Talk:The Game (college football)

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Would not "Harvard-Yale football rivalry" be a better title for this article? "The Game" is awfully vague and, as the opening line grudgingly acknowledges, not restricted to the H-Y game. AJD 07:10, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, I don't think we should replace a real name used by real people with a pale invented encyclopedia substitute; but of course you're right that that opening sentence does not inspire confidence. If there ARE other games with a real history of being called "The Game" in a widespread and semi-official way, then of course it's unfair for Harvard/Yale to usurp this name and the page should be moved to The Game (Harvard-Yale football); otherwise, if opening sentence is merely stating the truism that anybody can call something "The Game" but doesn't have any specific examples in mind, then it should be toned down to remove the present vague appearance of bias. Doops 08:02, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Harvard-Yale football rivalry" isn't an invented encyclopedia substitute! Would you prefer "Harvard-Yale football game" or "Harvard-Yale game"? "The Game" is a name used by real people, but it's a highly informal and parochial nickname that has no business being an encyclopedia title, any more than the article title Massachusetts Avenue should be moved to Mass Ave or Harvard Yard should be moved to The Yard. It's not as if people don't call it the Harvard-Yale game, just as much as or more than they call it "the Game". AJD 15:37, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, if you're gonna make that argument, you could probably make a pretty good case for deleting the article altogether, since it's a parochial subject which has no business being in an encyclopedia in the first place. As long as the article is here, though, there's a very good reason why it should stay under some version of The Game: if the article were just about the "harvard-yale football game", then why isn't there an article about the "harvard-dartmouth football game" or the "San Diego-Yale football game"? The same intense rivalry which makes the article (marginally) encyclopedic gives it its nickname; the nickname is a concomitant part of what makes the Game interesting.

Now, I don't think anybody will be typing in "Harvard-Yale football game" or "The Game (football game)" into the Go field; this is one of those pages which is pretty much always reached by following a link; so I don't think confusion is really an issue as long as the first sentence makes quite clear what the article is about. Moreover, look at that college rivalry games category; look at all the other nicknames which title articles — calling this article "The Game" is entirely in line with the precedent set there. Again, though, if there are other serious examples of "The Game" out there, then the title should probably be changed to reflect this reality. Doops 16:32, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The raison d'être of this article is because the Harvard-Yale football rivalry is well-known, influential, and of historical importance in ways that are documented in the article. That doesn't mean the article should be entitled The Game any more than the article on Harvard College should be entitled The College. People at Harvard call Harvard College "the College" with greater frequency than they call the Harvard-Yale game "the Game"; when I was at Harvard, we called it "the Harvard-Yale game"; we might say "the Game", but only in the same way as we might refer to the Larz Anderson Bridge as "the Bridge". "The Game" isn't even a nickname; it's just an abbreviation. Nicknames like "the Iron Bowl" or "the Causeway Classic" are distinctive and unique; calling it "the Game" is just a reflection of the fact that it doesn't have a distinctive nickname. Furthermore, people who don't go to, say, Auburn or Alabama might still refer to their game as the Iron Bowl; do people with no H-Y affiliation call the Harvard-Yale game "the Game" and expect to be understood? AJD 21:03, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Certainly you have something of a point with respect to the Alabamians, although I do suspect that most references to "the Iron Bowl" outside that state will need at least a parenthetical remark to explain what it is to the rest of the country. But with respect to your earlier point — you may have only used the phrase as shorthand; but there are certainly many people for whom "the Game" is a full-fledged nickname. Among other things, their view is reflected in the capital "G" and in the fact that at Harvard, e.g., a reference to "the Game" refers to the football contest with Yale — no matter the time of year or the speaker's favorite sport. This is different from "the College" — of course it goes without saying that an unqualified reference to "the College" in a Harvard context refers to Harvard College; but why should an unqualified reference to "the Game" refer specifically to Yale? (This whole argument works equally from a Yale perspective, mutatis mutandis.) And I don't think anybody thinks of the Larz Anderson Bridge as "the Bridge" with a capital "B" — if I say "the bridge" without further spcification, the reference will vary depending enitrely on context; the Larz Anderson Bridge, the Weeks Footbridge, or the Golden Gate Bridge could all get called "the bridge" depending on where I'm giving you directions to. Doops 00:30, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that the point is that while other major rivalry games have alternative names such as "The Big Game", "The Apple Cup", "The Red River Shootout", or "The Civil War", this game has no other name that I am aware of beyond "Havard-Yale Game" and "The Game", and that much of college football lore derives from the Ivies in general and these two in particular. All U.S. college football game rivalries could probably be said to be at least somewhat provincial with the possible exception of Notre Dame-USC, but this is one of the categories, I suppose, that emphasizes the fact that Wikipedia is not paper, and to use a relativistic arguement, is another category that is far more important to world culture than, say, every fictional town in Pokemòn, every minor Star Wars character, or every episode of a TV series. Rlquall 01:27, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that the summary is too one-sided toward Harvard football history. There needs to be more balance. Further, why not come out and say that the rivalry is intensified by these being the two most prestigious schools in the country?

The "We Suck" prank from last year's game is clearly one of the greatest hoaxes ever pulled off in sports. Getting 20,000 Harvard fans to hold up signs spelling out "We Suck" through the entire game while they believe they are spelling "Go Harvard" is classic and blows away the MIT pranks you mention.

Except that the prank 1) involved far less than 20,000 Harvard fans; 2) lasted for far less than the entire game (ca. 5-10 min?); 3) lacked originality, being based on traditional pranks played at the Cal-Berkeley-Stanford game; and 4) didn't require 'constructing a complicated technical mechanism and concealing it, undetected, underground. Nor, for that matter, did it stop everybody in his/her tracks with surprise for a few minutes. But other than those minor details, yeah, it was much more impressive than the MIT prank. Oh, wait. You were probably being sarcastic, weren't you? Doops | talk 16:17, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Regardless, need more Yale stuff in the trivia section. It looks as if someone cherry-picked Harvard football tidbits and ignored Yale's traditions. One could make a strong argument that Yale has a richer college football history than Harvard (leads the series by more than 15 games, has more wins, has more national titles, etc.), yet the article gives it short shrift.

You have a point. Actually, though, I think the real problem is that the bar's been set too low too low in the trivia section. Rather than add more Yale stuff, I'm going to delete some of the less relevant Harvard-focused minutae. Doops | talk 20:16, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Doops--You have not followed through on the above.

[edit] Name

The Game (Harvard-Yale) would be more appropriate than the current one. As is noted, there are other schools with notable histories that have rivalries called "The Game." It is not an issue of which is the best, but clarifying that there are multiple uses of the phrase. An alternate claim is the University of Michigan-Ohio State University game. It was first played in 1897 (H-Y in 1875) and has been an annual event since 1918 (H-Y since 1945). There are 102 meetings of UM-OSU and 122 of H-Y.

Over the last 2 years there have been 73 uses of "the Game"+Harvard+Yale in headlines, lead paragraphs, terms of major papers on LexisNexis and more than 1,000 of "the Game"+Ohio State+Michigan. Looking at the teams and players in the game, one can see the importance of the UM-OSU side: 18 national championships (Ohio State does not claim an additional 7), 9 Heisman Trophies, both have won a national championship in the last decade, 72 Big Ten Championships (some shared), and a combined record of 1,623-581-89 (72.72%). They played in the famous Snow Bowl. ESPN as called the game the greatest rivalry in college sports. As I've said, I propose The Game (Harvard-Yale) and The Game (Michigan-Ohio State). Rkevins82 20:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually The Game is also used by the Lehigh University-Lafayette College game which is the most played rivalry in College Football, having been played 144 times since 1884.GCW50 04:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rkevins that this page should be broken up. I recommend making The Game (college football) a disambiguation page and The Game (Michigan-Ohio State) a redirection link to Michigan-Ohio State rivalry. -TheMile 15:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The title of this article should be changed from 'The Game' to a title that includes 'Harvard' and 'Yale.' First, the Harvard-Yale matches were not always called 'The Game' - especially not during the time that these teams were rivals on the national stage. Second, 'The Game' suggests some universal familiarity with this football rivalry whereas, in fact, many more readers are immediately familiar with the university names but NOT with the nickname of their football matches. I vote to change the name to something like 'Harvard-Yale game (college football)'. 13 December 2006.