Template:Infobox NCAA football yearly game/doc

This template is to be used on articles about yearly (or recurring) college football (American football) games. For single games (those not referenced yearly), please use Template:Infobox NCAA football single game.

Note that this template has some content that is most relevant to FBS (formerly Division I-A); it will page link to an FBS/Division I-A season, and supports the polls used to rank major college teams. For a similar template that has content specific to FCS (formerly Division I-AA), see Template:Infobox NCAA FCS football yearly game.

Usage
For the reason this template was created, changes made, and types of game articles in which it should be used, see "Reasoning for Template creation and Changes" below.

Descriptive
Template with usual (common) parameters included. For guide on how to fill in fields, see "Guide" heading below.

Complete
Complete blank template with all parameters shown.

Guide
In example, s are not shown.

Reasoning for Template creation and Changes
This template is basically an updated version of the NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader template. It adds concepts borrowed from the Collegebowl template and the NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament template. The NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader was really designed for single games, not recurring games that are played on a (normally) yearly basis, and therefore it was being asked to do too much. I could have added a number of if/then/else statements to NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader to parse out if it was a recurring type game, and work differently in those cases, but it was already getting messy and it would have gotten very complex and hard to understand very quickly if I had done so. Therefore, this template should be used for recurring games, such as bowl games, conference championships, national championships, and other games that are played on a (usually) yearly basis. (The NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader template can still be used for single games, as it was originally designed.)

Additions/deletions to this template from NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader:
 * Type parameter removed
 * This was the parameter in the NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader template that was used to distinguish between types of games. I could have used this parameter in that template to distinguish between normally recurring games (conference championships, bowls, and national championships) and normally single games (conference and non conference games) which were described in this parameter, but it gets messy because 1) One then has to make significant changes to the other template to bring in line (and then might as well make a new template instead), 2) the if/then/else parameters would have gotten pretty crazy to try to distinguish if the game was a single game or a recurring game, and act differently in the 2 situations, and 3) even if everything else had been remedied, there are still odd situations in which single games would have been classified as recurring, or (probably more frequently) recurring conference or non conference games would have been classified as single games even though they were recurring. For these (and other) reasons, this new template was created, and the need for such a parameter was rendered fairly obsolete, and so removed. (It could have still been used for a sub-heading creation, but 1) the title of the game should distinguish what type of game it is, and 2) the sponsor information is now used as a subheading, and multiple subheadings would have gotten crowded at the top.)


 * Game Name parameter
 * Parameter changed from "Name" to "Game Name" to indicate that the game played is what is required. (e.g. Cotton Bowl instead of 2008 Cotton Bowl) This parameter is used to define the title of the infobox (after the year it is played) and the before/after links. (discussed later) Basic concept borrowed from NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament template.


 * Optional Subheader parameter
 * Can display something below the name of the game, if that is desired. Some games like to have "presented by (a sponsor)" (as opposed to the sponsor in the title) or "Conference Championship game", or something else displayed below the name of the game, and this is the place to type it in.


 * Title Sponsor parameter
 * Parameter used in heading to display who the sponsor of the game is. (only if filled in) Basic concept borrowed from Collegebowl template, but added to title instead.


 * Caption parameter
 * Added caption for image. This is widely used in other infobox templates.


 * Date Game Played and Date Game Played parameters
 * Used date and year separately so that the year can be used both in heading that is displayed (e.g. 2008 Cotton Bowl) and the before/after link to the previous/next in the series. (discussed further down)


 * Visitor/Home School parameter(s)
 * Added parameter(s) to list the university/college name to be used in embedded Cfb template link. (discussed further down)


 * Payout parameter
 * Since a large number of bowl games will use this, I added the optional Payout parameter to list the amount of money paid out to each school for an appearance. This was used already in the Collegebowl template, but since that template is not for yearly bowl articles (only the main bowl page), the amount changes every year or so. On this infobox template, however, it will be the one time sum paid out for that particular bowl game.


 * Different Previous and Different Next parameters
 * If there is an adjustment that needs to be made to the before/after links (discussed further down) to override the automatically generated links, these parameters are used. I thought of the idea for this when thinking that certain bowls sometimes change names, and so the automatically generated name would not be correct without a change. ONLY should be used when a game changes names from one year to the next.


 * FirstGameEverPlayed and LastGameEverPlayed parameters
 * If this is the first game ever played (inaugural game), or the last game ever played (now defunct), these parameters are vitally important. This is used in the before/after links to the previous/next series (discussed further down). I thought of this when I realized that the way the NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament template used the before/after links was nice, but it would cause problems if it was the very first or very last game in a series. I will likely go and change the NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament template after this, so it might be fixed by the time this statement is read, but am documenting the reason for inclusion for future reference. "Yes" (without the quotation marks) is all that is needed to activate these.


 * Cfb link template concept
 * Using the above mentioned parameters, this conceptual change uses the Cfb link template to create a tiered linking system to the teams playing in the game. (Where the team names are displayed.) First choice is if there is a specific year article for the team (e.g. 2008 Tennessee Volunteers football team), it will link to that; Second choice is if there is not a year article but there is a football article for the team (e.g. Tennessee Volunteers football); Third choice is if there neither of the previous two choices, and just a link to the sports teams are used (e.g. Tennessee Volunteers); The Fourth and final choice is if there is none of the other choices available, it will link to the school page. (e.g. University of Tennessee) It does all of this AUTOMATICALLY. (AMAZING, right?) This is especially useful in older articles where there may or may not be specific articles for each tier, but they may be added later. (in which case the link would be automatically updated) The Cfb link template could likely be used in a wide variety of other ways, but for this template, it makes the team linking easy. (in order from most desirable to least desirable)


 * Before/after links to the previous/next games in the series concept
 * This concept came from the NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament template which uses before/after links to the previous/next game in the series very efficiently. The 2 additions to the concept that I added, using the above mentioned parameters, were 1) the ability to override the auto-generated link and link to a differently named game (to be used when bowls change names, such as when the Peach Bowl changed its name to the Capital One Bowl), and 2) the ability to not display a previous game (in the case of the inaugural game) or not display the next game (in the case of defunct games).


 * Conference of teams participating
 * The conferences of the teams participating were added below the record field to provide more information.