Talk:College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS/Archive 2022

Alternate national titles on table
It is confusing/misleading to include alternate No. 1 rankings in the table in the BCS/CFP era. While multiple champions were often recognized prior to the playoff system, it is not widely accepted today. I suggest removing “alternate champions” in the BCS/CFP era from the table. Rather than erase this history, I also propose a separate text section that acknowledges that some ratings polls/programs have periodically declared non-BCS/CFP as the “national champion.” 2603:6011:1D49:BC00:2852:EA37:860E:CB22 (talk) 16:41, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You seem to misunderstand the point of this article, which is to present a full-dimensional picture of the topic and not pick and choose which selectors to acknowledge. The only section of the article where this is relevant is "Yearly national championship selections from major selectors". The BCS/CFP starts in 1998, and in subsequent years where a "major selector" has named someone other than the BCS/CFP winner as a NC, that selector is identified and sourced. This is a strength of the article in its presentation of the issue. Only 6 times after 1998, even with the BCS, has only a single university been named NC by the major selectors identified in the article. The CFP may ultimately eliminate that, but it hasn't so far. Colley Matrix especially bases its selections on a complex set of computer calculations irrespective of polls and it seems likely to continue to do so. This article notes that and, as above, presents the topic in all its complexity. Sensei48 (talk) 21:31, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 January 2022
Clemson has won the national championship more than once. It says on here they only won it in 1981 which is false. Clemson should have 3 national championships to their credit , 1981, 2016, and 2018! There might be others which need editing. 74.51.172.56 (talk) 22:29, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Most places on this page say Clemson has won 3 times. In one section focusing on wins from 2014 on, it says they have won twice, which they have since 2014, and in another section focusing on wins before 2015, it says they have won once, and they did win once before 2015. If I'm missing something, please reopen and give a bit more detail as to where it says so. Pupsterlove02  talk • contribs 22:50, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Rutgers 1869 claim - disputed
Rutgers is currently listed as claiming the 1869 National Championship. The citation has a "disputed" tag dating to December 2018.

The claim is based on the 2014 Media Guide, which on Page 2 in "Team History" lists:

"National Championships.................................. 1 (1869)"

That 2014 line is seemingly the first and only appearance of the school's national championship claim. It does not appear in the 2013 media guide.

In the 2015 Media Guide the National Championship is gone from the "Team History" section.

The national championship claim does not reappear in the Media Guides for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, or 2021.

Do any other citation exist for this claim by the school? Is anyone aware of any signs/banners/flags at Rutgers Stadium or on campus?

Without having any other school claim sources, I'm inclined to view 2014 as a one-year aberration that was corrected in 2015 and subsequent years. Rutgers should then be removed from the "Claims by School" table.

How have other "un-claim" situations been handled in the past on this article?

PKAMB (talk) 20:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Remove CFDW section (2022)
The College Football Data Warehouse section was added in January 2009. Deleting it has been discussed in the past. I'm reopening the nomination based on the items below.


 * 1) The website is offline, since ~2017. No updates will be made for any of the issues below.
 * 2) The information in the table is currently 7 years "out of date". The last champion listed is for 2015, the second year of the CFP. Yes, the table is listed as "(1869–2015)" so it's technically correct as a historical chart. But a bad experience for encyclopedia readers when they read "Georgia – 2 – (1942, 1980)" in the table. The table will continually get good faith update edits for the CFP champions that must be reverted.
 * 3) The need for this chart at all. It was originally added prior to the claims-by-school table, which was added in October 2009. A 3rd-party expert view of championships was needed at the time to cut out "badly awarded" titles and instead show a table containing only "legitimate" titles. But the claims-by-school table now fills that role, which schools self-selecting a title's legitimacy. Any bad outliers in a school's claims seem no worse than the bad outliers in the CFDW selections, and additionally represent a notable, verifiable, cited position by the school. The original author of both tables wrote "I also think the table of CFBDW FBS National Champions should probably be eliminated. There seems to be no necessity to have this duplicative table." after adding the Claims table.
 * 4) Noted inconsistencies with the CFDW selection process in general. No research published by CFDW as to why they made certain choices or why some claims are "hi-lited in red" and not included in their table.
 * 5) The content in the CFDW section national championships claim table bordering on being a WP:SELFPUBLISH blog. Why are this one particular site's selections being promoted on Wikipedia? The site TipTop25.com does a far better job of actually explaining/examining legitimate titles for a given year, for example. Other published expert selections such as Bill Libby's Champions of College Football are not included in the article. The CFDW archive is a great source of factual historic minor selector picks, etc., but why is their opinionated and inconsistent national championship table copied to Wikipedia?

I propose a Keep / Remove vote for the CFDW section. Other opinions appreciated.

PK-WIKI (talk) 18:01, 13 May 2022 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, Remove. PK-WIKI (talk) 18:03, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 16 August 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 17:31, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS → College football national championships –.

Proposing move to College football national championships.

This article is a historical examination of the various national championship systems in college football. Naming the article with the crufty "...in NCAA Division I FBS" needlessly complicates the title and represents a far too modern take on the subject. "National championship" with no qualifier already suggests "highest level play".


 * 1) "College football national championships" is the WP:COMMONNAME for this page.
 * 2) This article is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "College football national championships", and in fact the abbreviated article title already redirects to this article and not to a disambiguation page.
 * 3) Many current "FCS" teams are featured extensively in the article. Princeton and Yale top both the "Total Championships" and "Claimed Championship" tables. They have never been FBS members.
 * 4) Current FCS members are presumably still technically in the running to win these national championships! They play FBS teams other every year. Appalachian State received AP Poll votes in 2007. Hypothetical: an undefeated FCS tournament winner national champion gets a lucky win against the eventual 14–1 CFP winner in the first game of the season. That FCS team would certainly receive some national championship selections, which on this page are labelled "FBS".
 * 5) The computer polls definitely rank FCS teams alongside FBS teams, and this is covered in WP:V sources. For example Rothman was featured in Sports Illustrated in 1991, ranking all 677 teams.
 * 6) The primary topic for the sport is College football. NCAA football redirects there. The NCAA does not play a part in picking the champion, as detailed extensively in this article. Should it be in the title?
 * 7) The NCAA was formed in 1910, it's predecessor the IAAUS formed in 1906. This article discusses 37 years of national championships prior to the formation of the NCAA. 25% of the article happened prior to the NCAA.
 * 8) The "University Division" / "College Division" split did not happen until 1956. Seasons before that are simply called "19XX college football season". 56% of this article occurred in years prior to the earliest switch to "divisions" in college football.
 * 9) The "Division I-A/FBS / I-AA/FCS" split occurred in 1978. 71% of the years in the article occurred prior to the "FBS" division.

I was surprised not to see past discussions on this subject. This is the only one I can find, which suggested offhand:

Then, on thinking about it with FBS being such a new term and the article covering the entire history of championships, perhaps it should be moved to something else: College football national championship (highest level of play) or College football national championship (NCAA Divsion 1 FBS) or College football national championship (top level)? 19 October 2009

The clear answer is College football national championships

per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

. PK-WIKI (talk) 07:46, 16 August 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 08:26, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. The subject of this article is not all college football national championships. There are several different divisions within the NCAA, and this is referring to just one of them Red   Slash  19:36, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The subject of this article is top-level national championships in college football, not anything to do with the NCAA or its divisions.
 * The NCAA does not sponsor any of these championships, and they are not limited to Division I FBS teams.
 * Much of the article takes place prior to the introduction of divisions in college football
 * Current lower-division teams are among the leaders in every category.
 * All college football teams from all divisions are still eligible to win any of the national championships on this page
 * PK-WIKI (talk) 21:06, 24 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. If anything, the target should be disambiguated. There are multiple college football national championships and the current title is a better representation of what this article is. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:19, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose. There are three distinct divisions in the NCAA, with II and III having had competitive playoffs for decades, as does the NAIA. Division I FBS is an altogether different entity, as this article demonstrates. Sensei48 (talk) 14:40, 30 August 2022 (UTC)