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[edit] More help! Player page being attacked

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Wilhoit they are going after this article. Some people still don't get it.CJC47 22:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


Will you guys just take a look at this? Let me know if you disagree with my opinion. CJC47 16:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HELP! LSU pages being deleted

Someone has deemed the LSU season pages, including the National Championship 2003 season and the current 2006 season pages, delete worthy. I don't think they should be deleted. I would appreciate any help you guys could give me to help keep these pages on Wikipedia.

  • Yes, they are hitting the Longhorn pages also. I hope this won't gain steam. Some of these articles contain a lot of content. 2005 Texas Longhorn football team has 80 sources, which is more than many Featured Articles. The link to read the discussion and/or voice an opinion on deleting these pages is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1902 LSU Tigers football team. Johntex\talk 23:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
  • OK, the AfD nomination has been withdrawn by the original nominator. The person who closed the AfD discussion is reluctant to take the time to remove all the AfD tags from all the effected articles and they have asked for help.[1] Can you please remove the AfD nomination tags from these articles if you encounter them? Please also place the following on the Talk page of the article:
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 10/8/2006. The result of the discussion was Nomination withdrawn.
Thanks! Johntex\talk 20:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I removed all AFD tags and added the nomination withdrawn tags -Davis Lee 22:29, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

wow. I have contrubuted to alot of the LSU pages. Someone just trying to target this project. The community decided to keep alll the articles. --Zonerocks 22:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major work to do

OK, the above AfD nomination is winding down, which is great, but let's see if we can turn that AfD into a positive for us. As Nmajdan has pointed out, our articles on 2005 USC Trojans football team and 2006 USC Trojans football team need major work. We can certainly have more dicsussion about what team seasons need their own articles and which do not, but I hope we can all agree that both of these articles are important to the project and should be kept. (2005 played for National Title, 2006 team is ranked second at close to the half-way point). Let's expand those articles! I have left a note at the USC Trojans page also.Johntex\talk 16:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed new minimum guideline for individual team seasons

I'd like to propose that we don't create any individual team season articles that include only tables (such as team schedule) and infoboxes and the like. If the team is important enough to have an article just for that season, then someone should be willing to take the time to write some prose about the team. If an article does not contain that, then I think it should be tagged {{expand}} or {{cleanup}} for a period of no less than two weeks, and then sent to {{prod}} or AfD if the problem has not been corrected. Johntex\talk 16:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I suggested this and I support this 100%.--NMajdan•talk 17:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Nmajdan - I didn't mean to steal your suggestion, which you first made at the AfD, I think. I'm editting fast and furiously right now! Any other criteria we should set as a minimum? I don't want to see us get too rigid about this, but maybe require it to be in at least 2 categories and be at least minimally wikified (link to school, college football...)? Johntex\talk 17:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
No, I dont mind at all. I didn't mean to imply that you were "stealing" my suggestion, I'm glad it was brought over here where the rest of the WPCFB participants can see it. Its hard to set more requirements cause there are always special cases. Any article should contain some parenthetical description of the team whether it be a description of how they are expected to do in the pre-season or the past accomplishments (and expectations) of those on the roster. But basically, as you said, no article with just a schedule and infobox.--NMajdan•talk 17:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Idea: For any article that would only require results tables and rudimentary prose (like 1 sentence or 2) maybe a "decade" files, such as "Duke Football in the 1960's" or some such. Or would it just be worthwile to put the results tables into the main article, and just accept a longer main article? We could beef up the articles by decade with things like notable players, key rivalries, NFL draftees, etc. etc. Would that provide a managable number of articles, and help with notability problems? --Jayron32 19:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Colorado Buffaloes football has one alternative. However, if some prose is provided, I wouldn't be against a decade page.--NMajdan•talk 19:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea. I would suggest that merging into an article by time period of head coach may be better than decades. For example, Texas Longhorns football under John Mackovic. This would lend itself to the creation of some prose about the tenure of that coach if nothing else. Johntex\talk 19:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree; head coach is a much better grouping than decades which are a pretty arbitrary compared to the ebb and flow of college football fortunes. Particularly noteworthy seasons with their own articles are easily linked to from within that article and it parallels nicely with coaches' bio articles.
As to season criteria for notability; if I had reached the AFD discussion before it was withdrawn, I would have commented that I think the season articles will be pretty efficient at self-selection; it would take a pretty hardcore (and somewhat masochistic) fan to chronicle the mediocre or truly tragic seasons of their favorite team. But as for the suggested minimum criteria, I think number of article categories is pretty arbitrary and meaningless. As long as the article holds to normal wikistyle formating, has a consistent presentation to other season articles and is linked appropriately, I don't think it is a big deal to have the individual season article; after all, Wikipedia is not paper. AUTiger ʃ talk/work 20:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Hey, I take offense at that. Of course, I didn't know Colorado was going to go 0-6 (and still going down...) this season. But, the page should still exist since it ties the Colorado record for consecutive losses (and could break it this coming weekend). 2006 Colorado Buffaloes football team. Back on topic, I like the coach grouping as well. Then, the coach articles could link to that page which contains details on the seasons in their tenure. I'd also like to point out the Season format for suggestions on things to include and also on that page is an infobox that should be on all season pages, to help provide quick information and suggestions on minimum items to include. --MECU≈talk 12:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
My condolenses Mecu - I am guessing that Autiger is talking mainly about long-ago seasons. If so, I agree with what he is saying, it is unlikely I will go back and write individual season articles on years when Texas did not do well. I think that is what he is saying. However, you have an excellent point. A terrible season is notable for being terrible, especially if it was unexpected. If you already have the article started at the beginning of the season, you are more likely to finish it than if you have to go back and write about 19__ from scratch. As to the template you link to, I think it is awesome, but I don't think it can be a firm criteria at this point. I don't think any of our old season articles have that info yet. I do support it is a "suggested" inclusion for new articles. Johntex\talk 15:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Definitely not directed at you Mecu; as Johntex says, I meant the historic seasons. For my own part, an article on Auburn Tigers under Doug Barfield covering the (few) highlights of that relatively recent era is more than sufficient. Auburn Tigers under Shug Jordan is much happier, but still much easier to deal with than the 25 years or 3 decades he coached. And yes, certain bad seasons or strings (Columbia anyone?) are notable simply because they are so bad.
My condolences as well on the surprisingly disappointing season your Buffs are having. I was actually hoping they would hold on for the upset over UGA. AUTiger ʃ talk/work 20:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Oooh. I like that. The head coaches idea improves articles in a couple of ways. 1) Cross references between the coaches article and the teams articles improve both articles (we can have a "main" section in the coaches bio article, and another sort of "see also" in the teams/coaches tenure to cross reference to each other.) 2) It improves coverage of teams that would not otherwise receive as much coverage (I.E. "Duke Football" might get NO team history pages beyond the main one, but "Duke Football under Steve Spurrier" would be notable because a) It is perhaps the last time Duke had a winning season and b) Steve Spurrier makes it notable.) Just be certain to establish a consistent naming convention. Nothing makes a project look cruddy like having all of the similar articles named different (One named "Steve Spurrier's Tenure at Duke" and another named "Florida under Steve Spurrier" and a third named "Steve Spurrier as Head Coach of South Carolina" would be bad. Pick on convention and stick to it for ALL of these type of articles. --Jayron32 03:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you, Jayron32. The pages should definately have a common naming convention. Of the ones you presented, I like {{team}} under {{coach}} best. Just so that I'm certain I'm getting it, these coach/team articles are to replace separate season articles in most cases with only the really important seasons being broken out into a separate section? If possible, it would be nice to get some trivia and trends for each coach's tenure (consecutive sell-outs, win-loss records, away-home records, etc.). z4ns4tsu\talk 13:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I dont think its supposed to replace what we have now as far as 2006 teams etc, etc. But its solves the problem of, say, 1902 team. I don't think we should delete the 2005 & 2006 Longhorn pages and combine them under Texas Longhorns under Mack Brown, but instead of created a 1985 Oklahoma Sooners football team page, create a Oklahoma Sooners football under Barry Switzer page. I believe it should be more of a retroactive thing for those wanting to create articles on past teams. For instance, given the content of 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team, I think that should eventually be merged under Nebraska Cornhuskers football under Tom Osborne. Also, as you can tell, I believe the naming convention should be {{year}} {{school}} {{nickname}} football under {{coach}}.--NMajdan•talk 14:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, building on your suggestion Nmajdan, how about {{school}} {{nickname}} football under {{coach}} ({{year range}})? So it would look like Oklahoma Sooners football under Bob Stoops (1999 - Present) or Nebraska Cornhuskers football under Tom Osborne (1973 - 1997). z4ns4tsu\talk 15:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I largely agree with NMajdan. For combined articles going by the period of the coach, I would go with {{school}} {{nickname}} football under {{coach}}. I don't see a need to have the years in the title for that kind of article. One distinction is that I don't want to bias us against an individual team season article if it makes sense. For example, if we ever get around to creating Texas Longhorns under Darrell K. Royal, it would be OK to still have 1970 Texas Longhorn football team, IF AND ONLY IF, there is enough information to justify a seperate article. If we think about our Featured Article criteria, "summary style" is recommended for long articles. Therefore, the article for each of his 3 championship seasons may be summarized very briefly in that article and then covered in their own article. The other seasons could just be covered in the main article for his whole tenure.
I think we have to accept that Wikipedia has a bias towards the recent. That is lamentable in some ways, but understandable at the same time. Whatever we think about individual Pokemon characters having articles, I doubt any of us would say that we need to go to the same length to document some similar craze that occurred in the 1800's or 1500's. Similarly, it is natural that we may have 20 or so team season articles for 2006 and only have 2 or 3 articles that talk about specific teams from 1970. (For 1970, there are competing claims for the championship, so I could see how a good article could be written for each of them if someone spends the time). As Nmajdan says, this technigue of combined years helps us cover the other teams retrospectively.
I do see some role for this going forward though. For example, Baylor University does not even have a page for the entire football program. Someone could decide that Baylor Bears football under Guy Morriss is an easier starting point than Baylor Bears football. I think that would be OK if they want to start with either one. Johntex\talk 15:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Re-set indents. I agree with you Johntex, and I think we'll find that next year, a lot of the 2006 season pages aren't needed any more and what information they have can be summarized on a coach/team page. I fully expect that the only information that will be notable about the 2006 season for the Sooners will be Peterson breaking the school rushing record, the Oregon game, and whatever bowl game we end up in. At the end of the year, it may make sense to condense it under the "Sooners under Stoops" umbrella page. As for the years, I was thinking that it would be easier to find info about a specific year's team if you were looking for history but didn't know who the coach was at the time. For instance, if I wanted to look up the 1980 Cornhuskers, I would not (before today) have known to look under a Tom Osborne coach/team page. z4ns4tsu\talk 16:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, finding the information is always tricky. I think we need to make liberal use of redirects. For example, we have one for for whether someone types "...Longhorn..." or "...Longhorns..." (with/witout the "s") for the 2005 and 2006 season pages. Linking from the main team page is also important, as are categories. Johntex\talk 16:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a small issue with this suggestion. I don't like deleting valid information from articles, but thats just me. I don't like the idea of deleting all the information from the 2006 pages just to get them on a broader article. It basically makes all the effort that goes into the page during the season worthless. I know that if I were to do a 2007 article knowing that most of it will be deleted in February and put on another article, I probably wouldn't put forth the effort to keep it updated through the season. If a 2007 article is started on, say, Middle Tennessee State, and then orphaned halfway through the season, then that would be a great candidate to merge with the broader article.--NMajdan•talk 21:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I hear you NMajdan. I don't advocate that articles should automatically be condensed down the road. I agree with you that it would be hard to put heart and soul into the 2006 page if we know that is likely to happen. However, I don't want to close it off and say we should never merge. I think it just depends on how good a job we do writing the article and so on. If the individual season articles are well written, then I would lean towards keeping them and then writing the "___ team under ___ coach" in summary style, referring back to the individual seasons pages. Johntex\talk 21:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Did we come to a consensus here? If I may summarize/propose; I believe the standard should be that the majority of college football seasons prior to 2000 should be addressed in summary in an article for tenure of the coach of that season (i.e. Auburn Tigers football under John Heisman). Any notable historic season that can support a sufficiently developed article may have an individual article linked from the coach's article (maintaining the short summary there). AUTiger ʃ talk/work 15:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that sounds good. The one thing I would like to see mentioned is that it is OK to create the year page first before the coach page, if circumstances warrant. For instance, I may someday want to write an article on UT's first season. It might make sense to do that before writing an article on the first coach. I think he only lasted one or two seasons, and I doubt I'll find much information on him other than what pertains to the first season. Similar circumstances may apply in other cases. Johntex\talk 15:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Certainly it would acceptable for a notable year page to come first. AUTiger ʃ talk/work 18:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree -- I like the guideline as proposed. z4ns4tsu\talk 17:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree -- It's good to see a set of guidelines. I've done work on Minnesota history pages, I'll work on injecting more information, as I have been lazy in doing so. But I will work on doing that on the pages I create, as well as any future ones.

What is the final consensus on historical pages. Should my history pages go by decade (like it looks like LSU started to do at one point) or should I link them by coach, and if so, what is the proper format (i.e. Minnesota Golden Gophers football under Glen Mason or Minnesota Golden Gophers football under Glen Mason (1997 - present). --Colslax 05:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe the consensus is to break them by coach and that the simpler title is to be preferred, therefore: Minnesota Golden Gophers football under Glen Mason. Johntex\talk 05:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Great, thanks. -Colslax 07:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a question along these lines. First, everyone look at the above discussion about people deleting a player article. But my question is, is it worth my time to make a 1997 Tennessee Volunteers football team article, similar to the 1998 Tennessee Volunteers football team that I started. The 1997 team was a conference champion that went to the main Bowl Alliance game that year. They featured the #1 draft pick (Peyton Manning) and many other first day picks. There was also the Manning-Woodson-ESPN-Heisman Controversy. I think it would be an interesting addition, but I'm not going to spend the time that I spent on the 1998 article, if it is going to be jumped on like the James Wilhoit article. CJC47 16:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-Compliance?

So what do we do about articles that do not comply with our decision? I am referring to the following templates and the articles it links: Template:GeorgiaFootballSeasons (talk, links, edit). All they have is the schedule, an infobox, and a brief 3-4 sentence summary. I posted a comment to the user's talk page and referred him here.--NMajdan•talk 22:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello all, I am the one that created Template:GeorgiaFootballSeasons (talk, links, edit) and the handful of related articles. I got the idea from Template:LSUFootballSeasons (talk, links, edit) and Template:AuburnFootballSeasons (talk, links, edit) and the articles that had been started relative to those two templates. Even though I had only completed 8 articles before being directed here, I was already feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of ceating articles for each year for the Bulldogs. Now that I have read the discussion and the consensus view, I have to say that I am a little relieved. As I understand it, the idea is to group seasons under the head coach, but I cannot tell if a naming format has been settled upon. Additionally, in some cases, single season articles may still be appropriate. With that in mind, would 1927 Georgia Bulldogs football team be an example of an appropriate single season article (assuming expansion). 1927 is the first season in which Georgia could stake a claim to the national title.--Tlmclain | Talk 23:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox 2

Has anyone else checked out Firefox version 2? It has a built in spell-checker that highlights unrecognized and misspelled words. Pretty useful for editing here. z4ns4tsu\talk 17:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I just installed it and then had to uninstall and restore my settings (thanks you MozBack) for 1.5 because 2.0 is fundamentally broken for keyboard scrolling - PgDn, PgUp and up/down cursor keys do not scroll the page as they do in 1.5. For a keyboard junkie like me (I detest mice) that is completely unacceptable. YMMV AUTiger ʃ talk/work 18:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm a little late on this one but yes I have 2.0 and love it. I've gone back through a lot of my articles and fixed the typos that apparently I've skipped over numerous times. Great tool for all editors!--NMajdan•talk 16:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recruiting

(I archived things to make this page smaller) How should we handing recruiting? Should there be a general page with only the most important players listed (top 10 in country)? We could have 2007 NCAA Football National Signing Day that links to the highest-profiles with then summaries for each school and rankings from each position and/or overall rankings of school recruiting classes. Should each team season page be allowed to list the recruiting? Should it go at the end since there is recruiting during the season, but signing day and most recruiting happens after the season. How much is okay? Do you list every recruit that is potential? Only list if the verbal (and stay listed if they de-commit since that still is notable?) Is it okay to create an article on a player like Mitch Mustain (who survived an AfD prior to committing by no consensus)? I think top 10 recruits would be okay to have articles (not all 5-stars, those that are top 10 in the nation overall -- not even top 10 in their position in the country), but articles on each recruit may be weak. It would be okay to have "sub" articles on the team season page perhaps under recruiting. Anyone else have some thoughts? --MECU≈talk 14:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No input so I took a stab. Look here 2006 Colorado Buffaloes football team#Recruits. I wish the stars didn't have empty stars, but free is free. --MECU≈talk 03:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image Deletion because they classifiy them as "Replaceable"

I have had several images come up that people say are replaceable. But the key is that it's not reasonable for me to search the internet for a decent image of the head coach. One person had argued that 50000 fans attend each game. But the odds that they take a picture of the head coach (who does that?) and upload the image to the internet and are willing to release them are asinine. Using the university/athletic department official bio picture is perfectly acceptable. However, they don't seem to get it. Can someone help me fight this battle? You can see the images that are disputed on my talk page: User talk:Mecu. I noticed the user who deleted Johntex's image that was disputed also just deleted mine, so this might be a wider-spread problem. I also think consolidating all the discussion in one place would help so each image doesn't have to get fought over and over. --MECU≈talk 13:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Who does that? hmmm... me - and not just of coaches, but of players on the sideline in addition to action shots. Given that the goal of Wikipedia is to have a free resource that is unencumbered by copyright issues, we should always be trying to get or create images that meet that criteria regardless of whether it is easy. There is a mechanism for getting new images for articles and those of us in the project should make the extra effort to get the pics we want/need. If Wikipedia and the project matters to you, you'll make that effort. I took a few hours of my time to go to Oakland Cemetery specifically to take photos (and edit them) for that article and they helped it achieve FA status. Obviously people are tougher than physical objects, but our subjects (college football players and coaches) have specific schedules to be in particular places that are publicly accessible. It's not that hard. AUTiger ʃ talk/work 18:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
But I don't think it's reasonable to expect us to fly around the country attending college football games just to get a picture of players/coaches/people. If a free image IS available I have no problem using it if it's decent quality. But to scour the web or attend football games to get pictures is above and beyond a reasonable expectation. --MECU≈talk 20:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Mecu on this. I personally have seen the official publicity photo of Colt McCoy face deletion. Among the reasons given was that a free photo is available. That free photo is a picture of McCoy in full uniform (including helmet) rushing in a game situation. I like the photo as an action shot. I should like it - I took the picture and added it to the article. But you can't even tell what he looks like because he is wearing his helmet and it is a long range shot with my 300 meter zoom lense so it is not even the best action photo in the world. Both photos should remain in the article. The image deletionists are on this new crusade because they have the idea that Wikipedia is some sort of free content crusade. Personally, I think it is first and foremost an encyclopedia. When fair use photos make the articles beter - we should use them. If people contribute free content also - that is great, but we should not make our articles suffer on the basis of some free content crusade. Johntex\talk 01:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
MECU, no one says YOU personally have to fly around; clearly there are many members of this project, not to mention wikipedia as a whole that can create these images. You seem to have ignored completely my reference to the Requested Pictures page. And it's not up to you to decide what is reasonable - your lack of inconvenience does not make the usage more legal. By using an image that is not free you could be creating a legal (and large monetary) liability for the Wikipedia Foundation which could put an end to the entire enclycopedia, not just impact the visual appeal of a few articles. Everyone should review not only WP:FAIR but Fair use as well and comtemplate whether you really think the pictures you are obtaining are really being used under the legal doctrine of fair use. Note that at WP:FAIR "An image of a living person that merely shows what they look like." is specifically noted as an example of what is NOT fair use. AUTiger ʃ talk/work 23:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree --particularly on players and coaches (stadiums are different and easier to get). For the record, capturing the photo I got of Patrick Turner was far more difficult than I thought it was going to be (of any player). He was in the background of a high-res photo and I was able to crop it. It honestly looks like he was looking right at me, but that's highly doubtful. Thankfully we spanked Stanford so bad that the team felt like hanging around with the visitors afterwards. --Bobak 19:08, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jeff Bowden

The Jeff Bowden article was a copy/paste of his FSU bio. It has now been deleted at my request and I have started on a stub. If you are looking for something to do, please consider helping with this article as he is in the news right now and is going to be a big search term for the next few weeks. BigDT 13:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Terms on {{NCAA DI-A Conferences}} template

X96lee15 has objected to the use of the term "Mid-major" to describe the non-BCS conferences on the template citing that it is derogatory. If you have an opinion on the matter, please drop by the talk page and voice it. z4ns4tsu\talk 18:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, they're not officially called that anymore. The NCAA came up with some fairly half-baked new categories this year, they're so bad the media briefly noted them at the beginning of the season and stopped using them. I'm trying to remember them and I can't... they're really obtuse and wordy. --Bobak 01:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I think I remember that. I thought it was supposed to start for the 2007-08 season though. Something like "Bowl Caliber" and "Playoff Division" or something. It was to replace the use of DI-A, I-AA, II and III I thought. --MECU≈talk 13:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Right! That was it. Meh, we'll see if they get any traction. Why not just rename D-IAA the "not quite ready for prime time players"? --Bobak 15:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Individual team year pages

I was looking at the list at 2006 NCAA Division I-A football season of teams that have individual pages. Really, I think there neess to be some standard. Ohio State, for example, obviously is a good one to have. Conspicuous for their absence are West Virginia, Louisville, and Rutgers, one of whom is going to be the Big East champion. Also, Arkansas, WFU, BC, and Maryland who will be competing in the next two weeks for the the SEC and ACC titles, aren't there. On the other hand, Washington, Purdue, Miami of Ohio, and Colorado, none of which are in danger of sniffing the top 25, all have pages.

This was discussed above for past seasons, but we really need to decide something about this season, as it is coming to a close.

Obviously, this is a factor of who is willing to take the time to put something together. If someone has time to maintain a team page, then they have one. If nobody does, then they don't.

So I would propose that we come up with some sort of criteria. There are four meaningful possibilities:

  • Possibility 1: Leave things alone - as long as the team page is maintained and has accurate and up-to-date information, that's fine.
  1. NMajdan
  2. MECU≈talk - The Colorado season was notable, that they tied their school record of 10 straight losses this season. Maybe I'm biased, because I put all that effort into the page, but really, what does it hurt? I agree there should be pages on those other teams, especially if they're going to play in a BCS bowl, but the 2006 USC page was a short stub until I worked in it yesterday. They're #2. People are going to work on what they're interested in, not necessarily what's best for Wikipedia. It's why I work on college football pages and not military history pages. And the consensus above stated as long as it's well kept/written, it shouldn't be removed afterwards. Having more info on college football will only increase the exposure of the project. Removing valid info about Miami of Ohio just because they're a lower level and won't make a BCS bowl doesn't seem to be a good reason.
  3. Nothing wrong with having pages for individual seasons no matter how dismal they are, information is useful and should therefore be on Wikipedia. {{}}VegaDark 17:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Nothing wrong with having pages for individual team seasons - no matter how the team fares, so long as the article itself is a decent article. There is absolutely no point to deleting a well-written article just because the team did not end up doing well. To do so would be to discourage creation of good articles for fear that the work would be in vain if the article is deleted. For an example, please see 2006 Texas Longhorn football team, which is a well-sourced, informative article that would have to be deleted under some of the other proposals here. Johntex\talk 19:11, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. There is a lot of history and info... can be useful to people looking for recaps of rivalry, or to put famous games into context. For example, the 2005 Tennessee-LSU was a memorable game coming after Hurricane Katrina. It took on different meaning after Tennessee tanked the year and LSU rattled off 9 straight wins folowing that game. CJC47 17:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Possibility 2: Actively work to create season pages for all 119 division 1A schools that include at a minimum rosters and game capsules.
  1. (Support Here)
  • Possibility 3: Ensure that we have season pages for teams that (1) play in BCS bowls, (2) finish in the top 10, or (3) win their conference title or play in a conference title game. All other team season pages should be prodded or taken to AFD.
  1. Support with modification - Change the requirement for prod/AFD to one where the article info is merged with the appropriate coach/team page z4ns4tsu\talk 20:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. (Support Here)
  • Possibility 4: After the season, delete all team pages, except for the two teams that play for the national title (or, in the case of a 2003-like season, the three teams that play for the national title).
  1. (Support Here)

Any thoughts? BigDT 19:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bowl Games

What's our policy for linking to schools in bowl game articles? Should we link to:

  1. The university article? Probably the highest quality of our options, but may be the least relevant.
  2. The school's athletics article? May not be of high quality, but is getting more relevant
  3. The football team's page, if they have one? For example, 2006 California Golden Bears football team. May not be of high quality, but the most relevant link. The above linked page is a great example of what a good page should look like.

Furthermore, I think we should have a Manual of Style for Bowl game articles, in regards to linking, what the layout of the page should be like, what section headers should read like, etc. I think this would be helpful for helping maintain bowl articles. Thoughts?

I was thinking about that. What would be ideal would be to link to a year page for every team, even if it is just a redlink. Then, we can gradually fill in all of the pages with content, at least for the teams in New Years Day bowls. BigDT 04:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I suggest linking to all three. Something like "The University of Texas Longhorn team of 2006..." Alternatively, if we dislike wikilinks being adjacent to each other the prose could be something more like "The 2006 Texas Longhorn football team enjoyed the first-ever trip to the Gator Bowl for any Texas Longhorn team. They were the 98th football team from The University of Texas to participate in a bowl game." Johntex\talk 06:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Along these lines, I was going to propose that we make all the pages that are currently red on the Master Team Table into at least redirects. So, if there isn't an athletics article, it would redirect to the university page, if there isn't a football article it would redirect to the athletic page (unless there isn't one, then you link to the university page to avoid the double redirect). Then, everywhere could link to the football page and until someone actually makes it, it will at least link to the university or athletics page. Then, we could adopt the policy that within the WikiProject CFB, we always link to another football page. Then again, we're supposed to link upwards to the university article, so maybe Johntex's idea is the best, then you get all three. Perhaps this needs more discussion. Should we link to football pages over the general athletic pages? Johntex's forgot a level too: "The University of Texas Longhorn team of 2006..." But then "2006" doesn't link to where someone may expect and many have been conditioned that a year link you just ignore. --MECU≈talk 13:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd prefer having a single link, given the confines of the "Past results" tables. I'd say keep all university articles linked for now. Then have someone (perhaps a bot?) go through and link those universities which have athletics pages to their respective athletics pages. From there, see which ones have sport-specific pages (such as California Golden Bears football). Link those pages with the next run (or do it all in one fell swoop with a bot). Now after the bot/person does this, then have yearly team pages be linked for those who have those.
Then, sit around and wait for more sport-specific pages and more sport/year-specific pages to crop up. As soon as a new sport-specific or sport/year-specific pages come about, then link relevant articles to said pages.
Also, we need to clean up the following articles: Capital One Bowl, Rose Bowl Game, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl (game), Sugar Bowl, NCAA football bowl records, NCAA football bowl games, 2006-07, NCAA football bowl games, 2005-06 and NCAA football bowl games, 2004-05 all need cleanup. Most need duplicate links removal. Others may need rewrites of some paragraphs. Tables should also be cleaned up. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 23:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assistant coaches notable enough for articles?

I noticed that articles on the offensive and defensive coordinators for the Oregon State Beavers football team (Danny Langsdorf, Mark Banker) were created, and was wondering what our policy is on these is. These two are exceptions as they both coached in the NFL before and should probably be kept, but I was wondering what our position is on the average assistant coach who hasn't coached in the NFL. Are all Division I-A assistant coaches notable? Should they have to have coached in the NFL/AFL/CFL before an article is appropriate? VegaDark 22:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

An assistant coach who has notability established by some other means (they were a player themselves or played or were a head coach in the NFL/AFL/CFL as you said) is easy. I think the the project could try to establish a few criteria that could be used to help determine if they are notable enough. Maybe get a few ideas and then vote? --MECU≈talk 00:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • 5 years at a "major" DI-A school? 10 years? X years?
  • If they win the NC?
  • If they play in a BCS game?
  • If they coached a Heisman or other major award winner (must show direct lineage)?
  • If they coached a player who then went on to success in the NFL/other?
  • If they are part of a national news story (even if not football related)?
  • If they are considered for a head coaching job?
  • If they take over coaching for a fired coach in the interim, even if the fired head coach gets the result(s) of the game(s)?
  • If they are designated an assistant coach by a DI-A team?
  • If they are a graduate assistant of a DI-A team?
  • If they are designated as the offense or defense head coach/coordinator (or related title)?
As Mecu said, if they are notable for other reasons such as being a former player (Josh Heupel or Major Applewhite), then yes. Other than that, I think the notability requirements should be fairly strict. Such as only Assistant/Associate head coaches or Offensive/Defensive Coordinators that have held their position at a DI-A school for 5+ years. I think it could get really complicated with all the bullets listed above.--NMajdan•talk 01:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I was trying to create an article for OU's Offensive Coordinator earlier this week and started looking for info on him. Even though he's been with OU for a long time (first year as OC) and has won a bunch of championships as a coach, I couldn't find enough relevant stuff to (in my mind) justify an article. It's not that he isn't notable, but it's more like the assistant coach's are over-shadowed by the head coach and their accomplishments aren't really discussed. It may be that information availability will be the controlling factor on these articles more than notability will be. z4ns4tsu\talk 17:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Some are ex-head-coaches, like Mike O'Cain. They definitely get articles. Some are famous (or infamous) and are household names among football fans, eg Norm Chow, Jeff Bowden, or Randy Shannon. They definitely should have articles as well. As for anyone else at the IA level, I think that's kindof in between. If there is enough out there to write a sourced article, then go for it. Someone like Bud Foster, for example, could probably have an article, but outside of the ACC, few people know who he is. BigDT 19:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I think part of the point of an encyclopedia of this type is to educate. Getting back grounds and doing good articles on BCS Conference Coodinators and other "name" guys seems very reasonable to me. CJC47 17:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess if the person is an assistant coach/offensive coord/defensive coord of a major Div IA school, then an article is OK. That is, if you have enough information to write an article and not a stub.--NMajdan•talk 17:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Team Infoboxes

Alright - I've noticed as I've been editing team articles that there are a gigantic amount of different infoboxes for each article.

I've seen a total of seven (so far) different types of team infoboxes, and I think it's about time we began to standardize a bit. Some of them can be broken down into categories of similarity, others stand alone, but I'm linking to the team pages which have which.

The Loose Styles:

Loose Icon-Only Style
Penn State Nittany Lions football

Loose Icon and Title Style
San Diego State Aztecs football

Loose Icon and Title with Helmet Style
LSU Tigers football

Loose Icon and Title with Helmet Style with Labels
Hawaii Warriors football

The Block Styles:

Block Style without Title
Michigan Wolverines football

Block Style including financial info without Title
Ohio State Buckeyes football

The Stand-Alone Block:

Different Block Style with Title
Iowa Hawkeyes football


Some of these are radically different than others - from looking around, the majority seem to be with the 'block style', though many football articles still lack one. I ask that we reach a consensus before we add more infoboxes for us to change in the near future. Which should it be? --NomaderTalk 01:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, this is exactly what the project is for. I like the Michigan one the best. I think financial info shouldn't be on there, or if it is, at the bottom. Ohio State's was WAY too long too. I think Michigan's should be the base and we can add a bunch of info/fields from there. --MECU≈talk 02:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I havent had a chance to go through all of them closely yet but I must say I do like the Michigan one but I really dislike the grid lines inside of the template. Thats my personal preference.--NMajdan•talk 03:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you in that Michigan's is the bestat the current moment in time and with the fact that the grid is ugly. Perhaps we should make a fusion of Michigan's good information and Penn State's rather classy looking infobox? I like Penn State's, but the lack of a title and some information is a big downside. --NomaderTalk 04:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Nomader that the Michigan and Penn State's should be combined. Just my two cents. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 04:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Agree with the above that we should combine the two. We need a standard order of presenting the information as well, i.e. do rivals go before or after stadium in the infobox? It would be nice if we could transform this into a template where we can just do something like rivals=Oregon Ducks|Stadium=Reser Stadium etc. etc. VegaDark 06:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
(reset) I fully plan to make a template, once we get some agreement on what needs to be in it. I'll probably do it next week sometime unless someone beats me to it. --MECU≈talk 17:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I really don't care for the Michigan box, but I think it's mostly the lines that cause that. I really like the look of the Penn State one, though. I figure we'll need team logo, name, coach, home stadium (seating capacity), colors, mascot, nickname, fight song name, conference championships, national championships, number of all-americans (maybe), over-all record (with maybe breakdowns by era too), maybe athletic director. I'll keep thinking, but I bet that would cover most of the info we want.z4ns4tsu\talk 17:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I don't like the 'look' of the Michigan one either, but it has most of the information we'd need in the infobox - yet, the Penn State one just looks classy. One big thing I do like though about the Penn State infobox is that it lists the championship years on it, instead of having large annoying lists in the pages. If we could somehow incorporate that into what Michigan has now, I think we'd have a good infobox. --NomaderTalk 20:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
So I think we've agreed we want the content of the Michigan box with the appearance and layout of the Penn State box.--NMajdan•talk 22:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
With a title thrown in there as well - the one main problem other than info on the Penn State box. Other than that, I think that's the consensus. --NomaderTalk 22:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hope you haven't started on one Mecu cause I threw one together today. Was a slow day at work. I'm currently debugging an issue with the school colors but other than that, I think I got it. Let me know what you think and if there's anything that should be added/subtracted. {{NCAAFootballSchool}}--NMajdan•talk 21:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No I haven't. Looks good. Some suggestions: Center the Italicized headers? Or push them out a little more? Also, maybe add a Conference Record under Team Records? Perhaps Conference Titles shouldn't just be a number, since then you could specify what conference(s) it was? ie, 2 Big 12, 5 Big 8, etc? Also, maybe a field for starting year of football? Or number of years (less useful). But really, it does look good. I've see the same color problem on other templates too. --MECU≈talk 22:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments Mecu. I moved the italicized headers over a little more. I can still move it more or just center it. I think conference titles should be a number because win I visit more athletic sites, thats how they list it. But technically, anything can go there. Its not like that field invalidates any number or has some isnumber() function attached to it. I will add the starting year for football as well. Also, I moved your comment to the template talk page as well so we can switch this conversation to the proper place.--NMajdan•talk 22:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Texas Bowl

Is the Texas Bowl in any way, shape or form connected to the EV1.net Houston Bowl? If they aren't, I assume we should split the Texas Bowl article. Or, do we keep Houston Bowl results in the Texas Bowl article. Your responses will help resolve a dispute on if previous results from the Houston Bowl should or should not be kept in the article. Thanks If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 06:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When to create yearly team pages?

While going through some of the yearly team pages, I noticed the 2007 Oregon State Beavers football team article has already been created when there is still over a month left in this football season. I worry that if we start creating these articles too early, we may have more people questioning the need for these articles than we already do. Even the 2006 Texas Longhorn football team article was questioned for being created in early June 2006 and they were defending national champs. Personally, I think at the very earliest, the creation of these articles should wait until at least National Signing Day when a mostly full roster for that year's team has been determined.--NMajdan•talk 17:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 19:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I see no reason to have most team pages, unless the team is stellar, was ranked in the top twenty-five for more than a few weeks, or has another reason to be there (see the 2006 Miami RedHawks team). Obviously, the Miami team I cited is none of these, and doesn't even have a winning record, yet already has an article. Change is needed... bad. --NomaderTalk 21:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Like I mentioned above, this WikiProject needs to have a manual of style to have a clear-cut set of guidelines for notability in relation to teams, bowls, players, etc. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 01:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps we should say it is discouraged to create the next season prior to the spring practice game, or at least national signing day. But, since the 2007 Oregon page is already created, then we should allow it. It contains stuff that we would have to re-create anyways... it's just that we wouldn't want it already. But, per discussion before, any DI-A team season page is acceptable, as long as it's well sourced and written, regardless of how they perform. --MECU≈talk 01:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree it's a bit early to be making the 2007 season articles. But, since it's already made, along with 2007 Washington State Cougars football team (which was made back in October) no point to try and get them deleted since the information is accurate and will just end up being recreated in a few months. We should, however, discourage making these until at least national signing day as said above, or there won't be much to say other than the game schedule. VegaDark 01:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I support the creation of any well written team article as soon as the old season has ended.
Immediately after the season, there is already information to report, such as the upcoming schedule. Some things can already be written ahead of time, such as how many times the two teams have faced, and what the series record is. Recruiting information follows soon after that. Sometimes there are coaching changes to report, or new contract extensions to keep coaches from leaving, or stadium expansions, or new video systems installed, etc. etc.
I feel we have been over this ground already and decided that well-written articles should stay. I see no reason to revist that decision so soon.
Readers will be interested in information about next year as soon as this year is over, maybe sooner. For that reason, informative articles about next year should be allowed to stay even if they are created this year. I think it would be wrong to say that Wikipedia should wait until later to be a resource for this informaiton. Johntex\talk 02:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
In the grand scheme of things, considering that Category:Future sporting events has some way out there events like the 2032 Summer Olympics and 2012 NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey Tournament, ok ... but I really think we should worry more about some of the important 2006 teams that don't have pages ... like Wake Forest, for example. BigDT 04:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A bot we need - football links instead of university links

I'm trying to start using the pages of the form Name Nickname football. But because they're fairly new, most links for all kinds of stuff -- college teams' opponents, NFL players' alma maters, etc. -- have links to the school instead of the football program. I change these manually here and there, but I think it would be good to have a bot to do this systematically. If I get a chance I might write something but if someone else wants to do it, more power to them. - PhilipR 15:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

How will you differentiate between the two? For instance, if I said "NFL Pro John Doe graduated from the University of XYZ," I believe it should go to the school's wiki article. If I said "NFL Pro John Doe played for the University of XYZ," then it should go to the football page. But a bot wouldn't be able to make that decision. Also, what if there is no 'Name Nickname football' article? By guidelines set by the CFB WikiProject, you first try to link to the year-team page, if available and applicable (2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team), then the 'Name Nickname football' article (Oklahoma Sooners football), then school athletics article (Oklahoma Sooners), then school article (University of Oklahoma). --NMajdan•talk 17:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep. Before this would work we would need to make an article about the football teams for each school. There are many schools that still don't even have articles about their athletics, let alone their football team. But I agree that it would be nice, in the long run, to link to either the football season or the football team articles in many cases. VegaDark 18:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
See above section "Bowl Games" for more opinions on this subject (my opinion is listed there also). If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 00:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bowl game articles

Following the naming convention used for 2006 Rose Bowl I have created stubs for two of the upcoming bowl games: 2006 Alamo Bowl and 2007 Rose Bowl. I would love to see us have an informative article for every single bowl game, but that may not happen. Therefore, I am not going to systematically create a stub for every game. I created these two because I personally plan to contribute to them.

We already have a page for BCS National Championship Game 2006. (Note that the naming convention we used there is different from other bowl games, where we have previously put the year after the title.)

Our project is active enough and has enough members that I think we should certainly create 2007 Fiesta Bowl, 2007 Sugar Bowl, and 2007 Orange Bowl so I will go ahead and create stubs for these. Beyond that, I think the creation of bowl game articles should be dependent upon whether someone is willing to take the initiative and make a good article. Johntex\talk 18:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well you know z4ns4tsu and I will be on the Fiesta Bowl article.--NMajdan•talk 18:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I just created the above-mentioned BCS bowl articles. Someone please double-check me. In the copy-and-pasting, I don't want to have Louisville playing in more than one bowl! Also, I'm not sure which team is home and which is away for all these. So, I added an invisible comment that we need to check on that for each one. Johntex\talk 19:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think we might want to create a template for head-to-head games. I notice that in addition to a couple of past bowl games, there are a few individual college football games in Category:notable college football games. A head-to-head template could be used for games like these, as well as bowl games. Some things it might include:
 |Name=(name or nickname if any - E.g. 2007 Rose Bowl or "The Play"
 |Date=
 |Visiting Team=
 |Visiting Record=
 |Visiting Team AP rank=
 |Visiting Team Coaches rank=
 |Visiting Team BCS rank=
 |Visiting Coach=
 |Home Team=
 |Home Record=
 |Home Team AP rank=
 |Home Team Coaches rank=
 |Home Team BCS rank=
 |Home Coach=
 |Type=(conference, non-conference, conference championship, bowl game, national championship...)
 |Stadium=
 |Result=

What do you think? Johntex\talk 20:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I like it, but am not totally sure how it should look. I don't think it should look like the standard infoboxes, something more prominent centered at the top. I also think it should use

{{Linescore Amfootball|
|Home=
|R1= ||R2= ||R3= ||R4= ||RT=
|Road=
|H1= ||H2= ||H3= ||H4= ||HT=
}}

and maybe even some stat columns? See [2] for an example (oh to use logos! but no, won't use them here, sigh) Perhaps there should be a box-score summary template as well? --MECU≈talk 20:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

(Sigh) someday hopefully we will be cleared to use logos in the way that other major media sources use them. I do kind of like the idea of having the linescore immediately at the top. The box score might be better further down the page? Other info I've thought of to consider for the info box is Attendance and Weather. Johntex\talk 21:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Yah, I didn't mean to imply the box score at the top as well. Just thought there might be a need for it and standardizing it would be good for Wikipedia. Though it would have to involve start and end templates which I'm not yet good at, but all the more reason to go for it and learn. --MECU≈talk 22:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Please take a look and provide some feedback: User:Mecu/SingleGameHeader. My thoughts are to eliminate the white background so it's more transparent looking. I'm not so sure about the blue outline (maybe a different color? maybe involve school colors somehow?) I use a 1600x1200 monitor, and I tried reducing the size and seeing how it looks, but I'd like some input from others that use smaller sizes. Is it too big? Should I take the "nowrap" off of the middle column? Are the fonts just too big? Should I go smaller overall? Any comments are appreciated. Thank you. --MECU≈talk 20:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I have moved the template so it can begin being used on pages: {{NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader}}. --MECU≈talk 18:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tennessee Volunteer Football

An unregister user keeps changing Tennessee's national championships to 6, which is in correct. Is there anything that can be done about this? Dlong 20:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll block unregistered users from editting it temporarily. Hopefully they will quickly lose interest. Johntex\talk 21:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Haha, just gotta be aware and keep track of the article's history. College football articles (especially schools) are prime targets for vandalism.--NMajdan•talk 22:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not clear-cut vandalism, as the user is claiming that some extremely minor polls, which voted Tennessee #1 in these years, count as national championships. See http://www.ncaa.org/champadmin/ia_football_past_champs.html. However, the additions are pretty stupid; anyone want to claim Florida State won the national championship in 1994? (not PSU or Nebraska). So, if I could do a favor and ask some of you guys to watchlist it, as the guy will likely return after the sprotect is expired. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 16:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree it is not clear-cut vandalism. So I did not block the user or warn the user about vandalism. My intention would be to leave the sprotect in place for about a week. In that amount of time, the editor will hopefully either (a) lose interest completely (b) realize they have to discuss and gain conensus instead of just reverting (c) at least register a user account which will make enforcement of WP:3RR somewhat easier. Johntex\talk 16:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
This probably isn't or won't be the only instance this will occur. Schools probably claim a different number than the NCAA recognizes plenty of times. Perhaps the best way to deal with it is to include both ideas (aka, NPOV). Something like: "The NCAA officially recognizes Tennessee with 4 national championships in 19xx, 19xx, 19xx and 19xx. However, Tennessee claims 6 with the additional years of 19xx and 19xx. In 19xx, the yyyyyyy poll and in 19xx the zzzzzzz poll voted Tennessee the national champion. These polls are not commonly referred or claimed and the general consensus is that Tennessee has just 4 national championships." I know, literary works of art. (copied to Talk:Tennessee Volunteers football) --MECU≈talk 17:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I like this general idea, but I have two concerns: (1) I don't think the NCAA officially recognizes ANY football championships. They may list them, and refer to them, but I don't think they really recognize or sanction them. (2) for the purposes of team infoboxes and tables listing multiple teams, I think the WikiProject College Football should adopt and stick with a standard of which polls we will use. Beyond that, I think it is fine to include prose in each team article that explains discrepencies and counter-claims (with sources of course). (copied to Talk:Tennessee Volunteers football) Johntex\talk 18:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
As much as I like the idea that the WP:CFB determine what is valid, it's not our job: that would be original. We can just reference the NCAA and then the University and put it all out there. For us to decide that we'll only go along with the NCAA I think is to ignore a side to the story. We could certainly say that in the infobox, only the generally recognized (aka common, NCAA published) NCs should be listed and others claimed by the school should be talked about in the article. But to say we will only put out what the NCAA publishes isn't being very NPOV, I think. (text not copied) --MECU≈talk 15:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that you may have misunderstood me and I think that we may actually be in agreement. I am saying that for the purposes of infoboxes and combined tables where lots of teams are listing, that we can stick with one or more of the most generally recognized polls. We have to make some sort of determination about what to include there. That is not NPOV, it is a reflection of the reality of the situation that some polls enjoy more wide-spread acceptance than others. In the text of an article on an individual team, we should be able to go into any amount of detail and discuss any polls that some author feels is relevant to discuss. Johntex\talk 17:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
It does sound like we agree. I'm on board with that then. --MECU≈talk 18:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Cool. I'm sure, if we have to, we can find sources that stipulate that some poll are more recognized than others. It shouldn't be too hard. -Patstuarttalk|edits 20:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Team season article format changes

There is a straw poll being conducted here to come to a consensus on what the format of the season schedule chart should look like, please add your input. VegaDark 18:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Bowl Championship Series

I requested semi-protection of the Bowl Championship Series page and it was granted. I think it should stay until at least a week after the National Championship game on January 8, 2007. If the vandals find their way to other pages and it becomes too much, you can request semi-protection as well at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. There should be several IPs and have occurred frequently over the recent period. --MECU≈talk 02:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFD Notices

From here on, if anyone comes across an AFD regarding a college football project related item, please list it here on the Project talk page so that the members of the project can assist in assessment of the article. Thank you. --MECU≈talk 03:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


Will you guys just take a look at this? Let me know if you disagree with my opinion. CJC47 16:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure about this one: John Fitzgerald (Offensive Guard, NCAA All-American). Is it worth keeping or should we AFD it? --MECU≈talk 16:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Iffy ... leaning delete. If it is kept, it needs to be renamed and cleaned up. I take a dim view of autobiographical articles. Also, the article says that he was on the all-centry team for the entire state of Oklahoma (meaning, including OU and OSU). But the link says it was UCO's all-century team, not for the whole state. BigDT 17:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coaches article

Just stumbled across an article that appears to have been created about a month ago: List of Current NCAA Division 1-A Coaches. Could use a little help filling in the gaps. It is also an orphaned article so could face deletion in the future.--NMajdan•talk 14:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I moved it to List of current NCAA Division I-A coaches. I think this is a good time to plug the Master Team Table. --MECU≈talk 15:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Moved to List of current NCAA Division I-A football coaches for accuracy before any more links get created. AUTiger ʃ talk/work 00:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone think it might be a good idea to have a by year version of this article? Taking it a step further, we could even have something like List of NCAA Division I-A teams, 2006 could have team/coach/bowl/record/conference. That's probably something useful to have for each year, if for nothing else, than as a central point of reference for articles. BigDT 01:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I can pretty much buy that; sounds like a useful reference. But I think it's almost a subsection (except for the size issue) of 2006 NCAA Division I-A football season so perhaps it's 2006 NCAA Division I-A football season results? Section it by conference with each table containing team/coach/record/notes(includes championship games, bowl, anything notable to highlight.) AUTiger ʃ talk/work 02:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability for College Football People

Seeing some of the AFDs for college players, I'd like to get some discussion going about Notability for College football People, and eventually get this as a guideline or policy under the Notability. Thus, here are my thoughts:

See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Assistant coaches notable enough for articles
  • Coaches
    • Head coach
      • Of a Division I-A team for any length of time (1 game, 1 day) (must be officially recognized by school as head coach. For example, .
      • Of a lower division, if they win the national championship.
      • Any division, won a major national award (Coach of the Year), or in the College Football Hall of Fame
    • Assistant coach
      • Of a Division I-A team, an offensive or defensive coordinator (or similar title that means they are a "head" assistant, not simply "running backs coach") for a minimum of 5 years at one school/team
      • Of any division, won a major national award (Top Assistant Coach)
  • Players
    • Division I-A
      • Won a major national award (See {{College Football Awards}}), or in the College Football Hall of Fame
      • Holds a current NCAA record
      • A team leader (ie, quarterback, defensive leader) (aka, Standout player)
      • All-Americans by at least two sources
      • Finalists for major awards (Heisman watch list)
      • Considered a NFL draft prospect for the next draft cycle
    • Lower divisions
      • National news item about player (non criminal)
    • Recruits
      • Top 5 ranked Nationally overall (Not top 5 in position) by at least one source
  • Specifically not
    • High school players
    • No national sources discussing player


Players not likely to need an article (most linemen fit in this category, except award winners per above) because information is lacking to fully support more than the basic information that is possible to be obtains on season/team articles. Need more than date of birth, name, height, weight, high school and a basic stats ("In 2006 he had 7 sacks"). An article should contain enough content that including it into a team/season article (or anywhere else) would not be appropriate.

I by no means imply that my listing above is perfect. Your help is appreciated. --MECU≈talk 15:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Head coaches: Any coach, any team, any conference, in college sports. This includes NCAA Division I-A, I-AA, II, II, and NAIA. I feel being a college coach, regardless of the college, is worthy enough of an article.
Assistant coaches: You say minimum of 5 years. Does that mean they've served in the capacity of OC/DC for five years or that they've been a coach for five years and are now OC/DC? For instance, let me use Oklahoma since that is what I know best. Brent Venables has been DC for 8 years...worthy of an article. Kevin Wilson is in his first year as OC but has been an assistant coach for nearly 10 years...worthy? And of course, an assistant coach may have an article if they are significant for another reason. Once again using Oklahoma as an example. Josh Heupel was the qb for the national championship team and is now a quarterback coach but he has an article. I say he is notable. Same for Major Applewhite.
Players: I agree with all your criteria except for Recruits. I do not feel these high school players are deserving yet. Especially considering they will probably be redshirted their first year and won't even play in their first season thereby leaving an article without any updates for a year. Lets wait for these recruits to meet the other criteria first (All American, team leader, etc).--NMajdan•talk 15:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I think some recruits merit articles if there is a lot of hub-bub over their recruitment. Jimmy Clausen is one that I can think of. There have been articles in USA Today and Sports Illustrated CJC47 15:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I know of him. Still, I think an article should wait until, say, he is actually playing and making an impact. There's not point in creating an article for someone like Clausen if they sit on the bench the first year. If they come out their true freshman year and make a significant impact on the team (like Adrian Peterson did his true freshman year, then the article should be created. If he's a big-name recruit then he should make an impact immediately and then they'd be notable enough for an article.--NMajdan•talk 16:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think Division II, II or NAIA head coaches are noteworthy. But if enough disagree with me I would be fine with it. I just don't see them as having enough possible information for an article and they are mostly local. Even I-AA is questionable, but I'd be more fine with including them.
5 years at one school, where they were also the OC/DC at one point. For your Kevin Wilson example: Yes, if he has been at Oklahoma for 5+ years (you said he was a asst coach for nearly 10 years, but if those weren't at OK, then no). I should perhaps have the disclaimer that if someone is currently an assist coach (for example), but they qualify for notability under being a former player (or former head coach, for example) then their current status does not affect it. They have achieved notability.
I think guys like Willie Martinez at Georgia could merit an article if they are in the news a lot and replacing a high profile guy like Brian VanGorder. Thoughts? CJC47 16:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Recruits, I originally had top 10 at position and then top 10 overall and now put top 5 overall. This is for the Jimmy Clausen types. These guys may redshirt, but typically they will be a top standout at their school eventually so having an article stagnant for a few years I'm fine with. Plus, I believe it is especially notable to be one of the top 5 ranked players out of all the thousands and thousands of high school football players each year. --MECU≈talk 16:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe lower division coach if they are fine. I don’t think there should be an article for everyone but if they won a national title, member of the Hall of Fame or President of the American Football Coaches Association they should have an article. They could also have an article if they do some exceptional like a very high number of victories. 09er 17:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Everyone here may want to read something I wrote about this a while ago, located here. That being said, I have to agree with much of the originally proposed list so far. For All-Americans I would change "by more than one source" to simply school-recognized All-Americans. That eliminates people who are only AA's on lower tiered lists. For "Holds a current NCAA record", what happens when someone breaks it? Do we put it to AfD since they no longer hold it? I don't think this should be an automatic criteria for inclusion because of that reason. I would guess most people who hold NCAA records were All-Americans, so they would fall into that inclusion criteria. For those who weren't AA's, perhaps allow articles on them on a case-by-case basis. I disagree with allowing articles on a "Team leader". Who is the team leader for Duke or Temple? Odds are they are not notable enough for an article. Perhaps allow team leader articles for teams that reached the top 25 during the season. Not sure about finalists for major awards. Once again, someone here will probably be an AA. If they weren't and didn't win the award, I'm not so sure they deserve an article. I would limit "considered a prospect for the next NFL draft" to a first round prospect. There are tons of players who get drafted and end up never playing in a game in the later rounds. I also think All-Conference should not be enough for an article to be made. VegaDark 19:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
My thoughts: if the person is the subject of multiple non-trivial works (per WP:BIO), I say make an article on them. If there is enough information out there for an article, I don't really think we need too much rule creep. That said, I don't really like having recruits at all unless they are notable purely on the basis of what they did in HS (ie, setting a national record, committing multiple felonies during a recruiting trip to UF, etc). Too many all-everything kids out of HS never play a down in college and four years later, they are at a local community college and nobody remembers who they were. I draw the line at being the subject of non-trivial published works. If all you have is his stat sheet and school bio, we probably don't need an article ... but if there's enough information out there with which to create an article, I say go for it. BigDT 19:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Awards?

Should we do awards for the best 2006 team page? Best additions by posters and the like? CJC47 19:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not big on that stuff. If you think someone has done a good job, give them a barnstar, but beyond that, I really think we've done a good job of keeping the team rivalries out of here and it would be nice to see it stay that way. BigDT 19:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comment: {{cfb}}

Soccer pages have a nifty little template Template:Nft that lets you easily specify the name of the country and produce a link to such-and-such national football team. It requires a redir for countries like the US and Australia that don't have that as the name of the article, and I think transcluding it is highly deprecated, but other than that it seems to work great. I created similar at Template:Cfb. Sadly everything will require a redir because there's no way to intuit the school nickname which is in each article's title. If there are any nuances of MediaWiki template markup that I'm missing, please advise me. Cheers, PhilipR 18:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I decided we were better off with {{cfb2}}, which lets you specify the team nickname to avoid redirs. And be sure to use them with subst: so that we don't create a mess of transclusion. - PhilipR 17:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox for college bowl games

I've created an infobox for college bowl games. It can be found at {{collegebowl}}. Feel free to edit and make better! I'd put all the templates into the various bowl articles, but I'm too lazy right now. I'll do them within the week if no one else does, though it'd be nice to get some help. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 02:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oops

I made this infobox: {{Infobox CollegeFB Bowl}}, before I saw yours. An example of it can be seen at BCS National Championship Game 1998. I suggest yours for upcoming bowl and this one for past bowls. What does everyone think? CJC47 20:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See also

{{NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader}} by Mecu.

It is designed for a specific occurance of any single football game. Ie, the 2006 Alamo Bowl or 2006 Rose Bowl or any regular season game, if it has its own article. Johntex\talk 20:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the combo of mine and his at BCS National Championship Game 2007. There is some info overlap, but the quarter by quarter scores and rankings of his, combined with the TV info, and logo of mine make a nice combination. Thoughts?CJC47 20:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I do like them working together generally, perhaps just remove the name and stadium from the infobox would reduce the overlap of info, but each then has a unique purpose (whereas the game header shows game info, the infobox shows game detailed info (MVP)). But I do like them both and I think combining may cause either to bloat too much. Maybe make them look a little more alike? --MECU≈talk 21:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I put them in combination at 2006 Alamo Bowl and the result is not bad. The stadium and city is in both. Leaving it blank in the infobox does not look good at all, so I left it blank in the game header. I think it would be nice if the infobox could treat these as optional. Then we could put these in the header and the two would look nicer together. Johntex\talk 22:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Ian's has some extra information that I like. Specifically, I like the place to add the pay-out. However, this does need to be discussed in the text as well since a portion will go to their temas and a portion will be split among their conferences (excluding independents of course). Johntex\talk 22:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Eh, I don't know about having both of them together. They don't exactly mesh well on a 1024x768 monitor. Would it be possible to move the infobox on the right down to the Game Summary section?--NMajdan•talk 22:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
You are right - that didn't look good. I don't really like it much down the page, so I just took it out for now. Johntex\talk 22:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
You could just add a section clear after the game header: {{-}}. --MECU≈talk 23:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
CJC47's looks more appropriate for specific year bowl games (such as 2003 Fiesta Bowl), while my template is appropriate for the top-leve page (in this example, Fiesta Bowl). Would everyone agree to this and start adding {{collegebowl}} to the top-level pages? I'd like to get all of these templates on the page before the first bowl is played. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 00:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see more of the parameters be made optional. It would be nice to be able to add the template without knowing all the information it requires, such as the payout or sponsors. Also, what will happen to this template as soon as the year is over? At some point at the 2006-07 season gives way to the 2007-08 season, the field called "this year's matchup" will become confusing. Perhaps these should become "most recent played matchup" and "upcoming matchup - once confirmed". Johntex\talk 00:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I've got a sandbox version at User:Mecu/Collegebowl if anyone wants to try. I've got most of it optional now, but some things aren't showing up (I guess I made it too optional). And there's an extra - or so popping up. Any help is appreciated. --MECU≈talk 03:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Heisman Trophy

Can someone knowledgable about it give Heisman Trophy a once over? It has been vandalized quite a bit with partial reverts mixed in. I just want to make sure that I haven't missed anything and that there aren't any little pieces of mis-information vandalism. BigDT 21:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I do take a slight issue with the third paragraph. I don't know if the trophy serves as a representation of a player's chances in the NFL. Look at some of the more recent winners: Jason White, Eric Crouch, Chris Weinke, Danny Weurffel. Granted there are some big names but the number of big NFL players and NFL busts are about equal. Just my opinion. But overall the article looks good.--NMajdan•talk 15:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graphic Lab

Just came across this new community on Wikipedia. May be worth checking out in case we need something in the future. Graphic Lab.--NMajdan•talk 14:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the addition. I had a photo that I have wanted fixed for quite a while. CJC47 23:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cool Trick

I discovered this cool trick that making linking easier: If a link has a ( ) in it for disambig (or whatever) reasons, you can link like this: [[Blah (darn brackets)|]] and it will show up as "Blah" (no "(darn brackets)"!). For example: [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|]] looks like: Dan Hawkins. Awesome, huh? --MECU≈talk 03:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I just discovered about this, is that when Wiki saves, it will change the link internally from [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|]] to [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|Dan Hawkins]]. So, when you edit it again, it will look like normal. So, changing them from the displayed way to the | formatted way is useless since it will just put it all back anyways. --MECU≈talk 15:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Very neat. Thanks for the tip! Johntex\talk 15:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm.....thats interesting. That may make templates easier to create, correct? Now, instead of having, say, a coach's display name and a coach's link, we would only need to ask for the link and then have all coach's links fed into that format. Since [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|]] and [[Bob Stoops|]] will both link to the correct article.--NMajdan•talk 16:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
It would seem that way NMajdan, but until I see it work, I won't put it in. And, it may be less clear for non-advanced editors like us. The extra coding for that is minimal. --MECU≈talk 19:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How to handle a situation: LSU-related vandalism of USC's 2003-related pages

I need advice from the more experienced editors: I think everyone, outside of a few seemingly tireless, fringe (not normal) LSU fans, have moved past the 2003 split-title fiasco, but the edits keep on coming. For the past year they've been the occasional anon IPs, now I have two new users abusing this over and over for the past few days on University of Southern California Trojans football, 2003 NCAA Division I-A football season, NCAA Division I-A national football championship, and USC Trojans (thank heavens for the "user contribution" button!). What should I do? With these new accounts it's seems to have become a little different than when it was merely anons, but I feel a little uncomfortable handing out warnings since I'm self-professed USC alum and "Watchlist Guardian" for many of its articles. --Bobak 19:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Talking is usually the best thing. Try to get all involved people to talk in one location. Try to make a compromise that everyone (or most) can agree on. Is their viewpoint that LSU isn't a co-NC? I couldn't really tell what the problem was easily. Involving some of the dispute resolution processes may be needed if you can't talk it out. --MECU≈talk 19:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't call myself an "experienced" editor (I generally just fix typos, bad links, and revert vandalism), but I'm intending to treat this as vandalism and give the standard warnings. I've already notified one user about this. Dlong 20:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2006-07 Bowl Game Template

It seems {{Bowl Games}} is to be used generically on bowl game articles, even though the header states it's for the 2006-07 season. Would anyone object to making this season specific, such that it would be named "2006 NCAA bowl games" or something similar, where then, for each season we would have another template that would link only to the year-specific bowl games (2007 Rose Bowl, not just Rose Bowl). Then, this template could be used just to link to the generic bowl game articles (Rose Bowl). Any thoughts? --MECU≈talk 19:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coaches year-by-year record template?

Is there any sort of template to be used for display a yearly record log for coaches? I'm working on one for Joe Paterno to tidy up the one already in that article and want to make sure I'm not duplicating efforts already completed elsewhere. PSUMark2006 20:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I have seen many. Some are broken up into time at one school. Others are for entire career. Some have conference record and others don’t. It would be nice to have a standard that included the following: School, Year, Record, Conference, Conf record and place, Post season (bowl or playoffs) and Remarks 09er 22:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Really? Where?--NMajdan•talk 22:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and created a more streamlined table format for season-by-season records at the Joe Paterno article. Anyone with more template expertise than me is more than welcome to mess around with this in the hopes of making a template out of it. PSUMark2006 22:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
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