Talk:College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS/Archive 2015

Consensus and the College Football Playoff
How should we handle the consensus bolding we usually do post-championship game? We really have no idea how the NCAA record book will talk about this year's championship. Will they continue to list only AP, Coaches, FWAA/NFF as the consensus picks or will they also include the CFP? Maybe we should just avoid bolding until the 2015 record book comes out and instead just put a footnote? Dolenath (talk) 21:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I've just put a footnote in the meantime Dolenath (talk) 21:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

FWAA & Grantland Rice trophy
I've just had an email from the director of the FWAA stating that the Grantland Rice trophy was retired after the 2013 season. They teamed up with the NFF to do the Grantland Rice Super 16 poll during the regular season, but are not selecting a final national champion. I've asked if he could make a press release to this effect so we can cite it here. In the meantime, however, this causes some issues with our page. First off, we talk about the GR Super 16 poll as if it were a championship selector, but apparently it is not. However, the NFF still does award their MacArthur Bowl trophy, so some sort of consensus has to be gathered. It's unclear whether just NFF voters determine the MacArthur Bowl recipient, or if all Grantland Rice Super 16 poll voters do.

I propose that after a press-release is made available, we (1) remove Grantland Rice from the "National Championship Trophies" section of the infobox, (2) remove Grantland Rice Super 16 poll from the "Major selectors", (3) change NFF's dates to be through "present", and (4) change the 2014 selection from "FWAA/NFF" to just "NFF". Dolenath (talk) 21:29, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

1998 Sagarin Ratings
Shouldn't Ohio State's mythical Sagarin Ratings Championship in 1998 be included in the article? I see at least two instances where a champion of only SR (Sagarin Ratings)is included on the list: Florida in 1985 and Florida State in 1992. This would also necessitate updating the total National Championship spreadsheets throughout the remainder of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:1121:C071:95E3:4012:D3C8:93C7 (talk) 23:02, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Well it looks like the official NCAA record book says that Sagarin picked Tennessee in 1998. Assuming Sagarin hasn't gone back and made changes, then it looks like the record book is mistaken here. Do we correct it and make a footnote?
 * http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/1998/team/Dolenath (talk) 21:17, 26 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I realized we already listed Dunkel's 2007 pick which is in the same situation, so I added Ohio State's as well. I put footnotes on both.Dolenath (talk) 04:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

List of Champions ruined
Someone has ruined the tables for the following sections, College Football Data Warehouse recognized national champions...and poll era championships, you can see Oklahoma has been tampered with along with other schools and has messed up the whole thing, can an editor go back and have the page the way it was before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.22.57.193 (talk) 10:44, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Tables are now fixed Dolenath (talk) 21:43, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

1928 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team
I checked the archives, but couldn't find anything so I'll ask here. The article says "The 1928 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team was among the first college football teams to be named as national champion by a major selector, having been chosen by the then-new Houlgate System." This should be supported by a source, especially the part about the Houlgate-system. I've searched for something online and have been able to find stuff like this, this and this but can't find any mention of a Hougate System. I did find this webpage, but it is an "About.com" website so I'm not sure if it is considered to be a reliable source or if the author of the article would be considered an expert.

FWIW, there seems to have been another system used in 1928 called the Dickinson System which chose USC as its champion. The NCAA page cited above does clearly say "Georgia Tech" was selected by the "CFRA, HAF, NCF" as the champions of 1928 and makes nomention of USC. Does "CFRA", "HAF", "NCF" have anything to do with the Houlgate System? - Marchjuly (talk) 22:25, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I removed the sentence in question because it has no claim to notability. The article needs internal consistency. In the text above, the Dickinson system is explained in part; Knute Rockne's post-dating machinations are also mentioned because they are significant in the establishment of similar post-awardings for most of NC selections prior to AP in 1936. Dickinson is considered a major selector of historical importance; Houlgate's system has always been suspect, as noted here . Regarding the accuracy of both USC and GT for 1928 - please look at the section "Yearly national championship selections from major selectors" in the article for the selectors who chose those schools in that year. USC is listed there, according to "DiS" - the Dickinson System - and "SR" - Sagarin Ratings.Sensei48 (talk) 23:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Houlgate's system is cited by the NCAA Record Book, which is why I mentioned it. I would rather have had an early Dickinson image there, but haven't had much luck finding one.Dolenath (talk) 05:58, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Use of non-free image File:College Football Playoff Logo.png
Non-free images need to satsfy certain specific requirements in order to be used within an article. Not only do they have to satisfy all 10 of the criteria specified in WP:NFCCP, they also not be used as specified in WP:NFC. The image File:College Football Playoff Logo.png is being used in the infobox as the primary means of identification in College Football Playoff. If there was no such article, then using the image in College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS would make sense for identification puproses. However, there is a "College Footbal Playoff" article and it is being wikilinked so the image still does not satisfy WP:NFCC which means it's non-free use rationale for this article is not valid.

The question that needs to be asked is "Does the image improve the reader's understanding of the information to such a degree that removing the image would be detrimental to that understanding?" The answer to this is no. There is no sourced critical discussion of the image within the article, so it's is not need for that reason; Moreover, the combination of the wikilink and text is more than sufficient for the reader to understand the concept of College Football Playoff, so the image is not needed for that reason. The image is essentially being used for "decorative" (purely identification) reasons in an section of an article which summarizes more detailed information provided in another Wikipedia article, and this is something not really allowed for non-free images. The reason the image is acceptable for use in the infobox of the stand-alone article "College Football Playoff" is because the "contextual significance" required by NFCC#8 is satisfied due to the marketing, branding, and identification information that the image conveys. Removing the image from that article would be detrimental to the reader's understanding of "College Football Playoff". The same, however, cannot be said for the image's use here. - Marchjuly (talk) 21:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * That's fine, but I guess the same could be said for the BCS logo and the AFCA trophy images in the article. Our GA reviewer says we should include more images to be GA quality, but if every possible image has to meet the standard of "Would removing the image be detrimental?", then we may have a very difficult time of it. Any suggestions on how to reconcile these two things (need of photos for GA quality and NFCC#8 standards) for this article? Dolenath (talk) 06:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for comments Dolenath. I didn't realize the article was being reviewed for GA. From looking at the review page, the reviewer said "Also, please see if you can find two or three high-resolution free-image photos you can use to illustrate the article."( I underlined "free-image photos" for emphasis ) Free images, such as those from Commons, can pretty much be used anywhere on Wikipedia as long as it satisfies WP:IUP. There is lots of leeway given and it pretty much comes down to whether there is a consensus to use the image or not in a particular article. It is possible that the use of a free image will be questioned by another editor, but things are ideally then discussed on the talk page until something that can be worked out just like any other content dispute. Use of non-free images, however, is much more restricted by WP:NFC due to copyright concerns. If an image does not satisfy all of the requirements for non-free use, then it shouldn't be used. Sometimes there are disagreements about whether these requirements are satisfied and things can be discussed at WP:NFCR or WP:MCQ if further clarification is desired, but there's not a lot of wiggle room, especially when the image is not being used in the infobox as the primary means of identification.


 * File:Bcs logo 2010.png does not have the separate, specific non-free rationale it needs for use in this article per WP:NFCC so it can be removed per WP:NFCCE; In such cases, it might be possible to simply add the necessary rationale to this file's description, but again the image is not needed here for the same reasons as given above. File:BCS Championship Media Day, Jan. 5, 2013.jpg is only used in this article here, so I guess you can make a case that it is needed in someway. The image, however, may actually be OK to transfer to Commons because it is licensed using a "Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)" license by the owner of the sourced Flickr account. If you look at c:COM:F, you'll see that the license "Some rights reserved" seems to be OK for Commons. You can try and find out for sure by asking at c:COM:VPC. Someone there more familiar with Flickr licensing should be able to answer any questions you have. As for other free images, perhaps there's something in c:College football that might be useful. These are all free images, so there should be no licensing issues. If, by chance, you find a different non-free image that you want to use, it might be a good idea to ask about it first at WP:NFCR before uploading or using it. The editors hanging out there can help figure out if it's OK to use and how it should be licensed. FWIW, I've come across images/logos before that actually qualified as public domain, but were mistakenly uploaded as non-free, so the editors at NFCR can really be helpful in figuring things out. - Marchjuly (talk) 07:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually I uploaded the AFCA image to Commons initially, but it got taken down over there because although the image was CC-licensed, the trophy itself is copyrighted. They suggested I host it on WP instead as a free image of a non-free trophy.Dolenath (talk) 13:47, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess that makes sense. The design of the trophy is probably not simple enough to fall below the threshold of originality. Private photos taken of products (e.g., bottles and cans of something) often are removed from Commons because the product's packaging/label is considered to be copyrighted. Do you know who owns the copyright of the trophy? If they have a photo of the trophy that is liensed using a CC-license, then that might be able to be used instead. As I said, the current photo is not being used in any other articles, so it could possibly used here if it was being discussed in some way in the article. Not simply something like "Here's a picture of the trophy", but something with a little more detail like "The trophy was designed by so and so to represent such and such for such and such a reason ...." supported by a reliable source might be enough to satisfy WP:NFCC in my opinion. I am not sure, though, how such a discussion would fit in with the rest of the article. You could also ask about the image at WP:MCQ and WP:NFCR for clarification regarding its license. Commons' requirements tend to be a little stricter when it comes to "free" licensing. - Marchjuly (talk) 21:34, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Some good news - I was able to talk University of Maryland into releasing this photo under CC3.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:University_of_Maryland_1953_Football_National_Championship_Trophy.jpg, so as soon as it's confirmed we can add it to the article. Dolenath (talk) 02:36, 27 June 2015 (UTC)