Talk:List of Pittsburgh Panthers football seasons

Creation & Migration
I created the table to take off some of the load from the Season-by-season history section on the Pittsburgh Panthers football main page. That chart is very cumbersome and the columns don't align from coach to coach. Anyone else can help migrate the data over. The table I created is certainly not set in stone, either. I was planning on creating a 2nd table on this page that solely tracked each coaches' respective record in a fashion similar to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football seasons, except the chart I've created here is more exhaustive, and, as a result, I wasn't planning on listing the coach on the primary season chart that. That way ample date could be brought over for easy consumption without overburdening each individual chart. Thoughts are welcome. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 21:22, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

National Championships
1st off, congrats on the page. It looks great so far and is much needed. I would probably put the legend after the season table though. Now on to the championship question.

MNCs are a very confusing topic. There is no authoritative list and they are always a source of much controversy (hence the term Mythical National Championship). The wikipedia entry on national championships is not authoritative as no definitive authority exists. However, you can be comprehensive, but the exiting wikipedia entry on the topic is not. There is also no such thing as NCAA Recognized National Championships and the NCAA has never recognized any champions in D1A (FBS) as they don't hold a championship for the sport in that division. There is simply a list of champions and selectors in its record book that is less comprehensive than College Football Data Warehouse's research (see below). There is also no such thing as Consensus National Champion as far as I can ascertain, although the NCAA has a list for consensus champions post 1950. I've been asking this question of what determines pre-1950 Consensus champions to others on wikipedia for a while and it is never answered. There is a NCAA mandated point formula for determining when an athlete is considered a Consensus All-American (getting so many points for each 1st team listing, 2nd team listing, etc), but no such thing has ever been devised for National Championships. Hence, there is no such thing as a Consensus National Champion as far as I can tell.

As far as Pitt goes, there are a couple of things to consider. First, CFDW has one of the best lists of national champion selections anywhere. It is much more comprehensive and better researched than any other source I've found. According to CFDW, Pitt has been selected in 16 different seasons by various selectors of national championships. See here. Pitt itself claims 9 National Titles. The University bases its claim for the first 8 national championships on a study conducted in 1970 by Sports Illustrated (obviously this predates CFDW). These championships, together with its virtually unanimous championship of 1976, are the basis for the university's claim of 9 national championship seasons. There is one discrepancy between the SI list and that of CFDW and that is the 1934 season in which SI lists Pitt as a Parke Davis National Champion selectee. The 1934 edition was Davis’ last season to include these compilations, as he passed away soon after he made the final edit of it. Through the 1937 edition, these compilations were included under Davis’ byline. CFDW only lists Davis’ picks through 1933. The 1972 Pitt media guide (as well as Univ of Alabama sources ) lists Parke Davis sections running through 1935 according to the 1970 SI study. Together, this means that Pitt was selected as a National Champion in at least 17 different seasons.

Therefore, the categories of "Consensus National Championships" or "NCAA Recognized National Championships" are not encyclopedic because, frankly, they do not really exist. Who then recognizes a national championship? Well, each of the selectors listed in the comprehensive list on CFDW actually recognizes them. The better question then is perhaps which ones are viewed as more legitimate. Certainly, since the 40s and 50s, the AP, UPI/Coaches, and finally the BCS champions are viewed pretty much universally as the defacto national champions. However, there is no definitive criteria for the best selectors up through the point that the AP was firmly entrenched in the culture of college football. Eight of Pitt's claimed national championships therefore fall into this murky era. CFDW tries to pick out the champions it thinks is most legitimate and lists them here. However, that is also not a definitive list, and interestingly, CFDW chooses 1910 which is not officially recognized by the school because it did not make it into the SI study.

My first recommendation would be to scrap the "Consensus" category as there is no such thing. References to "NCAA Recognized Champion" also need removed because there is no such thing.

My second recommendation is in the National Championships section of the table, change "Source" to "Selectors" and list all the selectors for all 17 different seasons (from the CFDW list and the Davis 1934 one). Of course, this will mean expanding the legend table to include additional selectors. Some of these listings, like the 1980 computer poll selections, aren't really acknowledged by anyone, but it is hard to arbitrarily exclude any post-1940 selections and keep all the pre-1940 ones. The logic here is, they are all "Mythical" and debatable because there is no official championship so the table will just be comprehensive and list all of them. After all, wikipedia is just an encyclopedia source of data and is up for others to decide on legitimacy by additional research (which would be considered the wikipedia no-no of Original Research if we were to decide on our own).

My third recommendation is to turn the National Champions category "Recognized By" into a list of sources independent of the selectors themselves that will add credibility to, and help the reader determine the strength of, each of the 17 seasons where selections appear. I would use CFDW, Pitt, NCAA (with a notation saying this means they are listed in NCAA Record Book but MNCs aren't actually "recognized" by the NCAA). All of these can be referenced easily in the adjacent column.

For the color highlight, I would have one color for "National Championship (Claimed by Pitt)" and another color for "Big East Conference or Eastern Championship" which would include the Lambert Trophy years, etc. I think this would sufficiently highlight the outstanding seasons. Maybe a third color for "undefeated/non-championship seasons"

let me know if you'd like help or to discuss it further. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:13, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * As an alternative, because of the complicated nature of these things, you may want to just simplify the table ala ND's and have a separate explanation of national championships...or something to that effect. When it comes down to it, the easiest thing to do may be to just list those claimed by Pitt. I think, perhaps the old way that MNCs were listed (although not comprehensive) may have been simpler and better see here CrazyPaco (talk) 22:41, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Pitt Quarterbacks
I created a chart of Pitt Quarterbacks going back to 1974 (that's all I could muster at the time) because I needed this information in a list format, but could not find it anywhere. So I put it on the Pitt Football page, but Wikipedia thinks it is more appropriate (and I mostly agree) to put it on this page instead. But now I feel that the information is buried and almost unsearchable. I think if the page was retitled "List of Pittsburgh Panthers seasons and quarterbacks", and a link put on the "Pitt Football" page, it would make this valuable information way easier to access. I tried to change the title of this page by using DISPLAYTITLE, but couldn't figure out how to make that work. Little help, anybody? Thanks... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edlitwin (talk • contribs) 12:12, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

My comment above may be disregarded. I somewhat "unburied" the Pitt QB's by going back to the Pitt football page, finding the link at the bottom of the page for List of Pitt Panthers Football Seasons, and just added "and Quarterbacks" afterwards, without affecting the link. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edlitwin (talk • contribs) 01:59, 17 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I think it could probably be broken out into its own article. Feel free to do so. But if it is its own article it should be completed back to earliest info that Sports Reference.com has and probably could have earlier QBs at least listed (these could be obtained from The Owl student yearbooks at the Documenting Pitt website. And thanks for your contribution, it is a good table. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:38, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

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