Template talk:College Football National Champion navbox

Which selectors
For split seasons, I added parenthetical notes to clarify who selected whom. However, we need to have some discussion of which selectors should be included. The chart at College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS list certain selectors in bold after 1950, reflecting a consensus that those are major selectors. For the period after 1950, those seem like the ones we ought to include on the template for split seasons. However, before 1950, there is no similar use of bold; this may be due to the fact that only the AP is considered a major selector from 1936 to 1949? If yes, then it may best to include only the AP selections. If no, then we need to discuss which selectors to include/exclude for the 1936-1949 time period. 08:08, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Looks much better and more like how I envisioned. I cannot speak on the bold; if that is why then maybe we should. However, the non-AP claims of 1937, 1938, 1940 and 1942 championships are pretty solid. When polls are in question, I defer to the titles claimed by the school unless you're really flukey like 1941 Bama or something. 1919 aTm is probably the hardest on the other box - for if I include them then why not 1919 Centre and 1919 Notre Dame, etc? Cake (talk) 11:53, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. I have no strong feelings on the bold, but felt slightly that it helped a reader to track from year to year. My bigger remaining issue is with the inclusion of national championships that are not tied to a major selector. These include:
 * 1936: Pitt (Boand System [BS], College Football Researchers Association [CFRA], Houlgate System [HS])
 * 1937: Cal (Dunkel System [DuS], Helms Athletic Foundation [HAF])
 * 1938: Tennessee (Billingsley Report [BR], BS, CFRA, DuS, HS, Litkenhous [L], Poling System [PS], Sagarin Ratings [SR], Berryman [B])
 * 1939: USC (Dickinson System [DiS])
 * 1940: Boston College (---), Tennessee (DuS, Williamson System [WS]), and Stanford (BR, HAF, PS)
 * 1942: Georgia (B, BR, DeVold System [DeS], HS, L, PS, SR, WS)
 * 1944: Ohio State (National Championship Foundation [NCF], SR)
 * 1946: Army (BR, BS, CFRA, HAF, HS, PS)
 * 1951: Michigan State (BR, HAF, PS), Maryland (CFRA, DeS, DuS, NCF, SR)
 * For purposes of articles on individual schools, I think it's understandable to use titles claimed by the schools, but for a supposedly authoritative navbox, we really ought to have specific, objective criteria that determine which titles are included. That means either (a) including all selectors, or (b) deciding which selectors are deemed sufficiently authoritative. Cbl62 (talk) 15:33, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * BTW, could you link to the pre-1936 navbox? I haven't seen it. Cbl62 (talk) 15:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, by "the bold" I mean I do not know whether it means non-AP champions from 1936-1949 are dubious or not, but I considered them not for purposes of the navbox, considering the likes of 1937 Cal, 1940 BC, 1942 UGA, etc. Indeed one might need a stricter criteria. The pre-AP box is here. I tried to follow your lead with it already. Cake (talk) 15:56, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Of all the "other" selectors in the pre-1950 era, the Dickinson System is probably the most notable. The award was announced contemporaneously, at the end of each season, a trophy was presented to the winning school, and the award received national press attention. Cbl62 (talk) 16:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is why 1924-1935 is the last defined era for pre-AP navbox, for the Four Horsemen have the first Dickinson title. I used the forward pass and WWI to further cut up the eras as defined by Parke H. Davis (plus 3 years). As I understand it, Dickinson is ridiculed much today, but in its day was considered highly noteworthy. Cake (talk) 16:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the annual announcement of Dickinson's national champion was a big news story in its day. I will investigate a bit further on others. Cbl62 (talk) 16:42, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The NCAA offers a solution by designating certain selectors as "major selectors" in the NCAA record book. See here, p. 76. I suggest we use those. This lends a significant degree of objectivity to the navbox. Cbl62 (talk) 16:57, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The question is probably which of those to pick, for including, say, Sagarin and Berryman, might make a bloated list. It's objective but possibly too many already. Berryman means we include 1936 Duke, for instance. Cake (talk) 17:24, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe so, but Berryman is only official for the years 1990-2008. Cbl62 (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * For example, 1940 Boston College has no official selectors and should probably be removed. Cbl62 (talk) 17:30, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Those are his "active years". Note the "predated seasons". He has selections going back to 1920, contrary to their listing of 1940. On that year, looks like you are right and Minnesota and Stanford loom largest. Cake (talk) 17:37, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with you that listing every selector for every year would result in a bloated navbox. One reasonable solution would be to include only the selectors who are both (a) "major" per the NCAA guide, and (b) contemporaneous, thus eliminating the dubious "retroactive" national championships. During the poll era, we have plenty of contemporaneous selectors and, thus, there is no need to resort to retroactive championships. (A different rule would have to apply pre-polls, because there simply weren't contemporaneous selections most years.) Cbl62 (talk) 17:42, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Something like that sounds like the right idea. 1940 BC threw a wrench into things by beating Tennessee. You can find the BC page saying it "claims that selectors named Cliff Morgan and Ray Bryne rated BC #1 in 1940." Cake (talk) 17:48, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * As I've though it over, I now believe that there are four questions that we need to consider:
 * 1. Should we list selectors at all in the navboxes? Not listing them makes it more streamlined, but it also creates an appearance of parity in claims to national championships by, say 1940 Boston College, and 1948 Michigan.  I favor listing the selectors, as I believe that this information makes the navboxes far more useful as navigational tools, allowing the viewer to immediately perceive which claimants to the MNC are more credible than others.
 * 2. Which selectors to we display? I do not believe we can or should list selectors who are not deemed official by the NCAA.  While I initially favored displaying only certain selectors, I now believe that it could be seen as unduly subjective (possibly even original research) for us to decide to display some official selectors but not others.  Accordingly, if we display, I think we display all official selectors recognized by the NCAA.
 * 3. How do we divide the navboxes to avoid having them appear to bloated? Having thought about this, I think the best and most natural division would be to have separate national championship navboxes by decade.  As a prototype, I created one in my sandbox for the 1930s: User:Cbl62/National champions 1930s.
 * 4. Should we have a "key" to the selectors?  I think this is needed if we list selectors, and so I've included on in the prototype for the 1930s.
 * Let me know what you think. If you are in agreement, we could start rolling these out. Cbl62 (talk) 18:02, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * All good points. I don't think I like the selectors in the navbox. Can leave it to the article for any assessment on the quality of it. Nor do like chopping it up by decade. Consider the slew of navboxes under the list of national champions if we follow the orthodoxy of navboxes addressing a particular article. It also purges the box of much of the necessary historical content. It's little better than the current situation with bowl coalition champion navboxes. The decade boxes with all the selectors is also very busy. 2) is made difficult by teams like 1940 BC. Tennessee's got official selectors calling them champs - and you have them losing their bowl game to an undefeated team who does not. Worse yet it's a southern team losing to an eastern one. Cake (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

The "poll era" effectively ended in 1992
I propose to remove the Bowl Alliance, Bowl Coalition, Bowl Championship Series and College Football Playoff champions from this navbox and create a separate template for those national champions since 1992. Each of the championship teams for the 1992 through the 2013 seasons won a post-season, single-game championship game that paired the no. 1 and no. 2-ranked teams in the country; for the 2014 and 2015 seasons the eventual champions had to win a semi-final playoff game that paired the no. 1 and no. 4-ranked teams and the no. 2 and no. 3-ranked teams, with the winners matched in the championship game. Combining a list of national champions who won an actual championship game, between top-ranked teams, on the field, with poll era champions is sorting apples with pears, especially for those poll era champions that lost their bowl game or were the selection of minor selectors. Apples and pears, and we should respect the differences by not combining them -- just as we have separated the pre-poll era, retroactively awarded "champions" from the champions of the AP Poll era. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, the Bowl Coalition/Bowl Alliance was a controversial and limited experiment consisting of an agreement among a select group of conferences representing less than half of the Division IA schools. It excluded two of the Power 5 Conferences as well as the mid-majors, such that there was not a single-game contest for the national championship. Accordingly, there was a split decision as late as 1997. The poll era was thus alive, well, and integral to the national championship process until 1998. The contemporaneous discussion of the 1997 national championship was that Michigan won the AP Poll, and Nebraska won the Coaches Poll, not that Michigan won the AP Poll and Nebraska won the "Bowl Alliance" championship.  Thus, if and when a consensus were to form for a split, the more natural breaking point would be 1997 as the end of the "poll era" and 1998 as the start of the "championship game era". Cbl62 (talk) 01:13, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

adding context to navbox
This navbox purports to encompass "College football national champions (poll era)." It links to the College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS article rather than the specific College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS section. That "Poll era" section includes only AP and Coaches content, while this navbox includes BS, FWAA, INS, FN, etc.

While the eras and included/omitted selectors has always had complexity, I've specifically disliked the execution of this navbox because it doesn't convey the inclusion criteria which then creates a false impression that this is exhaustive and/or official. It is neither.

I'd like to see 1) agreement on the inclusion criteria (AP and Coaches are my quick reaction based on the associated article section), and 2) the TBD inclusion criteria added as text within a footer row. Withholding similar feedback on sibling "era" navboxes pending agreement on changes if any to this one. Any thoughts? UW Dawgs (talk) 05:15, 18 January 2018 (UTC)