or possibly fourth- or fifth-) choice" SI.com

It always depends on the case, but for Hoke (and Carroll, and Chizik, and Weis, and...) I think it's reasonable to include this. —bender235 (talk) 22:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Have to disagree. You've cited an opinnion piece from columnist Steward Mandel speculating that Hoke was not the first choice. The NYT cite you gave merely notes that Stewart Mandel made the same comment. It is not asserting as a factual matter that Hoke was a third choice. Stewart Mandel has no inside info. The decision was made by the AD, and the AD says he did not make offers to anyone else. Cbl62 (talk) 23:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It does not matter whether Michigan made an offer, because talks never start with a contract offer. First of all they had to find out whether their candidate has interest. They've contacted Jim Harbaugh first, and he considered the job. Then, after Harbaugh chose the 49ers, they contacted Miles. And only after Miles also declined, they offered Hoke. That's the undeniable sequence of events. Yes, there were no offers to anyone but Hoke, but that doesn't tell the story. —bender235 (talk) 11:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

There are two issues. The first is WP:RS; I think we have reliable sources for widespread speculation that Hoke was the third or fourth choice, but not that he was actually the third or fourth choice. (I think he was, by the way, but of course that's irrelevant.) But then even assuming RS, there's the issue of whether it would be WP:UNDUE weight to discuss this in Brady Hoke's biography. I think it's reasonable to include this information in the team's season article (there is a section about the coaching change, right?) but for now, would give it undue weight to include it in Hoke's biography. What might make it more relevant to his biography? As I mentioned before, I think if the feeling that he wasn't the first choice hangs over the program during his time there, if things go bad and fans start pointing to a failed hiring process/search, then I think it becomes more relevant to his biography. But for now, 1. we can only cite it as speculation and 2. it's undue weight to include it in the Brady Hoke article. cmadler (talk) 11:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you there are two issues. But, #1, it's pretty easy to find reliable sources for the order in which Michigan talked to its coaching candidates. Immediately after they'd fired Rodriguez, they've contacted Harbaugh, and he declined (Detroit News, Detroit Free-Press). After the Cotton Bowl, they've talked to Miles (ESPN, TSN, SI), and he declined. Then they've talked to Hoke, and he showed interest, so they offered, and he accepted (MSNBC). That's the sequence of events.

And #2, is this notable? Yes it is. And like I already wrote, not just in Hoke's case, but also in Pete Carroll's, Gene Chizik's, Charlie Weis' and countless others. In my opinion, it is notable in general and should always be included (given a reliable source, of course). —bender235 (talk) 23:28, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Your proffered sequence is still full of speculation. You assume that Brandon wanted Harbaugh (which may or may not be true), but I'm not aware of any in-person interview between Brandon and Harbaugh, and Brandon made some negative comments about Harbaugh days before Harbaugh signed with the 49ers. Similarly, you assume that Brandon wanted Les Miles, but there's no basis for that assumption. The fact that Miles was interviewed is not proof that Brandon would have offered Miles the job, and indeed Brandon did not offer the job to Miles. Brandon would have been viewed as not doing a full search if he didn't at least speak with Miles, but there's no evidence whatsoever that Brandon would have chosen Miles over Hoke. An encyclopedia whould be about the facts. We should leave speculation to the message boards.Cbl62 (talk) 02:01, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we should stick to the facts. We're likely never going to get hard evidence about who was actually offered what. The only people who know that are David Brandon, the coaches, maybe some agents, and few others close the events. There's a good chance that stuff will never be public knowledge. But I think it is fair to say that such and such was interviewed and such and such was speculated to be the top choice, etc as long as it's well cited and couched the right way. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:57, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

@Cbl62: Please keep in mind that we don't determine what is true, but only what is verified. It doesn't matter whether Brandon was really interested in Harbaugh or Miles, because in the end only he knows. What matters is that ESPN (or any other reliable source) reported that he's interested. --bender235 (talk) 07:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:MountaineersRunningbacks

Template:MountaineersRunningbacks has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Another navbox formatting issue

...But at least this one isn't for head coaches. I noticed there's no real consistency for the team navboxes located in Category:American college football team navigational boxes. It's a minor issue as most of them are roughly the same, but for the sake of consistency I was wondering if these all needed to be standardized in some way. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• There's actually a tremendous variety in the team navboxes. Take a look at Template:Houston Cougars football seasons, Template:AirForceFalconsFootballNavbox, and Template:Michigan Wolverines football, just to pick three. There's no consistency in naming, but there's also no consistency in content. The first contains links to the 9 Houston Cougars football season articles that exist. (Aside: I'd argue that it should contain redlinks to all seasons.) The Air Force Falcons navbox deals more with the program as a whole, including links (redlinks in some cases) to all seasons. (Asides: For some reason this includes redlinks for 5 seasons prior to the start of Air Force football in 1955. Also, "prominent players" might be considered POV.) Finally, there's the expectedly massive Michigan football navbox. The things I find most interesting about this one are that it only links to their national championship seasons and doesn't link to the list of seasons (if there is one) either. There is also Template:Michigan Wolverines football teams that contains links to all the seasons. cmadler (talk) 16:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• Yup. Zero consistency. So much inconsistency/variety, in fact, that I don't even have a clue where to begin the standardization process. Might I suggest that you propose three or four mock-ups of proposed standardized navbox formats to get the discussion going? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• I think the first question in that regard is whether there's a value to having a general program navbox and then a separate navbox for seasons (which means at least 3 navboxes per program, since there's also always a head coaches navbox), or whether one navbox with everything should be preferred. cmadler (talk) 18:22, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I removed the links on Air Force from before the team existed. —Ute in DC (talk) 18:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• The other major class of team nav boxes is for bowl games; see Category:American college football bowl games by team navigational boxes. I favor keeping the head coach, season, and bowl game nav boxes separate as they each provide a clean navigation for a single succession or sequence. The class of main team nav boxes definitely needs some standardization. A kinda interesting, but not very good-looking example (not unlike the young ladies who are total layups for me) to consider is Template:Eastern Michigan Eagles football, which trancludes Template:Eastern Michigan Eagles football coach navbox and Template:Eastern Michigan Eagles football teams. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Cmadler's comment above. One of the core elements in a "team" navbox should be a list of seasons; once you include the seasons in the team navbox, what purpose does a separate seasons navbox serve? I came to this same conclusion some months ago, incorporated the Florida Gators' seasons into the team navbox, and made the separate seasons navbox disappear. The team navbox appears on the main team article and all of the season articles, but nowhere else. Only the coaches navbox appears on the individual coach articles. Neither appears on player articles.

That having been said, I also still prefer the separate coaches navboxes to be used on the coach articles; these separate navboxes provide a clean and easily read coaching succession. To my way of thinking, that's the whole purpose of the coaches navboxes. If we were to incorporate the coaching successions into the team boxes, the successions would overwhelmed and lost amidst all of the other information presented. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The EMU navboxes are very much a work in progress. I had the thought of transcluding them for now, until the set of linked (or should-be linked) articles is more nearly complete, and then subst'ing them and cleaning it up to make it look better. But it also comes back to the question of what information should be included. cmadler (talk) 20:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• I created {{William & Mary Tribe Football}}, {{Richmond Spiders Football}} and {{Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens Football}} myself about a year and a half ago, and modeled those off of the pre-existing {{Appalachian State Mountaineers football}}. I'm not saying they're perfect, but I think they're pretty darn good examples of what should be included in a team navbox. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• Addendum – perhaps those would be a good standard for FCS programs. Maybe having two slightly different sets of standards for FCS vs. FBS wouldn't be a bad idea since they're different enough to warrant it, IMHO. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• These FCS examples are pretty good. I would suggest killing the all-time record and nickname sections as they don't provide any navigational value. The nickname chronology is very good info though and should be probably be incorporated into the infobox and lead of the main team article. I don't really see why we should have different standards for different divisions. They all have the pretty much the same potential set of elements. FBS and some previously top-tier programs have bowl articles to link to, but the lower division programs may have playoff articles to link to. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• Agree, I'm s'posin'. All-time record and nicknames could be incorporated into main article, and you're right, perhaps FCS & FBS should have the same standards. Jrcla2 (talk) 16:41, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• I actually like the all-time record statistic. Yeah, it's probably in the article, but when I'm browsing the navigation boxes it's one of the first things I look for. I think it's going to be difficult to standardize these boxes as what's important to each program is going to vary. I'm not sure I like the idea of strict standards. However, an overall template to be used as a suggestion (populated with pertinent info for the respective program) would be alright, IMO. Geologik (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that there will probably be some variation. For example, where a program has used a single nickname for its entire existence (or at least, no other nicknames), the nickname is right there at the top of the navbox, so there might not be a need for it to be inside the navbox also. But in other cases there have been multiple nicknames, and one way or another, these should probably be included. For EMU, for example, the nickname changes are very important (and still contentious), and so both the seasons' and coaches' navboxes are broken up based on nickname changes. cmadler (talk) 18:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that noting nickname changes should be included in the navbox as it should represent the whole history of the team, but having multiple links to the same article with different labels, as in the Williams & Mary example, seems silly and misleading. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

This topic has come up a number of times in the past. See, e.g., April 2010 discussion of this issue. This is one of those areas where I don't think one size necessarily fits all. For the well-established major programs, however, here are my thoughts on what should and shouldn't be included in the team navboxes. Consensus All-Americans? Link to a list rather than putting all the names in the template College Football HOF inductees? Yes, these individuals have been recognized as all-time greats at the collegiate level University athletic hall of fame inductees? Link to a list rather than putting all the names in the template Former or current NFL players? Link to a list rather than putting all the names in the navbox. Players with numbers retired by the University? Yes, same rationale as College Football Hall of Fame Lore/Culture? Undecided. Pretty subjective stuff, and I'm not sure how to limit what's in it, but lore is such an integral part of the college game Rivalries? Yes Heisman Trophy winners? Yes. National championships? Yes Conference championships? No. Seasons? Yes, and then we could eliminate separate templates that do the same thing. Historic listing of home fields? No. Historic overall win-loss record? Yes. Current coaching staff? Yes Listing of all nicknames used over program history? No. Save that for the article. Cbl62 (talk) 22:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Archaic school names in season schedules

I was just wondering if we had standards about using archaic names of schools in schedule tables for season pages. I'm making the pages for the early USC seasons, and the Trojans often played schools that went by a different name at the time including Oregon Agricultural for Oregon State and Throop University for Cal Tech. I've been referring to OSU as Oregon Agricultural based on the information in the season table on Oregon State Beavers football, and kept all references to Cal Tech as Cal Tech, simply because I haven't yet found reliable info on when the college went by its several names. First of all I feel I should keep it consistent, but I was also wondering if there was a standard we were sticking to around here. ― El Cid ∴∵ 19:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I think historically accurate names are better. It may be necessary to create a redirect in most instances, but the archaic names are more accurate and therefore better. Any confused reader should be able to click on the link and figure out the name change. We had a similar discussion about former nicknames. (See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive 8#Naming for team season articles in the pre-nickname era). I don't think the project has discussed this topic specifically, but it should be treated similarly. —Ute in DC (talk) 19:39, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, we should use the name of the institution and the nickname (if any) correct to the time. cmadler (talk) 20:14, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with historical names use. I tried to do that in all of the William & Mary season articles I created (although sometimes I just flat out did not know the historical names). Wherever possible, I think it should be used. It's nifty and a more accurate representation of the schools. Jrcla2 (talk) 17:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm also in favor of using historic names and have made that my practice. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Ditto and ditto. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

When it comes to archaic names, the Nebraska Bugeaters is my personal favorite. Who in Nebraska thought that would be a good nickname for the university's athletes?! Cbl62 (talk) 00:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Coach categories? Head coach categories? Who shot who in the what now?

Now that we've put the coach succession box/nav box issue to rest and are well on our way to brighter pastures in that field, I want to tackle a related issue about categories. Sometime in 2009, an editor, who is now sanctioned against category editing, introduced a slew of head coaching categories as subcategories of coaching categories, e.g. Category:Michigan Wolverines football head coaches sub-categorized under Category:Michigan Wolverines football coaches. For the most part, these were created only for FBS programs; there a few others in existence for lower divisions.

This handiwork introduced some problems:

1. These categories were deployed via template transclusion, which is inappropriate for content categories.
2. No policy was ever determined about who belonged where. Does a head coach also belong in the main coach category automatically? Or never? Or only if he was also an assistant at another time for that program?
3. We've got a naming disparity between these categories and the more naturally named head coaching lists, e.g. List of Michigan Wolverines head football coaches, i.e. "head" before "football" or "football" before "head"?

What we've been living with is a multi-dimensional mess. Many of the category transclusions, I believe, actually root back to any earlier day when the simple coaching categories were inappropriately tucked into the head coaching nav boxes, as is still the case for some lower division nav boxes. As a sidearm of the recent nav box upgrade and succession box purge effort, these transclusions are being removed and coaching categories are being properly placed onto the articles themselves, if they were missing. Killing the transclusions from the templates did away with vast majority of head coach categorizations, but we've never had any consistency with them. Sometimes the head coaching categories were on the article too (in many cases courtesy of yours truly) and thus survived the transclusion purge. I'm in the process of cleaning out these surviving head coach categorizations to get us back to a clean slate...and catching flack for it from this Oregon dude spying on the Willamette categories.

From here, with our new clean slate: we need to decide if we support the head coach categories, and, if so, which of the following three schemes we go with:

1. All head coaches also fall under the main coach category even if they were nothing but a head coach, e.g. a Bo Schembechler, who was only a head coach at Michigan, goes under Category:Michigan Wolverines football head coaches and Category:Michigan Wolverines football coaches.
2. Head coaches only go under the main coach category if they were also an assistant, e.g. Lloyd Carr gets Category:Michigan Wolverines football coaches per his stint as an assistant at Michigan from 1980 to 1994 and also Category:Michigan Wolverines football head coaches for his tenure as the head man from 1995 to 2007.
3. The head coach category supersedes the main coach category, e.g. a Lloyd Carr only gets Category:Michigan Wolverines football head coaches, not Category:Michigan Wolverines football coaches as well, even though he was also an assistant at Michigan.

Frankly, I think these head coach categories open up a can of worms and we're better off without them. If we decide to go with no head coach categories, the following boilerplate template describing the scope of the coach categories should work well: Template:College football coach by team category description; see Category:Michigan Wolverines football coaches for an example in practice. If we go with head coaching categories, we could created similar instructive boilerplates to describe the chosen scheme.

Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 10:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete the remaining head coach categories; they serve no real purpose. It is far more appropriate to include all head coaches, coordinators, etc., in a single category for each program. And in all events, including both a subcategory ("Michigan Wolverines football head coaches") and parent category ("Michigan Wolverines football coaches") on the same pages is contrary to Wikipedia policy. We now have the enhanced coach navboxes that provide a full succession of head coaches for every Division I FBS football program. The editor who created the "head coach" categories was banned from further category editing because there was no consensus and he was creating duplicative subcategories of parent categories that already had relatively few included pages. Jweiss has now returned the CFB project to the status quo ante regarding these categories, and I suggest that is where it needs to stay, and the suggested template or similar words should be included on the football coach category page for every program.

On a related note, the transcluded categories that were included in many of the college coach navbox templates were obnoxious: they placed the transcluded category at the head of the category list at the bottom of the page, defying any attempt to create an orderly list of categories. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree strongly with the elimination of head coach categories. The guideline Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates states that categories, lists, and navigation templates (such as our head coach navboxes) should not be considered in conflict with each other. "Developers of these redundant systems should not compete against each other in a destructive manner, such as by nominating the work of their competitors to be deleted just because they overlap." Ideally, we will have, for example, List of Michigan Wolverines head football coaches and Category:Michigan Wolverines football head coaches and {{Michigan Wolverines football coach navbox}}. This is precisely the case that guideline was written to address. I'd suggest that Category:Michigan Wolverines football coaches should contain Category:Michigan Wolverines football head coaches and Category:Michigan Wolverines football assistant coaches, and should be marked with {{Category diffuse}}. Then, the categorization becomes clear: if a person was only a head coach at the school they go only in the head coach category, if a person was only an assistant at a school they go only in the assistant coach category, and if a person held both roles at a school they go in both categories. cmadler (talk) 13:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The naming disparity Jweiss11 mentioned can then be taken as a separate issue, and while I agree that we need to address it and have consistency, I don't care much one way or the other. cmadler (talk) 13:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so Dirtlawyer1 supports what we'll called option 0, killing the head coach categories and having a single coach category per team. Cmadler is calling for what we'll label option 4, creating head coach and assistant coach categories per program and diffusing the main coach categories into those two. Option 1, 2, and 3 are above. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:27, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll also argue specifically against option 1 and option 2, because they both violate the principle that articles are only placed into the most specific category in any branch. "This means that if a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not normally placed directly into C." (WP:CATEGORY) cmadler (talk) 13:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Look through the individual team categories of the NFL Category:National Football League coaches by team, they all have separate "sub" categories for head coaches although those who have also served as assistants are included in both categories. Example: Jason Garrett and Dave Campo are in both listed in Category:Dallas Cowboys head coaches and Category:Dallas Cowboys coaches. That being said, I think option #3 listed above makes the most sense, head coaches would be better organized with a separate category similar to the NFL teams superseding the "parent" category. NorthTechsan (talk) 04:26, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Don't feel strongly about it, but I tend to agree with Dirtlawyer on this. Cbl62 (talk) 04:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

My first choice is option 0, supported by Dirtlawyer1 and Cbl62. My second choice is cmadler's option 4, which will require a lot more work. Options 1, 2, and 3 are ripe for messiness even with some coordination at the outset and boilerplate instructions for maintenance and expansion. They all also force us to be imprecise and options 1 and 2 break a general Wikipedia tenet of not categorizing articles in a category and its parent. Jweiss11 (talk) 13:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that options 1 and 2 are extremely problematic, and should probably just be removed from consideration. cmadler (talk) 13:35, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• I'm in the Option 0 "delete them all" camp. I find the separation to be annoying; when I open Category:Michigan Wolverines coaches, I want to see every head coach and every assistant coach. We don't split quarterbacks and starting quarterbacks, so there's no need to be this specific.--Mike Selinker (talk) 15:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
• I am fervently neutral in this topic. Categories are not my forte, I don't think about them much. I pretty much assign categories as you guys tell me to and focus on other aspects.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:34, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
• +1 for "Option 0". Fjbfour (talk) 16:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks like the consensus is for option 0, with which we eliminate the head coach categories. The next step is to open up a CFD for deletion/up-merging for the categories. I'll post again here when that discussion is opened up. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

• CFD opened here: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 January 19#College football head coaches Jweiss11 (talk) 07:41, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• CFD closed. Head coach categories terminated with extreme prejudice. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:13, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

CfD, please weigh in

Please go to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 January 27#College basketball categories and weigh in on the proposal. Thanks! Jrcla2 (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed new WikiProject University of Connecticut

You are cordially invited to join the newly-proposed WikiProject University of Connecticut, designed to promote collaboration and improvement on UConn-related articles on Wikipedia. Specifically, the following articles are proposed to be within the new WikiProject's scope: The University itself, including the campuses, notable buildings, notable academic programs, and notable professors; The Connecticut Huskies athletic teams, including the men's basketball, women's basketball, and football teams, their coaches, players, facilities, and history; Notable alumni, including both athletes and non-athletes. Currently no one WikiProject covers all UConn-related content: WikiProject Universities covers only the academic-side of the university; WikiProject College basketball and WikiProject College football cover only articles from their respective sports; WikiProject Connecticut does not cover articles related to UConn that are about places or people outside Connecticut (for example: bowl games such as the 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl and alumni such as Svetlana Abrosimova). WikiProject University of Connecticut, when created, will be a centralized location to coordinate monitoring and improvement of UConn-related articles. To comment on the proposed creation of the new WikiProject University of Connecticut, click here. To join the proposed WikiProject, click here, as the membership list is transcluded directly on the proposal page. Thank you for your attention, and GO HUSKIES! –Grondemar

–Grondemar 01:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

AFD Discussions

Reminder there are several AFD discussion related to football at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/American football that could use some review and comments.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Henry Otis Pratt?

You guys are great at research, especially when it comes to old-time college football head coaches. I stumbled upon Henry Otis Pratt while upgrading {{Cincinnati Bearcats basketball coach navbox}} today. His first, middle and last names are all exactly the same as the Cincinnati men's basketball and football head coach during the 1901–1902 school year. The date of birth and date of death indicate that he could potentially be the same person as the head coach of those sports, but I haven't been able to find any sources to confirm it.

It seems like a long-shot (IMO) that someone who shares that exact full name and geographic location (generally speaking, Iowa and southwest Ohio aren't too far apart) wouldn't be the same person. Can you guys help me out? Jrcla2 (talk) 18:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like the Cincinnati coach is a different guy. The NCAA database ([1]) and the Cincinnati basketball media guide ([2]) list him as Henry S. Pratt. The Cincinnati football media guide lists him simply as Henry Pratt.

Hmmm ok, thanks. Whoever put him as the coach in both of those navboxes was apparently incorrect. I'll update them now to avoid future confusion. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:15, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Just kidding. Not only did you beat me to it, but you created his article. Wow you're fast. Jrcla2 (talk) 19:17, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

First televised game

I've put up an article at 1939 Fordham vs. Waynesburg football game that could use some additional research. As a game it wasn't much, but it was the first televised football game. Could be a DYK candidate if we move fast.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:42, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Paul, very interesting item. Thanks for starting this one. I made a quick edit on the categories and I'll see if I can add more in the next couple days. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Unrelated ask for help

This has nothing to do with college football. But, I was hoping someone out there knows how to set up WikiProjects. Tonight I created Category:Category-Class college basketball articles and Category:Template-Class college basketball articles because I thought it was ridiculous to have thousands of NA-class articles when most of them fall under one of those two aforementioned categories. However, neither category has any items in them, despite the fact that I know I've personally tagged hundreds of categories and templates as such. Am I missing something? Did I not set it up properly? Jrcla2 (talk) 04:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks like you're using {{WPBannerMeta}} for your banner, but there's something missing in your class mask. We're using code in WPBannerMeta to automagically assign template and category classes if the article is in the respective namespace. I'll take a quick look and see if I spot any obvious errors. DeFaultRyan 19:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. As I suspected, it was a problem in your class mask. If you want to get "extended" assessment categories, you have to enable them via the "FQS" flag. You can also get file, portal, project, and disambig classes for free, but I disabled them since you don't have categories created for them yet. If you want them, go in and edit the class mask to remove the lines where I disabled those classes, and then go and create the needed categories. It might take awhile for the template and category classes to fill up their categories, as this is a category change motivated by a template transclusion, I did a test null edit on one template talk page to force it to update the category and verify I did it right. They should all start trickling over. DeFaultRyan 20:12, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

While you're at it, you might want to consider incorporating the current- and future- classes into your assessment scheme. It's been valuable to us here, so we can tag articles about seasons/tournaments/games that are in progress, or haven't happened yet. It allows us to avoid prematurely assessing an article while it's in a state of flux, as well as see a quick run-down of all current-class articles when the season ends, so we can walk through them and assign assessments at that point in time. DeFaultRyan 20:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the help. I tend to stick to making/editing articles and navboxes and don't venture terribly far from that. I figured there had to be some sort of hidden reason(s) why nothing was transferring over, and lo and behold I was right. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for this, but I have a similar issue with Category:Book-Class NBA articles. Nothing shows up even though I created Template:WikiProject National Basketball Association/css. Can you help me? Thanks—Chris!_c/t 02:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed Your custom class mask was named "/css" instead of "/class", and your main banner parameter had QUALITY_SCALE set to "extended" rather than "subpage", so your custom class mask wasn't being used. DeFaultRyan 07:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks—Chris!_c/t 20:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

DeFaultRyan, thanks for your input and help on this subject. I've been working on cleaning up the assessments for WikiProject American football and followed your example to expand to the full complement of classes. WikiProject American football could definitely use more attention. I've been cleaning out the stuff tagged there that belongs instead in WikiProject College football, WikiProject National Football League, or elsewhere (mostly bio articles), but there are still 350 unassessed articles, plus many more relevant articles and categories that still need to be tagged. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject proposal

There is a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/NAIA to create a related WikiProject. Please consider reading the proposal and commenting at that page. Alternatives include joining an existing related project (such as this one) or creating a WP:TASKFORCE under a related project with a larger scope. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Quality of a college sports image

I understand Wikipedia's fair use policies recommend uploading a low resolution image, but the Miami RedHawks logo is really low quality. Would it be acceptable to upload a slightly higher resolution image, or is this the only resolution that's allowed? It seems really kind of grainy... Nomader ^(Talk) 06:45, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is not entirely clear on the matter. Wikipedia:Non-free content just says that low resolution is favored over high resolution, but there is no guideline for how high is too high. So with that in mind, go ahead and upload a slightly higher resolution logo and just don't overdo it. —Ute in DC (talk) 07:48, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the info. Nomader ^(Talk) 07:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Uniform image names

With all of the conference moves coming up, I've got a bit of a conundrum when it comes to uniform file names. For example, Colorado's 1930s throwback worn in 2009 will probably not be worn again, so should it be renamed to reflect the conference change when Colorado moves to the Pac-12? --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 09:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

In the cited case, it was worn while Colorado was in the Big 12, so I don't see a problem. If anything, I would expect that renaming it would be misleading or confusing, since the team, year(s), and conference won't necessarily line up. If anything, I would suggest simply removing the conference name entirely. Fjbfour (talk) 10:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, the problem with removing the conference acronym is that in several cases, it serves to differentiate schools with the same acronym, like Fresno State and Florida State, so I don't know if that's the best solution. Also, it's times like these I wish I was an administrator. It would make moving these files so much easier instead of putting in the template and waiting for an admin to sort through the backlog. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 10:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Nothing precludes using a full school name, and I am a big proponent of full plain English filenames. If I renamed the file, it would probably be File:2009 Colorado Throwback Football Uniform.PNG. Fjbfour (talk) 12:27, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that might be a good solution, but it's not in line with what's done for other uniform images. For example, baseball images are abbreviated, as are football uniforms. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 20:29, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Fjbfour that, at least going forward, it would be better to use full plain English filenames, or at least more descriptive filenames, indicating, at the least, the year that design was adopted. That would make it easier to keep historical uniform designs, rather than only ever showing the current design. cmadler (talk) 13:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I already do that for historical uniforms. The current uniform has the simplest file name, while past uniforms have the year appended to the file name. For example, UCLA's current uniforms are just named File:Pac10-Uniform-UCLA.PNG, while their most recent past uniforms are listed under File:Pac10-Uniform-UCLA-2003-2009.PNG (both will be re-uploaded as .pngs instead of .PNGs in the near future, so anyone who's reading this some time from now and notices that those links are red, just change the Pac10 to Pac12 and change the extensions) and there are very descriptive file names when appropriate, such as for Maryland's 2009 Wounded Warrior Project uniform (or the 2010 version). At this point, I'm working on re-uploading the files with the right acronyms, and if there are conflicting acronyms, I use the full name, like Iowa and the to-be-uploaded file for Illinois, which at the point of this post has yet to be uploaded. The biggest reason why I'm wary of using schools' full names for all of the files is file name length. Something like Florida State's Pro Combat uniform, which I still need to upload the new version of, already has a long file name since I've added the year to every Pro Combat uniform, regardless of whether they're one of the schools that's participated in both years of the program so far, just in case they wear another Pro Combat uniform in the future. If I change that to File:ACC-Uniform-FloridaState-Pro Combat-2009.png, then the file name starts becoming awkwardly long, and those descriptors are all necessary to differentiate the file. I think my current system, where the schools' full names are used only when necessary, works the best. As for the originally cited example of Colorado, unless they wear those uniforms again as a member of the Pac-12 (and this applies to other schools that are moving as well) I think I'll leave them listed under the old conference. All of this really makes me wish that I was an administrator so I could rename the files myself instead of having to upload them under a new file name or that the ability to move files wasn't restricted to administrators. It would make my job so much easier. Wow. Did I really just type that all out? I really need to learn to be more concise. Also, while other users are free to attempt older uniforms and I certainly won't complain about the help (especially since I'm not the only user uploading uniforms with my new template anyway), the sheer number of FBS teams makes doing a full set of historical uniforms, like those done for the NFL, close to impossible. At this point, I'm going to restrict the past uniforms I'm going to do to uniforms worn from the 2000-2001 season onward. Once that gargantuan project is accomplished, I may consider earlier eras, but I'm not likely to do it. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 09:04, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

If you have a system that works for you and no one is advising otherwise, just go with it. However, I still firmly believe that a fully descriptive plain English filename is not nearly as awkward as it is helpful. Inconvenience in length is more than offset by functional avoided confusion. Fjbfour (talk) 15:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, since it has no bearing on the project as a whole, I've begun updating my page to reflect the conference changes, but I'm not sure if I should start changing the file names now. The season is over, so I'm leaning towards making the moves, but I'm not entirely sure. What do you guys think? --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 23:05, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

File moves only take a moment. I think you should wait until the conference changes are official, but it's not a big deal either way. —Ute in DC (talk) 23:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, they only take a moment if I can find an administrator willing to do the job, but if I go through official channels, there's a significant backlog, so what I have to do instead is change the file names in the articles and then re-upload them with the right file names, so the old files get deleted. Otherwise, the files will take a very long time to be moved, since the backlog for file move requests is huge. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 23:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

In that case, it's probably a good idea to do it sooner. I can see how you would prefer that in lieu of re-uploading each image. —Ute in DC (talk) 23:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'd be a little more concerned about doing the re-uploading if I had a lot of files to move, but it's only five main files to move (Boise State, BYU, Colorado, Nebraska and Utah). As per the discussion above, special one-time uniforms (unless worn again in their new conferences) will stay under their old file names to indicate that those uniforms were worn while those schools were still members of their old conferences. The main images (Boise State, BYU, Colorado, Nebraska and Utah) will need to be moved, though. Also, I'm trying to move them to a more uniform naming scheme and .png extensions instead of .PNG, so BYU, Colorado and Utah will also need to be updated in that regard. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 23:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to come back here to discuss the uniform image naming a bit more. Specifically, I don't think the current procedure of using a single filename (e.g. File:Pac-12-Uniform-UCLA.png) for the current uni and then changing the image at that location each time a team makes a change is a good practice. I think a better way to deal with this would be to simply add each new uni at a new location (for example, if UCLA starts a new uni in 2011, it might be at File:Pac-12-Uniform-UCLA-2011.png). That way the edit history and description for each uniform iteration would remain intact, and it would be easier to manage the images' appearance in season articles. cmadler (talk) 13:33, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, the current filenames are the way they are because they're in line with what other uniforms use. Look at the NFL uniforms, for example. Past uniforms have the date appended to the filename, while the current file has the simple name. That system works. I think that the system you suggest would make things overly complicated. Besides, they're going to get uploaded with the dated filenames anyway, so I think it's also unnecessary. Unfortunately, I also feel that the location of this discussion on this talk page means that no one else is going to see it, so it's just going to be you and I debating it and we're not going to get anywhere. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 20:27, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Where do you feel would be a better place to have this discussion? cmadler (talk) 13:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

High school All-Americans

After User:Eagle4000 split up the USA Today All-USA high school football team article, I thought about getting rid of the whole article in favor of a format similar to the College All-Americans, with articles for every year (e.g., 2010) to summarize all the different All-America teams. Because besides USA Today, there are a number of notable publishers of All-America teams, like Parade, EA Sports, Rivals, MaxPreps, and probably even more. What are your thoughts? --bender235 (talk) 00:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

To revitalize this discussion, CBSSports.com has compiled a list of consensus HS All-Americans. I think we should such lists for every class. --bender235 (talk) 17:26, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

File:David M. Nelson.jpg

The fair use rational for File:David M. Nelson.jpg has been disputed, with a claim that the image is being used in "purely decorative fashion" at David M. Nelson. I'm not sure I understand the argument since there are a myriad of copyrighted images or images with unknown copyright of deceased persons used here on Wikipedia in exactly the same way. If the image is being used in "purely decorative fashion", the same would be true for just about every image of a biography subject on Wikipedia. Please comment if you have any insight. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

• The objection seems to have been to the wording in the licensing template, so I've replaced that with a different template that should resolve the issue. cmadler (talk) 13:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Cmadler, thank you! Jweiss11 (talk) 22:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability of players

Here is the current standard for notability of college athletes: Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#College_athletes

College athletes and coaches are notable if they have been the subject of non-trivial media coverage beyond merely a repeating of their statistics. Examples would include head coaches, well-known assistant coaches, or players who:

1. Have won a national award (such as those listed in Template:College Football Awards or the equivalent in another sport), or established a major Division I (NCAA) record.
2. Were inducted into the hall of fame in their sport (for example, the College Football Hall of Fame).
3. Gained national media attention as an individual, not just as a player for a notable team.

IMO, this is dramatically, overly restrictive and creates a patchwork. HS recruits can become notable before they play collegiately, regardless of what they subsequently achieve. So if an article wasn't created on the player while in high school, the above stated criteria will skew to upperclassmen, post-college recognition, and large market teams in high profile sports (respectively). I also see problems in team vs individual sports. Any thoughts? Pasadena91 (talk) 05:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. "College athletes and coaches are notable if they have been the subject of non-trivial media coverage beyond merely a repeating of their statistics" is little more than a restatement of the general notability guideline, which should be non-controversial. The rest of that section gives examples of individuals who are likely to meet that standard. But the actual rule is just the first sentence, and again, as a restatement of the GNG, that should not be controversial. cmadler (talk) 15:20, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:GNG works. Any attempt to "further refine" the general notability guideline has, in my experience, backfired.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:52, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Category for deletion

Please go to Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2011/March/14 and comment on the discussion on Category:College football coaches first appointed in the 2010s stubs--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

File:Texas Flag at DKR - North Texas vs Texas 2006.jpg listed for deletion

A file related to this WikiProject, File:Texas Flag at DKR - North Texas vs Texas 2006.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion if you would like to participate in the discussion. Johntex\^talk 16:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:CBBALL coach navbox upgrades = finished!

I just wanted to let everyone at WP:CFB know that after months of upgrading and lots of lost sleep (on my end, anyway), WikiProject College basketball has 100% finished the Division I coaches' navbox upgrades. We don't really have any D-II and lower navboxes yet (I'm sure in time we will, for now we focus on the big boys).

You guys were making lots of noise about how you would want to try and convince WP:NFL, WP:NBA and maybe even WP:Baseball about doing the same, once the college basketball coaches were finished. Thank God it's over – now I can concentrate on editing I actually want to do... Jrcla2 (talk) 01:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

On an unrelated note, why does this page fall under Category:National Football League coaches by team? Jrcla2 (talk) 01:49, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Jrcla2, congrats on the upgrades. I fixed that categorization problem on this page. Someone had meant to link to the category, but forgot the colon. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:41, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I introduced the idea of the navbox upgrades to the NFL project a couple months ago: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 9#Nav boxes and succession boxes for coaches. There wasn't a ton of response, but the little there was seemed to be in favor. They hate succession boxes over there too. I think the light is green on upgrading the NFL navboxes if anyone wants to tackle it. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's good to know. The only navbox upgrading I'll be doing from now on is college basketball coaches, and since those are finished (for the time being), count me out haha. I probably upgraded over 250 of the D-I navboxes myself, and I'm burnt out, as one can imagine. Hopefully the NFL, NBA, MLB/college baseball guys will all follow suit. Succession boxes are so stupid. Jrcla2 (talk) 04:00, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

New template Template:Student athlete

Feel free to help fill in Template:Student athlete by adding new articles or creating articles for redlinks.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Talk:2010 ACC Championship Game/GA1

Hey all. The article writer is only semi-active, so would one of you guys be able to make the changes to get the article to GA? Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 16:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm working on it. Nolelover ^{It's almost football season!} 16:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Justin Watts for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Justin Watts 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/Justin Watts 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 good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article.

This is actually not an article for a college football player, it's for a college basketball player. However, I thought it would be of interest here because it's a potential precedence-setter for college athletes. Watts plays for UNC and is an end of the rotation scholarship player, the thought is that he isn't notable. However, the article creator has been pretty adamant that he meets the guideline for college athletes. I would encourage participation from this project as it just as easily could be a football player from Alabama or Ohio State (or other high profile college athletic program) next time. I'd encourage this participation regardless of which side of the discussion you agree with. Thanks. Rikster2 (talk) 15:28, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

• A college football article has now been added to this debate. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Obi Egekeze. Cbl62 (talk) 21:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Game template needs help

Hey everyone, I'm noticing some issues with Template:Infobox NCAA football single game, specifically with the "date" functionality. Examples of the problem can be seen at the following pages:

• 1939 Waynesburg vs. Fordham football game
• 1939 Nebraska vs. Kansas State football game

The issue may be my inability to enter the fields correctly, but in any case--HELP!  :)--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Just a little caps issue. Make sure the field name is capitalized. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

New list

Hey gang, here's a new list to check out:

• List of historically significant college football games

Enjoy!--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:06, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Franklin & Marshall coaches

I've got basic coach pages set up for the Franklin & Marshall program. Feel free to dive in and add more details and collaboration!--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Deletion discussions for college football coach

There is a deletion discussion underway concerning a college football head coach here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arthur S. Herman. Please comment if you have a chance. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Also see here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dwight Watson (American football). Jweiss11 (talk) 16:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Andy Dalton (American football)

There is a discussion currently underway in regards to content at Talk:Andy Dalton (American football) that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Eagles 24/7 (C) 03:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

NAIA 2011 Spring Football Poll

Hey gang! The [NAIA 2011 Spring Football Poll] is out! Check it for any NAIA teams whose pages you support!--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:33, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Article for deletion

The article Health issues in American football is currently undergoing an article for deletion discussion. See the discussion here. —Ute in DC (talk) 07:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Help needed with an inaccurate list

1932–36 Southern Oregon Raiders football teams appears to contain a copy-paste error, where the last two years listed are 1930 and 1931 instead of 1935 and 1936. I started to update it from this page but I'm not really familiar with the subject so I didn't get very far. If someone who is more familiar could take a look and maybe fix the article it'd be great. --Closedmouth (talk) 12:59, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, looks like this article was copied over from 1927–31 Southern Oregon Raiders football teams, which was created the day before in 2006. I've removed 1930 and 1931 from 1932–36 Southern Oregon Raiders football teams. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:34, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Default school colors templates - up for deletion

Template:CollegePrimaryColor and Template:CollegeSecondaryColor are both up for deletion since May 3. Wasn't this someone's project here not too long ago? So far no one has voted either way. Just a heads up. Fjbfour (talk) 11:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Luke Sniewski

Thoughts about the notability of Luke Sniewski? This article appears to have been created by the subject, but he seems borderline notable as there are a fair amount of new stories about him on Google news. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:29, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

• Looks non-notable to me. Looking within the article, reference 1, reference 2, and the external link are all dead links. Ref 4 is in Italian, so I can't evaluate it. I don't see anything in the article that really indicates notability: he's not notable as a high school athlete (making the city playoffs -- even in LA -- doesn't cut it!), he's not notable as a college athlete (Draddy Award semifinalist doesn't cut it), he's not notable as a pro athlete (looks like he played one or maybe two seasons in the Italian Football League), he's not notable as a coach (one or two seasons as the offensive coordinator in the Italian Football League), and he's not notable (yet?) as a personal trainer. A Google search turned up little relevant information. He did write a book, but it appears to be self-published (by his company) and the Amazon Bestsellers Rank is 2,503,233 in books, which indicates low sales; I see no professional reviews of the book. I'm going to nominate it for speedy deletion, because I don't even see an assertion of notability in this article. cmadler (talk) 12:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Maybe not speedy-able, so I'm PRODing it instead. cmadler (talk) 12:09, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Agree if sources are found, it can always be re-created.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Article moves for conference championship games

A number of the articles for conference championship games have been moved to include the word "Football" (capitalized) in their title for the purpose of disambiguation, per the editor:

• ACC Championship Game → ACC Football Championship Game (since reverted)
• Big 12 Championship Game → Big 12 Football Championship Game
• MAC Championship Game → MAC Football Championship Game
• SEC Championship Game → SEC Football Championship Game
• Pac-12 Championship Game → Pacific-12 Football Championship Game

The problem is that the official names of these games do not include the word "Football". A more appropriate qualifier would be a parenthetical "football", but I'm not sure that is needed because the championship games for other sports are framed as tournaments and seem to include the name of their sport in their official titles. It should be noted that the Conference USA Football Championship Game, and the Big Ten Football Championship Game, to be played for the first time this coming season, each include "Football" in their official title, but I have not see an indication of name changes for other conference championship games listed above. Hence, these article moves should all be reverted, unless I am wrong about that last point. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 23:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. It should be MAC Championship Game (American football), IMO. — X96lee15 (talk) 00:38, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason that disambiguation is necessary. Wikipedia:Disambiguation says disambiguation "is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead." If there isn't more than one article to which a title can refer, then it's not needed. At most, a hatnote could be used to lead a reader to, say, the ACC Basketball Championship. —Ute in DC (talk) 03:27, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy (WP:TITLE) is that article titles should use the term most typically used in reliable sources. My hunch, without digging deeply, is that this would usually omit the word "football". It should certainly not take the form suggested by X96lee15. I agree with Ute in DC that, at most, there should be a hatnote pointing to the relevant basketball tournaments (men's and women's). cmadler (talk) 12:18, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Joe Steffy

I'm not a college football guy, so I thought I would mention that the subject of this unreferenced stub just recently had a lengthy obituary in The New York Times here if anyone cares to improve the article.4meter4 (talk) 17:52, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Here are a few more obits: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. I hope this inspires someone.4meter4 (talk) 20:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Does anybody know how to edit the 'College Athlete Recruit Entry' template?

There's a 'College Athlete Recruit Entry' template in Ramone Moore. It shows height as:

• 6′4″

but should be something like:

• 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)

Weight is shown as:

• 185

but should be something like:

• 185 lb (84 kg)

The column heading "Weight (lb)" would then become 'Weight' to match the heading "Height". The phrase "Overall Recruiting Rankings:" should be sentence case. I don't know how to edit the template. Does anybody here have the skills to do it? Lightmouse (talk) 17:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I may be mistaken, but I always thought this template was for use on team articles, not on the articles of individual athletes. The overall recruiting rankings refer to the recruiting class as a whole. See, for example, 2010–11 Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team#Recruiting. I think the template should simply be removed from the Ramone Moore article. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 18:04, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know enough about the subject to make such an edit. Would anybody like to resolve this? Lightmouse (talk) 18:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I see from 'What links here' that it's used on 60 articles of individual athletes. Does it need removing from them all? Lightmouse (talk) 19:01, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Citations needed for the 2001 Michigan vs. Michigan State football game article

Hello all,

I've been working on referencing the 2001 Michigan vs. Michigan State football game article over the past week or so, and while I have been able to cite the vast majority of its content, there are a few statements that are still lacking sources. I'm hoping that someone more knowledgeable than me might know where to find proper references for the following (currently unreferenced) statements:

• "However, upon further review by Big Ten officials, the timekeeping was found to be correct./However, Big Ten officials have since concluded that the time keeping was correct and without fault." (virtually the same statement, which appears in two different parts of the article: can use the same reference)
• "After completion of the game, University of Michigan Head Coach Lloyd Carr petitioned the Big Ten head office to review the rules regarding official timekeeping."

There were also two more minor points that I could not find references for and took out of the article. If anyone can find references for them, they can certainly be put back in:

• The presence of the Michigan Marching Band at the game along with the Spartan Marching Band (in the "Lead-up to the game" section)
• A rather longwinded accusation that the critical 12 men on the field penalty against Michigan in the 4th quarter was assessed incorrectly in terms of both yardage and time (in the "Controversial ending" section)

Any help you are able to provide would be much appreciated!

TFCforever (talk) 17:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

AFD Discussion-Directional Michigan

FYI: There is an AFD discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Directional Michigan (3rd nomination) project members may be interested in.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:39, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Potential problem alert

Gentlemen, I suggest that we keep an eye on the discussion located here: Template talk:University of Central Florida#Coloring. There is an IP user ("125.162.150.88") out of Indonesia who has randomly deleted the black and gold school colors used on several of the University of Central Florida navboxes, and is making the argument that all use of school colors is prohibited/officially discouraged based on his misreading of WP:Deviations. I found the discussion only today when I discovered that the black and gold school colors for the navboxes for UCF, UCF presidents, and UCF sports teams had been removed. (I have reverted these changes.) For those of us who have spent hours and hours working on college sports navboxes, this discussion and related navbox changes certainly bear watching. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:45, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 00:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Yikes. Thanks for the heads up, DL. On a related note, I've been upgrading the lower division football coach succession nav boxes to the full-name-with-parenthetical-tenure format. I also upgraded all of the existing NCAA DI baseball nav boxes and did some category work to promote standard naming and formatting across the various sports; see: Category:American college athletic coach navigational boxes. Looks like Strikehold just looped in some existing soccer coach nav boxes that need some standardization. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Virginia Conference

Can anyone at this WikiProject create Virginia Conference? It's a defunct athletic conference from the 1900s that I don't know anything about, nor can I find anything about (it's pretty impossible finding info on Google when the two most important keywords are "Virginia" and "conference"). I ask this because some of you have great college football resources available, and I'm not sure if this conference pertained to basketball as well. It's the only red link on {{William & Mary Tribe Football}}, and I'd like to see it blue, if possible. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:37, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I wrote a quick stub. Found at least five of their members and tentative years of membership. Strikehold (talk) 20:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Great. Thanks! Jrcla2 (talk) 20:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Pete Carroll

Can someone please look at Pete Carroll and the edit war that is brewing over there regarding the revocation of USC's 2004 championship. Eagles 24/7 (C) 23:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

all-time collegiate attendance record

I was creating the page for the 2010 Connecticut vs. Michigan football game which was on the list of notable games that did not have pages because it said it was the "Largest regular season single game attendance to date". However, when doing research I found this link, which says that Soldier Field holds the record with 123,000 in 1927. Wondering how to handle this.

NT1952 (talk) 17:22, 4 Junes 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.242.188.158 (talk)

Interesting. Looks like we've got some corrections to make! You've researched it, go ahead and be WP:BOLD and make changes as you see fit.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm...1927 college football season#November says it was an estimated crowd of 123,000, and was reported by the Chicago Tribune (offline ref) as 117,000. In either case it's more than the 2010 game (113,090), but the fact that there are two numbers 6,000 apart, and that one or both may be only estimates, not actual ticket or gate counts as we have for more recent games, suggest that we should proceed with caution. cmadler (talk) 12:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Harold Hess

I just wrote the article on Harold Hess, but while researching it, I have been unable to confirm whether the same person was the Cal Poly coach. I have found contemporary sources that link the Penn State player, USC freshman coach, and Loyola Marymount varsity coach (sometimes called "Bill Hess" here).

However, the only source linking the LMU coach with the Cal Poly coach is the College Football Data Warehouse, which has the occasional tendency to incorrectly conflate coaches. The only other source I can find referencing the Cal Poly coach at all is the Cal Poly media guide which lists him as "H. Hess". Also, the Cal Poly coach's tenure is recorded as 1919-1920, when the USC/LMU coach Hess was playing at Penn State (according to the PSU media guide and numerous contemporary sources).

Doesn't help that almost all of the contemporary references from this era on the West Coast are the Los Angeles Times which is subscription only. Any help would be appreciated, especially if someone has access to the LA Times archives. Strikehold (talk) 01:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Found a little more on him in the Penn State yearbooks, but another problem: The 1924 USC yearbook says he came from the "Virginia Military Institute, where he was head coach". That surely is not right (VMI media guide shows Blandy Clarkson was HC from 1920 to 1926). Maybe he was an assistant or head freshman coach, but I cannot find anything about him at VMI either, which has archives of their old student newspapers.... Strikehold (talk) 04:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

User:USLcajun85

User:USLcajun85 has been going and blanking college football articles and templates, then copy/pasting their content into "new" pages. Not only has he not tried to gain consensus regarding the name change for the program (which personally, I don't mind the new name change, but it still needs to gain consensus through a discussion first), he's going outside of procedure that would move, or merge, new pages and templates. Here's a list from what I can discern that he's done this to (note: blanked on the left, copied/pasted on the right):

• 2008 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → 2008 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• Talk:2008 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → Talk:2008 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• 2009 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → 2009 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• Talk:2009 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → Talk:2009 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• 2010 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → 2010 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• Talk:2010 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → Talk:2010 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• 2011 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → 2011 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• Talk:2011 Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football team → Talk:2011 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football team
• Template:Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns football coach navbox → Template:Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football coach navbox
• Thinks this is somehow a disambiguation (clearly doesn't know what the word means)

I don't have much empathy for new editors on this particular day, so I'm afraid I'd bite him if I tried to explain why he's wrong for doing all of that. Can someone from the WP message him about the aforementioned concerns? Also, should we just redirect all of his redirects back to the old versions, since those are the ones with edit history? Jrcla2 (talk) 13:04, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I did the re-redirect just now. I felt it was more important to preserve the page history than wait to hear his side of the story. If and when a consensus is reached on the rename, the move can be carried out via the appropriate mechanisms at that time. DeFaultRyan 05:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, he's gone back and moved them again. At least this time, the move was technically correct (an actual move, rather than his previous copy/paste/blank) and preserved the page histories. By all appearances, he hasn't acknowledged any statements regarding the contested name of the articles. Furthermore, the account is only ten days old, and his contributions have been pretty much exclusively geared towards this name change. Thoughts? DeFaultRyan 18:28, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm issuing warnings and moving them back. —Ute in DC (talk) 18:42, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Underlying naming inconsistency for Ragin' Cajuns

On this subject, there's no consistent naming scheme for Ragin' Cajuns articles and categories:

• Overall athletic program: Category:Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns, Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns
• Football: Category:Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football, Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns football
• Basketball: Category:Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns men's basketball, Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns men's basketball
• Baseball: Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns baseball

Whatever the accepted short name is, it should be applied uniformly to all these and related elements. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Coach nav boxes

I've upgraded Template:Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach navbox both in naming and form per the new standards that came out of the collaboration between WikiProject College football and WikiProject College Basketball. If anyone would like to help out upgrading the other NFL coach navboxes, don't be bashful! Jweiss11 (talk) 06:30, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

And I've already upgraded the Washington Redskins coach navbox and deleted the old Redskins coach succession box from the Steve Spurrier article. Ta-da! Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:56, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Do we need this category?

Category:Fictional Alabama Crimson Tide football players? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:34, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Forrest Gump appears to be the only subject that would ever fit this category, so no. Take it to WP:CFD. Eagles 24/7 (C) 04:00, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd go with "no" as well. Fiction really is outside the realm of this project.--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agreed as well, so I went ahead with a CFD. — Scientizzle 14:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Scientizzle, thank you. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

You know how I knew "Forrest Gump" was a fictional Crimson Tide jock? Forrest actually went to class in the movie.  : ) Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:07, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Eagles247 likes this. Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:24, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Jweiss11 likes this. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:39, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

3 users like this. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 01:09, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

4 users like this. cmadler (talk) 13:37, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Ralph Archer Sr.

Ralph Archer was one of the first group inducted into the University Hall of Fame. During his college days he was captain of the football team and named to the all Kansas football team. After graduation, he took a leave of absence from his job with International Harvester Co. to be temporary coach, while the search for a full time coach was conducted. He returned to IHC and worked his way up through the organization. His final position with IHC was Vice President of Manufacturing at the time of his death in 1957. Ralph Archer Jr. (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Dealing with vacated awards, records and wins

I'm bringing this up (perhaps with an eye towards an RFC) spurred by recent editing at USC Trojans football, 2004 USC Trojans football team, 2005 USC Trojans football team and Pete Carroll. As many editing in this project likely know, USC recently had its 2004 BCS title vacated; this follows an earlier NCAA decision to vacate wins from 2004 & 2005. A dispute has arisen on how to deal with the presentation of win records and other noted achievements in regard to the vacated games. The present dispute centers on USC, but there are ample examples of other programs that have had major NCAA sanctions including vacated wins...inevitably future NCAA rulings will similarly affect other programs. I think this Wikiproject could benefit from a discussion on how to generally handle this sort of information consistently across college football articles.

To illustrate the types of issues involved, college football coaching accomplishments listed at Pete Carroll include winning records before (97–19) and after (83-19) vacated wins, a 34 game winning streak during 2003–05 that includes 14 vacated wins, and 7 consecutive BCS bowl appearances that includes two vacated BCS bowls in the middle of the streak. Edits like this typify how one "side" seems to view the situation: that because official NCAA records have been altered, Wikipedia must similarly expunge or alter its information presentations to fit only NCAA-sanctioned records. I personally find this problematic on multiple levels:

• Wikipedia and most of the reliable sources we use are not beholden to NCAA rulings, so we have no obligation to present NCAA-sanctioned numbers only
• Reliable sources published prior to the NCAA/BCS rulings noted these accomplishments (i.e., they're notable); that the accomplishments are later officially affected by NCAA rulings is also worth noting
• Most importantly: the reader benefits from having the fullest and most accurate informational presentation, which includes accomplishments noted in the past as well as their present contextualization

Acknowledging that the NCAA, the governing body of Div I college football, has a reasonable authority to present "official" statistical accounts, I'm perfectly in favor of noting those values. However, where media sources and historical records vary from the NCAA, the NCAA should not get exclusive authority over Wikipedia's coverage.

I personally favor a somewhat nuanced "asterisk"-type general plan in which noted accomplishments later affected by official rulings should be presented as their original information followed by a clear explanatory note on how later developments alter the official and historical view of the presented information. I'd like to hear what other editors in this arena feel about the topic...can a consensus be developed on how to consistently deal with this type of information? — Scientizzle 18:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Scientizzle, I'm in complete agreement with you on this topic. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:54, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Our friend the asterisk (*) certainly has its uses. To my way of thinking, there are three possible ways to handle how we display the win-loss records of the teams and coaches subject to vacated wins because of NCAA violations:

1. The original, pre-sanctions win-loss records are presented with an asterisk, and an explanatory footnote that provides the official, post-sanctions win-loss record;

2. The official, post-sanctions win-loss records are presented with an asterisk, and an explanatory footnote that provides the original, pre-sanctions win-loss record;

3. The official, post-sanctions win-loss records are presented side-by-side with the pre-sanctions win-loss records in parentheses, together with an explanatory footnote.

In body text, we can describe the games and seasons as they originally unfolded, with an explanatory sentence or brief paragraph at the conclusion of the relevant text section. List of awards or championships that included vacated items should include BRIEF parenthetical explanations of the vacated item, with reference to a longer explanatory footnote if appropriate.

Personally, I don't care which of the alternatives we select for presenting the "revised" win-loss records, but WikiProject College football should enforce an absolutely consistent approach in every case of wins, championships and awards that were vacated because of NCAA rules violations. Any resolution should acknowledge the vacated wins and other NCAA and BCS sanctions in a clearly-stated, straightforward and factual manner. The post-sanction records should be acknowledged as the "official" NCAA win-loss records. Citations should be made to one or more of the many excellent explanatory news articles now available online from The New York Times, ESPN, The Sporting News and other reliable national sports media. Consideration should also be given to the available space; infobox formatting may not allow for the side-by-side presentation of before and after win-loss records. We also have the problem of how to handle the flip side of the coin----what do we do with the records of the sanctioned teams' opponents who lost the vacated games?

The NCAA is rewriting the records books, and other college football records-reporting organizations, such as College Football Data Warehouse, seem to be doing the same thing. Because of the policies inherent in WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliable sources, Wikipedia editors do not have the choice to editorially support or oppose the rewriting of the NCAA records book; we can only report the verifiable facts from reliable resources. Arguably, that means that pre-sanctions news accounts that have been superseded by recent events are no longer reliable, and should not be quoted or cited in isolation. To do so would be misleading to our readers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Some excellent points, Dirtlawyer1. Of your 3 options, I'd argue that #3 is slightly preferable to #2 as it provides both data side by side rather than forcing the reader to seek it out, which seems a simpler presentation. #1 seems most likely to be problematic--I'd bet a case of high quality beer that such entries will be constantly challenged and changed by new Wikipedia editors citing official NCAA sources and arguing that the official word is the only relevant info. Your formatting concerns are certainly worth noting, though.

Regarding opponents in vacated game situations...I don't even know how the NCAA treats this situation. USC's wins were officially vacated in June 2010. UCLA's 2010 media guide still lists the the vacated 2004 & 2005 games as losses. (You'd think if any school would want to take advantage of this record change...) However, it's possible the media guide was already to late in production for the change. We'll have to see what they and others do this year.

I'd argue that out of date sources are not "unreliable" in the Wiki sense, just out of date. These sources are critically important in relaying the views of their times. However, they cannot be cited in a vacuum and any responsibly written article will place outdated sources in present context. — Scientizzle 21:37, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

More info: According to this column, forfeited games would give USC opponents wins in their record, but vacated games do not change opponent records. I've not yet found an official NCAA source on this, though... — Scientizzle 13:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

So then I take it that there is no prior consensus for this issue? I obviously would like to know, since this affects the FSU program. Nolelover^{Talk·Contribs} 21:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell from the archives there has been very little discussion about this issue. This entry is about it for WT:CFB. At the college basketball project there's slightly more here. — Scientizzle 13:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I favor #2, followed by #3. I am entirely opposed to option #1 per Dirtlawyer1's reasoning of WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliable sources. When listing records, there is no more ultimate authority to turn to than the actual official records of any governing body, and for college sports, these are maintained by the NCAA and published in the NCAA's Official Records Books, which, btw, are all freely available, citable and linkable here. IMO, when talking about the listing of records, to do anything else may be treading on WP:OR or WP:SYN. Records and statistics, when possible, should be official, and thus first reflect how governing bodies present their data. CrazyPaco (talk) 03:54, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Example for consideration: Here I implemented a footnote system on a list of accomplishments in the Pete Carroll. I worry it may be a bit clunky, but I think it's informative... — Scientizzle 14:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject College basketball is dealing with a similar issue with John Calipari's vacated wins. I think ultimately the articles need to give both the official ("corrected") numbers and the actual totals -- those games did happen, despite what the NCAA now wishes the records to reflect. I think that either Calipari or a reporter interviewing him even joked about it this spring -- something about what it felt like to get to his "first" Final Four. cmadler (talk) 14:43, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Regarding presentation options, I'd prefer #1, followed by #3. The NCAA is engaged in re-writing history, leading to absurd situations. In 2005, despite "not playing" a regular season (12 vacated wins), USC was invited to the BCS National Championship game, which they lost (losses aren't vacated, only wins). Then, despite the Trojan's "0-1" record for the season, they were ranked #2 in the final AP and Coaches' polls. I think we should state first what actually happened with a subsequent explanation (footnotes or in prose) regarding after-the-fact "corrections" to the official NCAA records. cmadler (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree with cmadler here. I personally would prefer #1, and then a distant 2 and 3. Either way, I think its very important that both records are listed and explained, unlike some current articles where only the "official" record is shown. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 17:35, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

We are talking about records, not history. These are entirely two different things. The records are determined by the NCAA. The school's records are mandated to reflect the NCAA's records. There is no higher authority than the NCAA's Official Records Books for NCAA sanctioned sports. I don't see how #1 is at all tenable, and it is nothing more than revisionism of the the NCAA's "revisionism". The difference is, the NCAA records are the records. You can have whole sections and paragraph devoted to the history of the season and talking about the vacated wins and sanctions, but the records are what they are, not what people want. #1 is bordering on, if not clearly, WP:OR. CrazyPaco (talk) 02:05, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Records are history, in summary form. The NCAA has created a legal fiction -- the vacated game -- for the purposes of rectifying an inequity (the use of ineligible players) without punishing the team in question (as in the case of a forfeit). They have the right, and perhaps even the obligation, to do that, but we shouldn't lose sight, as the NCAA seems to have, of the fact that this is still a fiction. The fact is that those games were played, and in addition to a team losing (which remains in the NCAA's records), a team did win. cmadler (talk) 13:34, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Which is why the article should state the outcome of the games played, but the official win-loss record statistics should reflect the sanction-mandated result. Option #3 seems too cumbersome, so I prefer asterisk option #2 as the pre-sanction results reflect wins obtained by breaking the rules, i.e., cheating. I'd rather emphasize the "offical" results, with a footnote explaining the games were considered "won" at the time. DeFaultRyan 14:51, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

It appears that the NCAA isn't even abiding by their own rules with content hosted on their own website. See this from the The Courier-Journal and this for the actual content at NCAA.com. I don't think we -- or anyone else -- should be expected to keep up with the NCAA's fictions when they themselves don't. cmadler (talk) 13:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I wish there was a "Like" button on Wikipedia like there is on Facebook, because I would use it for Cmadler's last comment. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:11, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Like

:) Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 19:13, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Jweiss11 likes this.

It seems pretty petty to both slam an organization and propose Wikipedia policy based on one questionable article published on the NCAA's website. You might have something like a point if the NCAA had a history of making these mistakes and thus exhibiting inconsistency or even hypocrisy. But one article does not a trend make. ElKevbo (talk) 20:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Somehow I think that cmadler's comments were meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. :) Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 22:22, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Well that may be, but this discussion is obviously starting to show some clear WP:POV. There is a clear and correct way to display records within the parameters of no original research and verifiability, and that is to mimic their presentation in the corresponding Official Records Books. Some random webpage on the NCAA massive website has not bearing on this, a fact even the author of the article at the Courier-Journal seems to recognize. Besides, the NCAA has not ever said the games were not played, just that the records have been officially changed. In presenting records, it is a clear violation of WP:OR if the official records are not presented up front, and the only reasoning given for not to do so is essential the non-neutral POV opinions that the NCAA is somehow wrong or acting unfairly. No matter how much one dislikes the NCAA, or what it has done, there is no way around official records or established Wikipedia policies of neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research. CrazyPaco (talk) 18:55, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

But it's not OR. I can pull out a RS for every single one of the disputed games saying that such-and-such won it. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 22:32, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Great, you can add it to the text in the body of the article explaining the actual outcome and why the record differs and that will be highlighted by an asterisk next to the actual official record. Otherwise it is absolutely OR and POV because you are not presenting the official records. The NCAA is the final arbiter of its own records, not Wikipedia. Our opinions of what the official records should be, or even what they used to be, has no bearing on the actual official records. CrazyPaco (talk) 17:51, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Straw poll

Alright, so in my mind there is obviously enough interest here to make a real declaration/descision of sorts for future notice. So what do we decide? I believe everyone agrees that both records should be listed in one form or another (i.e. we shouldn't just have the official record and no other notes), but which do we emphasize? I personally think having both is too bulky and can be confusing (NOTE: I mean side by side. Sorry for the possible confusion. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 14:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)), so do we list the official record, or what was actually played. Remember that sanctions are mainly supposed to affect/punish the school in question, and aren't necessarily supposed to be a wholesale revision of the record books. Without to much discussion, could everyone list their personal preference and reasoning. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 22:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, let's start by being clear about terms and about what the NCAA says its doing. There are two different things that can occur. Sanctions, which result from institutional/coach wrongdoing, are punitive against the school, and usually involve vacating past victories and restrictions going forward (e.g. practice time limitations, post-season ban, etc.), but in other cases where the NCAA finds no evidence of wrongdoing by the institution or coaches they simply vacate victories in which ineligible players competed. In the case of the former, there is punishment against the school in question, but the NCAA has made it clear that they do not consider the latter to be a punishment, but a "correction" of the record books. USC's football program is a case of the former, where, the NCAA found a "lack of institutional control", and in addition to vacating the relevant wins, issued a public reprimand, imposed a 2-year post-season ban, and a 3-year loss of scholarships. UMass men's basketball in the mid-90s was a case of the latter, where the NCAA simply vacated the wins, finding that Marcus Camby acted on his own and there was no wrong-doing by the school or coaches, and NCAA officials have gone so far as to call Calipari "a victim" in that situation. cmadler (talk) 10:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

But I assume we aren't trying to specify between the two? Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 12:58, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Although the formatting of the record in an infobox/table may be the same, I feel strongly that the text of the article and the explanatory footnote to the record should be clear as to whether the NCAA found culpability. cmadler (talk) 13:27, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 14:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

• As I stated in the previous section, I think we should state first what actually happened with a subsequent explanation (footnotes and/or in prose) regarding after-the-fact "corrections" to the official NCAA records. cmadler (talk) 13:32, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
• As cmadler says, I think we should list the games' result, and then use the asterisk system to indicate that the game was vacated. Note that any program which has had wins vacated should probably have a section about that in the program's article. However, I think the individual season articles would be fine with simple footnotes. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 14:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
• For records, only the official records should be listed as presented in the NCAA Official Records Book for the corresponding sport. An asterisk should and can be used to footnote the historical outcome of any vacated games. Those outcomes and any controversies surrounding the vacation or forfeiture of results can be describe thoroughly in the body or text of the article. Anything else is WP:OR and WP:POV. BTW, this is probably could be listed at WP:RFC to get more opinion. CrazyPaco (talk) 18:36, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
• Exactly what Crazypaco said. DeFaultRyan 22:00, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

There's discussion underway at Talk:Michigan – Ohio State football rivalry apropos of this topic. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:23, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that page could use a little extra thought I think. I worry that, 3 hours into it, we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves in terms of what the "official" implications of OSU's actions today. JohnInDC (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. In the short term we should err on the conservative side when it comes to this vacation B.S. and its implications. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:20, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

"this vacation B.S." = POV, and that is not appropriate reasoning for Wikipedia.CrazyPaco (talk) 03:01, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

• I'm with Crazypaco. A vacated victory is not a victory. We can have whatever annotations or footnotes are appropriate, but it would simply be false to include vacated wins in a coach's or school's win-loss record. Cbl62 (talk) 20:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The bizarre thing about a vacated win is that it's still a loss for other team, which begs the question as to what the all-time series record is in affected rivalries. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:32, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

And honestly, that, more then anything else, is why I think we should emphasize the real outcome first - it still counts for the other team. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 21:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Jweiss11 likes this. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:06, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The record between two teams that include a vacated win is more complicated because the NCAA does not list series records between teams in their Official Records Book. The accepted record of the series would seem to come down to a determination between the teams and the Big Ten. Per JohnInDC, the editors are getting slightly ahead themselves because we do not know how Michigan, the Big Ten, or the NCAA will handle the announcement that OSU is vacating its wins. The NCAA may or may not agree with it, it may or may not change its official records to match OSU, or it may determine them a forfeit instead. There is much to play out, so a definitive final version of the record for the rivalry series seems a little bit further down the road at this point. In the mean time, I think you'd simply remove the win from OSU (but not the loss from Michigan) and set the streaks at 0 with appropriate notations. CrazyPaco (talk) 02:44, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, it seems that we still have no consensus, yet there is a slew of inconsistent editing related to this topic by a mixture of veterans involved in the discussion here, newbies, and IPs. There's been talk here about NPOV and original research, but I think those subjects are irrelevant to this matter. What we are faced with here is an interpretative, aesthetic question about how to best represent the reality of the subject at hand. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:11, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The essential problem is that we're trying to reason our way through an inherently un-logical circumstance. The NCAA (assuming it accepts what I understand to be an offer by OSU) would be revising its records, counter-factually, for the purpose of enforcing certain policy objectives unrelated to the actual field of play. The "vacation", when applied to the offending institution, makes a sort of intuitive sense, but I think that "intuitive" is about the nicest thing that can be said for it, because you quickly run into conundrums and inconsistencies when you push the "logic" forward. I mean, I get it, more or less, when the effect of "vacation" is that OSU can't claim a particular honor, e.g., a Big 10 Championship or a Sugar Bowl win. Just remove their name from those lists. Those years, no one won. But when they get into "vacating" the victory (not the "results" but the "victory") in a series of games that were played, and which OSU actually won - it gets real messy real fast. In every one of those games, there was another team whose W/L record was affected by the outcome. If you postulate that surrendering a win doesn't mean retrieving the corresponding loss - I see the rough equity in it despite the obvious logical problem, but now you have OSU with a different W/L record against a team than that team has against OSU. Huh? Likewise the head-to-head records of the coaches. They won't match either. And - if we take "vacating victories" literally, then was OSU really 0-1 in 2010 (its first losing season since 1988 and its first ever without a win)? Personally I think the right answer for Wikipedia purposes is to describe the historical fact and number of the wins and losses, asterisk them for the OSU 2010 season, OSU's overall W/L record and for Tressel's lifetime accomplishments at the school at *stop there*. Perhaps too for statistics that fans seem to love tracking, e.g., "consecutive wins against Michigan". Put up the factual number and add a note that the streak includes the vacated 2010 win. If you try to think this through any further you're going to give yourself an aneurysm. Now - excuse me please. I have to go take an aspirin. JohnInDC (talk) 15:29, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

It all reminds me of a quote I once saw ascribed to Abraham Lincoln: "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg." The question for us is, how far do we go in accepting the assertion that a tail is a leg? I think, absolutely as little as possible. JohnInDC (talk) 15:40, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Love the analogy. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:46, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! You can pretty much summon up Lincoln somehow on any disagreement, I think -

I decided I needed to clarify my earlier post now to say, where the official record (whatever it is) has been changed to remove OSU's victories or awards in some fashion, then Wikipedia may (not sure about "should") mirror that official record, but appropriately annotated or expanded to reflect historical fact. Where information is derivative, that is it based on game results but is not separately maintained as an "official record" (I am guessing, e.g., coaches' lifetime records against particular teams or opposing coaches etc. ) then the information should be reported according to historical fact with an annotation, if necessary, explaining that it includes or reflects "vacated" victories. This is a nice bright line and doesn't extend the illogic of vacated victories any further than it needs to go. JohnInDC (talk) 17:02, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

To avoid the aneurysm, you just have to take "vacated" for what it is, and not try to extrapolate it out to other teams or records. Our minds want neat, tied-up endings but that isn't what is going on here, and you have to let go of that urge. When determining encyclopedic content that requires no original research or POV, you have to cite the records in question for the highest pertinent authority possible. If the NCAA does't care about streaks between teams, than it is up to the conference and teams themselves to determine how to list series records between teams. We do know the NCAA cares about coaching records and team records so if the NCAA accepts OSU's vacation of wins, then OSU is officially 0-1 in 2010, and yes, that would break the streak of winning seasons. They would be officially 0-1, there is nothing unclear about that IMO. You cite the NCAA Official Records Book, and nothing trumps that; not SI, not ESPN, not Fox Sports, not the Big Ten, not OSU themselves. I do think that some of these infobox templates will need to add a field for vacation of wins footnotes.But first, before we know what will be official in the case of Ohio State, some things will first have to play out. CrazyPaco (talk) 21:38, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

And let me indulge here in my personal POV. I think vacation of these regular season wins is stupid. I see the utility for vacating wins in a tournament setting, where you can't replay a game and the opposing team has not retroactive ability to advance. However, in a regular season setting, where advancement and future opponents are not determined by winning or losing, it is meaningless. IMO, these games should be forfeited (the other team given the win). But it is what it is, and the vacation of wins is all we have at this moment and my POV is irrelevant. CrazyPaco (talk) 21:48, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's stupid too. If you were that wrong (e.g. you failed to field an eligible football team) then you should forfeit. It's as if you didn't show up at all. But I do not quite agree on the implications for Wikipedia of any NCAA decision. The NCAA controls official records, but that's all. They don't control history or facts. OSU (by way of example) as a raw factual matter won 12 games in 2010 (plus the bowl game) in NCAA-sanctioned games. Its record was 12-1. OSU may have gained those wins by cheating, and 12-1 may not be the record recognized by the NCAA, but at the end of the 2010-11 college football season, that's what its record was. This is well and reliably sourced and anything but "OR". The very basic question for us here, which really may go beyond the college athletics arena is, "How should Wikipedia describe factual events when 'official records' of an event admittedly do not reflect historical fact?" I don't mean for that to sound quite as sinister as it does - it's not like the NCAA is covering up genocide - but surely there's room for getting all of this sourced material into the articles. It may be as simple as changing the caption on a table on the relevant OSU pages to say, "Official NCAA W/L records", with a footnote or explanatory paragraph. Ultimately I think the only real decision to make is, which set facts - the "official" or the actual ones - are presented first up? (Fun to talk about all this BTW. A good debate here.) JohnInDC (talk) 22:37, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

And in case it's not clear, I agree entirely with you that the right thing is to see what records the NCAA elects to change, change those in some consensus fashion, and then quit. There will be contradictions and loose ends but it's best, I think, to confine the problems as tightly around the (counterfactual) source as possible. JohnInDC (talk) 22:56, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

To take your example, 12-1 is what OSU's record was, not what it's record is. When listing a record, particularly in an infobox or table of some sort, you list the official record. You obviously can (and should) describe, as is appropriate for the corresponding article, the games, history, and resulting controversies, including record prior to sanctions in the text. I don't think that bit is at all in debate. But for any subject, sports or anything else, the use of a pre-existing record or statistic, which has been since been corrected for whatever reason, up front in the infobox or table is misleading and POV/OR. Administrative actions that change the record or statistic do not change the history, but official results are, have, and will be changed and what we are talking about: official records. If you had a hypothetical election where a candidate won by 60% of the vote, but a few months later it was uncovered that 5% of the vote was disqualified due to a controversial technicality and the official results were change by an election board to 55%, then the official record is 55% and it does not matter that that other 5% of the people actually voted for the candidate. The 55% result is what you'd place in an infobox for the election or in a table of election results. If you look up the official NCAA records and it says OSU is 0-1, then the official record is 0-1. Because an editor thinks that it doesn't makes sense, is unfair, or is "B.S.", does not change the fact that 0-1 is the official record and opinion has no bearing on what should be listed in places where records are appropriate to be so listed, and unofficial records are meaningless except when talking about the history. The NCAA, by the authority granted it by all of its member institutions, has every right to determine and keep the records. That does not stop Wikipedia from writing about the actual game and the ensuing controversies about why it may or may not be a "B.S." (if such text is non-original and sourced), and it is appropriate to do that. However, none of that changes the fact the record is what the NCAA says it is, and that is what should be listed (with whatever notation to provide explanation) in any table or infobox of coach or team wins. This is not a "whitewash", it is not "BS", nor is it a "rewrite of history"; it is an administrative correction of the record. CrazyPaco (talk) 00:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, in the case of the election there's no "official" vote until the results are certified, and after that I think you're stuck with them, but I don't claim to know. Anyhow in the absence of actual decisions to work with, this whole discussion is premature, though I look forward to armwrestling on it when the time comes. (Speaking of premature, can someone look in at Talk:Michigan_–_Ohio_State_football_rivalry#OSU_vacated_victories_.28July_2011.29, toward the bottom, where there is a discussion about the propriety of removing vacated *losses* from the article, based on an ESPN.com blog article (and in the face of a Grant Wahl article cited earlier here))? Thanks - JohnInDC (talk) 00:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello all, new here (this wikiproject discussion). The following links may or may not be helpful to your ongoing discussion:

http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/id/1727/vacate-vs-forfeit

http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/4734/what-does-vacating-wins-really-mean

Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 00:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• It's clear people have strong points of view about this issue, in some cases because vacating wins impacts their team, and in other cases because NCAA procedures strike them as unfair or illogical. But this is an area where our POV just doesn't matter. Where there is an official body that has the official say over something, we cannot decide to ignore that and reflect a result that we think is preferable. Take the 2000 U.S. Presidential election. Many believe that, in reality, Al Gore won the popular vote in Florida (and thus had sufficient electoral votes to be declared President), but a biased U.S. Supreme Court unfairly gave the election to the Republican candidate. It's fine to have an article reflecting differing points of view on the election outcome, but when it comes to listing the result, the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court was final. Even if a consensus of editors in a discussion at the appropriate WikiProject on US politics concluded that Al Gore won the election, we couldn't list him as the winner because, under the rules of that game, the U.S. Supreme Court had the final official say. In this case, the decision of OSU is an official act vacating its wins. If the NCAA reverses or changes the ruling, that then becomes the official, governing act. Once a win has been vacated, it is no longer a win for any purpose -- the team's overall historical record, the team's single-season record, or the coach's record. On the coach's record, we have a List of college men's basketball coaches with 600 wins. On that list, we reflect Jerry Tarkanian as having 729 wins, but include a footnote indicating that 55 of his wins were vacated and that he would have 784 wins otherwise. No matter how much we may disagree with the ruling of the governing body, we don't have the choice to reflect some alternative reality that we believe is more fair or logical. If Wikipedia ignored the official results, it would be more akin to a blog or an editorial rather than an encyclopedia. Cbl62 (talk) 16:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is claiming that the NCAA determinations should be ignored, but rather are arguing how that information should be presented alongside the original, actual facts that the "official" record no longer acknowledges. I doubt that any article on the 2000 election claims that Gore "won", but I'd be surprised by any that didn't note that he won a majority of the votes. I think too that the comments here reflect a good measure of cynicism about the NCAA, arguably brought on by the NCAA itself, which (if prior comments are to be credited) may make a big to-do about vacating victories but later produces PR material that ignores the new official reality. We can't ignore the official results but to accept them without presenting the original facts too would make us more akin to a state-run newspaper than an encyclopedia! JohnInDC (talk) 17:08, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Some are, in fact, suggesting that the official record should be ignored by relegating that record to footnote status. Also, you've misconstrued the 2000 election analogy. But rather than developing that point further, I return to my basic point. When Wikipedia is reflecting a team's win-loss record or a coach's win-loss record, we are bound to reflect the official record. The Tarkanian case is a good example. Tarkanian was shown to have cheated over a period of several years. The NCAA issued sanctions, and Tarkanian made a legal challenge as to the NCAA's authority, a legal battle that went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted in a 1988 decision that the NCAA had the right to discipline its member schools, but required that due process be followed. As a result of the NCAA sanctions, Tarkanian's program had 55 vins vacated. For this reason, the List of college men's basketball coaches with 600 wins lists Tarkanian's official record as 729-201, not 784-201. When we are reporting a coach's (or team's official record), we are bound to report the official record. That said, a footnote (or parenthetical) reflecting what the record would have been had certain wins not been vacated may be appropriate. Cbl62 (talk) 17:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Of course we're bound to report the official record. But an annotation reporting the actual, verifiable, original facts in some fashion is more than appropriate. It's necessary. The NCAA can say what's "official" but it can't rewrite what happened. And I think we're obliged to describe both. JohnInDC (talk) 17:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• • The difference between this situation and the 2000 election is that the original record actually was recognized. In other words, Gore wasn't recognized as winner....with the entire election then being nullified because he had an in-eligible campaign manager. We actually have sources saying that team A beat team B. Not that the outcome of the game was undecided until two days later. I don't think your analogy holds. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 19:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

NCAA's policy on forfeits and vacancies

(Cross-posted in similar substance at Talk:Michigan – Ohio State football rivalry)
I stumbled across this NCAA document this morning. I highlighted the parts that seemed pertinent to "vacation of wins". I am not sure this is as enlightening as it could be but I offer it up for information and / or discussion. I would note that 1) coaches' all-time records are affected but also 2) none of this real until the NCAA Committee on Infractions says so. The original link is here: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Resources/Stats/Statistics+Policies

Forfeits and Vacancies

For many years when issuing penalties to a school, the Committee on Infractions handed out forfeits for regular season games and vacancies for NCAA tournament games. Now, usually the Committee vacates both NCAA tournament games and regular season victories. The only time NCAA statisticians change an official record is when the case is ruled on by the Committee on Infractions.

To record vacancies for NCAA tournament games, the wins and losses of the penalized team are dropped from its overall record and treated as if no games had been played. To record vacancies for regular season contests, the wins but not the losses of the penalized team are dropped from its overall record. This affects season records, all-time records and coaches' records. Example: If Team A was 18-10 for the season but has to vacate four wins and a loss, then Team A's record would now stand at 14-9 for the season. All records that are changed should be asterisked with the footnote stating something to the effect of “Later vacated by NCAA action.”

The won-lost records for each of the opposing teams are not changed when games are vacated. Except for any student-athletes declared ineligible, the individual statistics and the opponents' records are not affected by this action. Since the team’s participation in the NCAA tournament is vacated, any team or individuals receiving NCAA tournament honors, such as being named to the All-Tournament Team or a tournament record, shall be asterisked with the footnote stating “Later vacated.”

To record a forfeit, the wins of the penalized team must be changed to losses, and the losses of its opponent must be changed to wins. This affects season records, all-time records and coaches' records, and should be changed whenever and wherever these records are referred. Except for any student-athletes declared ineligible, the individual statistics are not affected by this action. Example: If Team A was 18-10 for the season but has to forfeit five wins, then Team A's record would now stand at 13-15 for the season and the won-lost records for each of the opposing teams affected also would be changed.

Individual records and performances of other players (teammates and opponents) who participated in these contests shall not be altered except for those players who were declared ineligible.

Only when forfeits and vacancies are declared by the NCAA Committee on Infractions will the official record for schools be reversed. Games later forfeited due to post-game administrative actions but not declared by the Committee on Infractions do not alter any NCAA statistics and/or records. It is suggested schools and conferences denote such games by using an asterisk and a footnote, but continue to list the actual contest results.

JohnInDC (talk) 17:44, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

This statement says nothing about how the NCAA handles a series record, only a season record, all-time record and coaching record for "each" school individually. I have 3 posts here (Chris Low from ESPN.com, John Taylor from NBCSports.com who contacted the NCAA directly, and Dave Paschall from TimesFreePress.com) who all say that a game with a vacated win is not counted in a series record between 2 teams. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 20:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

NCAA source from 2009 confirms Chris Low ESPN.com post

We checked with a person in the know at the NCAA, and it was confirmed that, while Alabama does indeed lose their win against Hawaii — provided the sanctions are upheld on appeal — Hawaii will not get to pick that win up. Additionally, the game does not count in any type of series record between the two teams.
posted by John Taylor, NBCSports.com College Football Talk (CFT), July 4, 2009

Now we have an NCAA source (from 2009), speaking on the subject of college football, that confirms what Chris Low posted (also in 2009). From the perspective of the winning team, the vacated win is removed from the winning team's own series record (though JohnInDC rightly points out that an asterisk should be added to note the change). From the perspective of the losing team, nothing changes-- the loss is retained in the losing team's own series record. From the perspective of both teams, the game does not count in the series record between the two teams (again, an asterisk should be added noting the change). Once the NCAA rules, the series record ought to reflect what John Taylor has reported. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 18:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, no, the series record should report what the NCAA says it is, which presumably they will provide when the time comes (and at which time they'll reconcile this reported "the game never happened" with their policy statement above that vacated wins don't remove the corresponding losses). JohnInDC (talk) 19:39, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

You cannot ignore this NCAA source. The game does not count when viewing the series record between both teams. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 19:49, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It is not an NCAA source. It is a report of an NCAA source, and if consensus is that this report of an NCAA source can't be squared with what the NCAA itself says, then we're obliged to ignore it! But I acknowledge that is better than what we've had up to now and am far less squeamish about proceeding along these lines than I was before. JohnInDC (talk) 20:33, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The NCAA -- in the statement you (JohnInDC) have provided -- addresses season records, all-time records, and coaching records. The NCAA says nothing -- in the statement you (JohnInDC) have provided -- about a series records between 2 teams. I have a post from Chris Low, a report from NBCSports.com (which contacted the NCAA), and an article from the TimesFreePress.com, all of which state that for the series record, the game does not count. Simple and straightforward. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 20:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I hadn't focused on this before but in the course of working on the vacated games essay I set out to learn more about John Taylor, who blogs (a lot) on college football at MSNBC.com. I couldn't find a bio or much else on him other than a whole lot of MSNBC.com posts. Does anyone know his background and credentials? (It doesn't help in searching that he shares a name with John Taylor (American football).) Also, are his posts subject to the "full editorial control" of MSNBC.com? For both the essay and the article in development, we should figure out on which side of this WP:RS line he falls (hat tip to Anna Frodesiak for the quote): "Some news outlets host interactive columns they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professional journalists or are professionals in the field on which they write and the blog is subject to the news outlet's full editorial control." JohnInDC (talk) 14:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

TimesFreePress.com Sports writer confirms 2009 ESPN.com Chris Low post

A forfeit takes a win away and awards it to the losing team both in the single-season and series records. Ole Miss went from a losing season to a winning year in '93 after the NCAA forfeited Bama's 19-14 win over the Rebels. Vacated games can get more confusing. While Alabama will not be credited for 21 wins, neither will the 21 victims in their season records. So while the Tide will be 0-2 in 2005, Tennessee still will have to accept its 5-6 record. The Volunteers will get a break, however, in their series record against Alabama because the '05 game in Tuscaloosa no longer will count.
David Paschall, TimesFreePress.com Sports, June 16, 2009

Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 20:09, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

Since it appears that a) the NCAA has enough answers to fix most potential problems (series records, etc.) and that b) there probably won't ever be enough support for a straight up rejection of the NCAA's versions (which I somewhat support), I propose that we:

1. List all games in season articles with the official record, with an asterisk showing the original record.
2. Adjust all series and coaches records to represent the "official" records (by saying the game officially wasn't played), and use an asterisk to say that some games were won by team X and then vacated.
3. Anything else?

Note that I don't exactly agree with all this, but I do think that this is the compromise most likely to be accepted by everyone. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 19:48, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I like it. DeFaultRyan 19:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

A vacated victory is not the same as a vacated game - the game wasn't played in the former instance but the losing team still keeps the loss in the latter - and if we can figure out a way to work out the math problems that the NCAA is setting out for us, then okay. JohnInDC (talk) 20:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Fine with me, Nolelover, however you are not addressing what should be down about a series record; there is an ongoing discussion at the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry talk page about what to do about the 2010 vacated win should the NCAA rule it stands. I have 3 posts (Chris Low from ESPN.com, John Taylor from NBCSports.com who notes he contacted the NCAA, and David Paschall from TimesFreePress.com) stating that for the series record, the game no longer counts. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to include an asterisk noting the game with the vacated win has been removed. Again, this is for a SERIES RECORD only. The losing team still retains the loss in its own season, all-time and coaching records. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 20:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, it sure would be a lot easier if the NCAA were to decide that these were not "vacated wins" but instead "forfeits". Just move the W to the other side and everything else adds up nicely. Blick. (I am of course speaking only as an exasperated Wikipedia editor and not as a Michigan fan -) JohnInDC (talk) 20:44, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The same 3 posts readily admit that the system is confusing-- but it is what it is. A series record does not count a game with a vacated win. So says Chris Low from ESPN.com, so says John Taylor from NBCSports.com after contacting the NCAA directly, and so says Dave Paschall from the TimesFreePress.com. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 20:47, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I understand that those three agree. But still they are not the NCAA. The "official" record in these cases is what the NCAA does - what the NCAA writes down and publishes. When the NCAA doesn't write it down - it's not official. It's interpolation and supposition no matter who the reporters talked to. Maybe the NCAA officials "in the know" to whom they spoke lacked sufficient sway within the NCAA to see their ideas adopted as official records when the time came. Maybe the reporters got confused - it's all sure confusing enough. Who knows. You have certainly persuaded me that several people share the viewpoint that while losses still count, for series records purposes, whole *games* don't count. So now my point is now a pretty narrow one, which is that when the time comes to work all this into the articles, we should report "official" NCAA records as such (with asterisks to historical facts), and where there's nothing official, report it in whatever manner achieves consensus here, along with an asterisk that somehow explains what has been included, or excluded, or whatever. I *do* object to reporting as "official" any interpretation of numbers or figures that do not, in fact, emanate from the offices of the NCAA. JohnInDC (talk) 21:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

You're absolutely right that we should only say something is official if the NCAA says it is, though I'm not arguing the series record should be identified as "official". I'm simply saying that the only sources found thus far (with respect to the series record) say the game with the vacated win doesn't count (in the series record). As for the NCAA source, you are free question the validity of it, but in the absence (absence!) of anything else "official" from the NCAA (with respect to a series record), that's all we have to go on. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 21:11, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I am okay (enough) with the idea of proceeding to record things as the sources seem to suggest the NCAA would record them, if they did record them, but for some reason didn't, so long as we say what we did and it's possible to trace back to either the official record or the historical fact. Um, I know that's confusing but the point is that whatever we do I think we need to leave breadcrumbs so that the naive reader who grows confused by, e.g., figures that don't add up, can see what the editors were doing. (I think BTW I've just about run out of steam on this.) JohnInDC (talk) 21:26, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, this is what should be done:

1. Wait for NCAA to rule.

2. If necessary, wait for appeal outcome.

3. If vacated win stands, remove game from series record field (per Chris Low ESPN.com, John Taylor NBCSports.com, and Dave Paschall from TimesFreePress.com).

4. Add asterisk and appropriate note stating that the game with vacated win has been removed from series record; that the vacated win has been removed from winning team's season record, all-time record, and coaching record(s); and that the original loss remains in the losing team's season record, all-time record and coaching record(s). Breadcrumbs enough? Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 21:35, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

We need to be clear that every appearance of an "adjusted" (post-vacate) record needs such a footnote. With that caveat, I'm fine with the proposal (though I still don't like it). I also think we should also formulate this decision (plus a summary, with citations of relevant NCAA rules and sportswriter interpretations) into a Wikiproject essay, and include a link from that essay to this discussion (once it's archived). This issue will come up again...and again...and again. It will be much easier in the future if we can point to a written explanation of the Wikiproject's approach, as well as this discussion where it is being determined. cmadler (talk) 12:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm also thinking of writing an article on vacated victories, and if anyone wants to help with that, my sandbox is the place to be. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 15:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

An essay is a great idea. We need something that summarizes the issues, identifies the sources, and lays out precisely what approach achieved consensus and why. Like the preceding two editors, I'm not crazy about this precise setup but can live with it so long as it's clear that adjustments are being made, what adjustments are being made, and on what source authority. Another reason for anessay is to fix the collective thinking as of a moment in time, so that if and when later sources or interpretations emerge, it'll be clear that they weren't considered in the original conclusion. As I've said before, the Low / NBCSport / etc. gloss on this doesn't make sense and while I appreciate that this area *can't* make sense, I don't like our drawing lines based on how we think we can best fit together the primary source (NCAA) plus secondary sources reporting on the NCAA - which officially seems silent on the very point. But enough complaining. Subject to wrinkles that may yet emerge, I'm on board. JohnInDC (talk) 15:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

An essay is fine, but 2 points, both in response to JohnInDC: 1. Low/Taylor/Paschall may not be convenient, but they do make sense -- they aren't contradicting the statement you provided from the NCAA at all. The NCAA statement refers to records for each respective team (season, all-time, coaching). The Low/Taylor/Paschall posts (Taylor especially, who spoke with the NCAA), refer to a series record between 2 teams. There's no reason why the season/all-time/coaching and series records must match. 2. You can't say the NCAA is silent when a major media outlet (NBCSports.com) has contacted the NCAA directly; you're free to question the validity of it, but you cannot simply dismiss it, particularly as it is supported by 2 additional online postings from 2 separate media organizatiosn (ESPN.com, TimesFreePress.com). Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 02:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The NCAA is indeed silent when they don't publish an official policy on a particular question (here, series records), and when journalists and bloggers discussing the subject consistently report only information supplied to them sub rosa, by unnamed sources holding unnamed positions within the organization. It is "official" when the NCAA publishes it, not when information is disseminated from it without the imprimatur of the office, i.e., *un*officially. (You have to ask yourself too whether the three reporters didn't report the name or names of their sources because none of the reporters deemed their sources' names to be pertinent - perhaps - or because the sources wouldn't allow their names to be used, because their views, however well-informed, were not policy that the NCAA had determined to promulgate officially.) Low et al. are probably in fact describing what the NCAA would say, if it did declare an official policy on the subject, but that is not the same as actual official policy. Next. The notion that Low et al. are describing (or reporting, as you will) - that series records *don't* reflect the loss - is inconsistent on its face with the express, written, official NCAA policy that vacated wins don't remove the loss from the opposing team. Series records are nothing more or less the sum of opposing teams wins, losses and ties, and when you write off a W but not an L, they will no longer match. Again back to Lincoln: In some cases the NCAA intends to count a tail as a leg, and in others it doesn't. Fine. But don't try to claim they're "consistent". JohnInDC (talk) 03:31, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

(My personal opinion, BTW, is that the NCAA has not and will not issue any sort of written policy on series records in the case of vacated wins, because the policy that it seems to be disseminating unofficially ("the entire game is vacated"), if put on the same page as the policy that it has already published ("only the win is vacated"), would expose the vacuity of the concept of a "vacated win" as the NCAA has developed it, and subject the organization to pointed, unwelcome and particularly hard-to-refute criticism. But that's water under the bridge, because as I've said above, I don't object if we want to proceed along those lines so long as we cite to our sources and make it clear what the numbers do, or don't reflect.) JohnInDC (talk) 03:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's unlikely that the NCAA will ever give an official policy, because, to my knowledge, "series record" is not an official NCAA statistic in the way that all-time team record, coach's record, etc. are. Since it's not a statistic they maintain, they probably feel no need to give guidance on it, and as JohnInDC pointed out, they would find it inconvenient. In such a case, where there is no official ruling, we should look to what major media organizations and prominent sportswriters are doing. Right now there seems to a some confusion about this, but I have no doubt that ESPN, ABC, and the Big Ten Network will figure out an approach by November 26, and if they all settle on the same (or similar) method, we should probably follow that. In the meantime, I think the best approach may be the current presentation in the infobox Michigan – Ohio State football rivalry, which lists each team's record in the series, with an asterisk and an explanation immediately following. cmadler (talk) 13:19, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The NCAA does not actually publish a series record between any 2 teams; likewise, the NCAA has not released any "official" word on how games with vacated wins affect series records (depending on your definition of the word "official"). However, the NCAA has not been silent on the matter. John Taylor from NBCSports.com spoke with the NCAA, and based on that report, a series record between 2 teams (as in the case of a rivalry) does not included any game with a vacated win:

We checked with a person in the know at the NCAA, and it was confirmed that, while Alabama does indeed lose their win against Hawaii — provided the sanctions are upheld on appeal — Hawaii will not get to pick that win up. Additionally, the game does not count in any type of series record between the two teams.

John Taylor's report is supported by Chris Low from ESPN.com:

I've had several questions from fans wondering what it means for other teams in the SEC now that Alabama has to vacate 21 wins from the 2005, 2006 and 2007 seasons... The short answer is... nothing. Alabama has to give up those wins, but the other teams don't get the wins. And in terms of the series record, it's as if those games were never played.

John Taylor's report is also supported by Dave Paschall from TimesFreePress.com:

A forfeit takes a win away and awards it to the losing team both in the single-season and series records. Ole Miss went from a losing season to a winning year in '93 after the NCAA forfeited Bama's 19-14 win over the Rebels. Vacated games can get more confusing. While Alabama will not be credited for 21 wins, neither will the 21 victims in their season records. So while the Tide will be 0-2 in 2005, Tennessee still will have to accept its 5-6 record. The Volunteers will get a break, however, in their series record against Alabama because the '05 game in Tuscaloosa no longer will count.

Given that both the NCAA and all available media state that games with vacated wins do not count in series records between 2 teams, I strongly urge editors here to list series records in rivalry articles accordingly. An asterisk accompanied by an appropriate footnote explaining 1. that a win (or wins) has been vacated 2. how the vacated win (or wins) affect various official NCAA records (season, all-time, coaching) 3. that although the NCAA does not publish official series records between teams, it has commented on the subject, and that it's view is supported by various media outlets (NBCSports.com, ESPN.com, TimesFreePress.com). Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 21:09, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Only one of those three reports even describes an actual source within the NCAA, and that one neither claims to be reporting NCAA policy, nor identifies the NCAA "person in the know" (not even "an official"!) who supplied the information. Taylor didn't speak with "the NCAA". He spoke with a person who draws a paycheck from the NCAA and who "knows stuff". This is, when you consider it, a curious and coy circumlocution if in fact Taylor is undertaking to describe the official NCAA line - you'd think he would emphasize, rather than play down, the source's authority. That he does not implies that the source does not have meaningful authority (or - chose not to employ it); and indeed Taylor's description could literally be applied to an intern in the Commissioner's office. Anyhow as Cmadler points out above, the NCAA doesn't even track series records, so it's pretty unlikely they'll have a policy on how they would tally them in the case of vacated wins, if they did track them, which they don't. But none of this matters, it's all just air, because yet again I stress that I don't object to the proposals to describe series records in the way that has been outlined here, official or quasi-official or not at all official, so long as it's properly recorded. JohnInDC (talk) 21:45, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

And finally (I really hope it is finally), to describe this in a way that may seem more familiar: When a reporter describes a conversation with "a Treasury official" or "a White House aide" providing insight on the day's burning issue, they are not reporting Department of Treasury or Presidential policy, but instead the behind-the-scenes, out-of-the-spotlight thinking on a particular matter that, for whatever reason, has not been formalized. This sort of information may very well be true and may be a useful predictor of what the official position will be, if and when it emerges - but the basic truth and utility of the facts being reported does not elevate such background information into an agency's position. JohnInDC (talk) 22:02, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

You are free to question the validity of the NCAA report, but you cannot dismiss it. Note that nothing else has been presented here to contradict the Low, Taylor and Paschall posts/reports (aside from discomfort from some of Wikipedia editors here). It's clear which way the media (and apparently, the NCAA) is leaning on the issue of a series record between 2 teams: games with vacated wins don't count. Again, I have no problem with an asterisk and an appropriate note. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 22:04, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like the general consensus is forming...In infoboxes and other overview figures, the official NCAA record should always be presented. In cases for which the NCAA has altered the official record, such as the vacating wins or forfeiting games, an asterisk or footnote providing a succinct explanation of this change and its effects on the relevant records is a viable way of contextualizing these data and should be utilized to the fullest reasonable extent. The article text should fully discuss any such discrepancies, citing relevant sources and clarifying details not suitable for a footnote.

An essay that fully elucidates NCAA recommendations and media norms, such as those discussed by Levdr1lostpassword above, would simplify discussion in future instances of this contentious topic. — Scientizzle 13:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

• Again, the NCAA does keep official records for teams (season, all-time, coaching), but separately for each team.
• Again, when a team is forced to vacate a win by the NCAA, the winning team subtracts the win from its NCAA season record, NCAA all-time record, and relevant NCAA coaching record, while the losing team does nothing with respect to its NCAA season record, NCAA all-time record, and relevant NCAA coaching record. (per NCAA publication linked by JohnInDC)
  
• Again, the NCAA does not release official records for a series between 2 teams, however (!) the NCAA has said (via NBCSports.com) that a game with a vacated win "does not count in any type of series record between the two teams". This information from the NCAA, though not "official" (in the sense that it has not been published by the NCAA itself), has been supported by various media outlets. The NCAA publication linked by JohnInDC works perfectly for team-specific pages. The problem occurs when dealing with non-team-specific pages (i.e., rivalry pages, esp. in dealing w/ series records). Given that the NCAA says nothing in its own official publication (linked by JohnInDC) on the subject of series records between 2 teams, we are forced to look elsewhere. As it turns out, the NCAA does have something to say, and John Taylor from NBCSports.com reported that. Moreover (and again), that finding has been supported by other media outlets. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 21:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

When "the NCAA" has something to say then "the NCAA" says it. They have a website and a press office and are very good at making known what is on their mind. When "the NCAA" has something to say they do not need to feed it to website reporters on what appears to be a not-for-attribution basis in the hope that it finds its way into general dissemination. Let's not overstate what Taylor et al. reported. That's all. JohnInDC (talk) 22:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I am not overstating anything. There is nothing online or in print to contradict what Chris Low from ESPN.com and David Paschall from TimesFreePress.com have said on the subject of how games with vacated wins affect series records between 2 teams. You're right in that the NCAA has said nothing "official"; the NCAA has not released any publication on the subject. However, based on the John Taylor report at NBCSports.com, the NCAA did say something about the subject. The NCAA did not say something official per se, but they did say something. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 22:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

And something is more than nothing. Nothing has been said to contradict Low, Paschall, or most especially, Taylor on the subject of how games with vacated wins affect series records between 2 teams. Nothing. So far, anyway. Levdr1lostpassword (talk) 22:51, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Take it away guys, and note that my sandbox is going to be an actual article on vacated victories. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 23:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Where should we discuss issues that come up on the page in a way that they'll be preserved when the page goes live? I assume (but don't know) that they'll survive a move into article space? Also - just stumbled across this NCAA blog addressing vacated wins - http://www.ncaa.org/blog/2011/06/the-theory-and-practice-of-vacating-games/ . It's an NCAA blog but carries the disclaimer that the views blah blah aren't the views of the NCAA but only of the author (who certainly sounds like someone in the know). I haven't read it closely but maybe it'll give us some material to work with. JohnInDC (talk) 23:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I really can't move my sandbox because of the previous content, but we can cut and paste. :/ Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 23:31, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you cut & paste it now to a new user subpage that can be moved wholesale to article space when the time comes? Sooner is better, b/c more history gets saved that way - JohnInDC (talk) 23:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done, Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 23:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! (User:Nolelover/Sandbox/Vacated victories) JohnInDC (talk) 23:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Nolelover, was it your intention that this be an article on "vacated victories" or an essay, to which articles could link, that summarizes the thinking and consensus we ultimately achieve here? I had been thinking the latter but there seems to be some disagreement on the score. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 01:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Also when I pause to think about it I'm not sure how useful an entirely separate article on that one subject would be, particularly if and when an essay comes into being. The entire subject is captured in a few lines of NCAA policy and some reportage - JohnInDC (talk) 01:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Responded here. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 02:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

So we're over 10,000 words in...

...and I think we finally have a plan of action (sortof). My profuse apologies to anyone who was confused by what I said earlier, but here's what I've done:

• Here we have an essay purely for editor use, explaining to those interested why we report things like we do. It should briefly summarize these proceedings and our rationale, but also assumes that the reader is at least somewhat familiar with the terms, situations and people involved. It really shouldn't have to explain that stuff. That's the job of...
• This article (currently in development at my sandbox). This article will explain to the average sports fan what exactly a vacated win is, and how it affects their a program, just like say, Forfeit (baseball). I can see some thinking that this will end up being a dictionary definition, but I believe there is a lot more to it then just that (history, recent usage, differences between it and other forms of "losing", etc.), so any and all help is needed. For example, does anyone know the first recorded use of vacating wins? Is it limited to NCAA sports only? Thanks to everyone for calmly working through this - now, lets finish this up. Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 03:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks so much for shepherding this through. JohnInDC (talk) 03:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm totally offline for five days as of Monday, so I wanted to do all I can so it doesn't stall. :) Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 03:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

List is growing, maybe too much...

The List of historically significant college football games is growing, maybe a little too much. I started a discussion on the talk page. Essentially, while I think the games on the list are all notable, it doesn't make them "historically significant" (which to me is a higher bar to get over). I invite others to discuss and review what has been done so far.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:18, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• Agreed. Good candidates for removal IMO include: 1872 Rutgers vs. Columbia football game; 1921 Centre vs. Harvard football game; 1922 and 1923 Notre Dame vs. Nebraska football games; 1939 Nebraska vs. Kansas State football game; 1982 California vs. Stanford football game; 1984 Boston College vs. Miami (FL) football game; 1994 Colorado vs. Michigan football game; 1995 Las Vegas Bowl; 1998 Southern vs. Prairie View A&M football game; 2004 South Carolina vs. Clemson football game; 2007 Fiesta Bowl; 2007 Trinity vs. Millsaps football game; 2007 Pittsburgh vs. West Virginia football game; 2009 Louisiana Lafayette vs. Nebraska football game. Cbl62 (talk) 04:00, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
• Also agree. There are lots of fun games showing there, real thrillers, but I'd hardly call the lot of them iconic. JohnInDC (talk) 16:09, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

North Dakota Fighting Sioux nickname

With the inevitability of UND dropping "Fighting Sioux" as its school nickname, what does everyone think we should do at WP:CFB and WP:CBBALL when it does happen? Jrcla2 (talk) 12:46, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

If or when the mascot is changed, we should continue to follow our practice of naming general articles using the current name (with a redirect from the previous name, if needed), and naming season articles based on the name used during that season (with redirects if desired). So only the general articles, such as North Dakota Fighting Sioux, North Dakota Fighting Sioux football, etc., would be renamed, while 2008 North Dakota Fighting Sioux football team, etc., would be unchanged. cmadler (talk) 13:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

See, for example, the lede of Eastern Michigan Eagles football, which explains multiple past names, and the related templates {{Eastern Michigan Eagles football coach navbox}} and {{Eastern Michigan Eagles football teams}}. cmadler (talk) 13:31, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to be honest, I'm not a fan of the EMU coach templates. I think it's a lot of unnecessary detail to go into in a template and since the coaches don't usually clearly correlate with nicknames it wouldn't match up. Might just be my opinion, though. Rikster2 (talk) 18:35, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. EMU isn't the only the school to have a nickname change. I think the way nickname changes are handled simply in the title of the template such as Template:Miami RedHawks football coach navbox is sufficient. Jweiss11 (talk)

Agree with Rikster and Jweiss about the navbox issue. The details present in the EMU navboxes, while informative about the nickname timelines, kind of smacks of homer-ism and doesn't really need to be so broken down. The Miami (OH) example above is the best way to go, IMO. Jrcla2 (talk) 22:25, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I didn't like the EMU navbox style at first, but it's grown on me. However, I'm more interested in having a standard we can rely on for all schools/teams.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

EMU navboxes

How does everyone feel about this being the Eastern Michigan navbox (the basketball coach navbox would also be changed, too):

Jrcla2 (talk) 22:31, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I like this. Thanks for putting it together. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I just updated the navboxes, since no one raised any objections. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Jweiss11 likes this. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

List of vacated and forfeited games in college football

In order to help ensure that we are consistent in how we deal with all teams/coaches with vacated/forfeited games, we should probably compile a complete list of all such instances. I have created one for college basketball called List of vacated and forfeited games in college basketball. Before doing the same for college football, what do others think about formatting, content, etc.? Cbl62 (talk) 19:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I've no objection to creating such a list. I think that, where applicable, the year should link to the relevant team season article. I also think it should give some indication of when any sort of title (e.g. conference championship) is lost due to vacation; this may require some footnotes. cmadler (talk) 13:13, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

This list (and a prospective football list) would be much more useful if they had not only the year the game was originally played, but also the year the game was vacated. That way, you could sort chronologically by that date as well. --B (talk) 13:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Support I've often thought of starting such a list, but I didn't really know where to begin.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Be careful about using "vacated game" when you really mean "vacated win". CrazyPaco (talk) 18:10, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

... and when the NCAA speaks mostly of "vacancies"! JohnInDC (talk) 18:28, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

College athlete categories

Red Alert. Some over-eager category hound is proposing to rearrange the entire system of American college sports categories. Please voice your opinions and concerns here: [8]. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

My first reaction is to quote Barry Pepper's character, Frank Slattery, from 25th Hour: [9]. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Article importance assessment

Without (yet) getting into the details of implementation, I suggest that we should add article importance/priority to our assessment. Once upone a time we did this, and then we stopped. The reason for stopping was that it was seen as "useless" and only "leads to arguments". I disagree with this reasoning on both counts, and I'd like to see this project resume evaluating importance.

• The first argument against evaluating importance was that it was useless. Assessing article importance has two key uses that I see. One is that it will allow us to more-easily target important articles in need of improvement. The other is that WikiProject assessments of article quality AND importance feed into the Wikipedia 1.0 project for physical publication (print, CD, DVD, etc.). By refusing to assess article importance, we're essentially telling the 1.0 project to just select college football articles based on article quality, with the result that legitimate college football topics get short shrift, and the space allotted to college football articles goes to Gerald Ford, Qwest Field, etc. Evaluating importance to the project will allow us to ensure that articles critical to understanding college football are included in these releases.
• The second argument against evaluating importance was that it leads to arguments. While some disagreements are inevitable in any assessment, we don't tend to have heated arguments about quality assessments, and with a clear guide, I see no reason why importance assessments should be more contentious.

If there is consensus for resuming article importance assessment, I'll volunteer to take the lead in constructing an importance guide, bringing it back to this talk page for approval, and then starting the implementation. But again, I'd like to first check for consensus on the general principal that we should be assessing article importance. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

My two cents worth: I agree with Cmadler. I propose the following hierarchy for refinement and debate: (1) all Division I football programs, all Heisman Trophy winners, all national championship games, all College Football Hall of Fame members; (2) all first-team All-Americans, all major award winners, all major bowl games, all national championship coaches; (3) all lesser-tier All-Americans, minor award winners, minor bowls; (4) all otherwise notable coaches, players and games. Based on a subjective evaluation, articles could be bumped up one category of importance based on a combination of factors or other intangibles. There. That's my two bits worth. LOL Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, there are some issues to work out with regard to the exact breakdown, which is why I'd prefer to 1) get consensus that this is needed here, 2) have a robust discussion to hammer out the actual scale (probably could happen at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Assessment to spare this talk page), and then 3) bring the proposal back here for project-wide approval. cmadler (talk) 15:05, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Seeing no objections to this in principle, I'm going to go ahead as I described above, though I may not get started for a week or two. cmadler (talk) 16:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I've given it a start at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Assessment#Reinstating importance assessment; please comment there with your thoughts. Thanks, cmadler (talk) 16:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Coach categories

Category:Lists of college football head coaches is subdivided by conference whereas Category:College football coaches in the United States is not. My feeling is that the subcategories of Category:Lists of college football head coaches should be merged up for parallelism and simplicity. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 06:34, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. cmadler (talk) 12:13, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Project scope

Our current project scope includes the following statement: "In addition, key articles covering subject-specific terms like touchdown, field goal, or two-point conversion also fall under the purview of this project." I think this should be removed, as these terms are not subject-specific to college football, they are used in all forms of American football. So, I think these should be classified only under WikiProject:American football. Thoughts? cmadler (talk) 15:50, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

What does "purview of this project" mean, exactly? Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 15:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

"...fall under the purview of this project" = within scope. See wikt:purview (definition 3). cmadler (talk) 16:54, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I know what purview means :), but I'm wondering about its definition in a practical sense. What are we supposed to do with an article that falls under our "purview". Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 16:59, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

What we are supposed to do with articles that fall under our "purview" is ensure their quality and accuracy, integrate links to them sufficiently into other articles, and develop them toward GA/FA status...yikes, that's a lot of work. :) Jweiss11 (talk) 17:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

As for the question of scope posed by Cmadler, core football topics such as touchdown and option offense contain a lot of content directly referencing college football. This is appropriate since college football has served in large part as the crucible in which these concepts have been notably developed. As such, they belong within the scope of WikiProject College football as well as WikiProject American football (since they also apply to other levels of football). It should also be considered that WikiProject American football does not have nearly the same traction and activity as this project, and I don't know that it serves this project's interests to delegate important topics germane to college football over there. In sense, perversely, WikiProject American football functions, or perhaps should function, as a subproject of this project and WikiProject NFL. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC)