Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgia Southern–Georgia State football rivalry


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Keep--with the caveat that the article should be moved per consensus. Drmies (talk) 03:49, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Georgia Southern–Georgia State football rivalry

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This AfD is a forehead slapper, and does not require any in-depth analysis under the general notability guidelines per WP:GNG, because COMMON SENSE suggests that there can be no meaningful rivalry between two universities or teams after exactly ONE COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME between them. DELETE with extreme prejudice. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:34, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:53, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep Ordinarily, I would agree with Dirtlawyer, as, on the surface, it would appear that two teams that have played so few match-ups on the football field couldn't possibly be rivals. But, a closer examination of the situation reveals a different story, as this one really is the proverbial "exception that proves the rule." These two schools, fanbases, and teams absolutely DESPISE each other, going back to 1990, when Georgia Southern College was renamed Georgia Southern University, and immediately came into conflict with Georgia State over which school would have the right to bear the coveted "GSU" moniker, with Georgia State's seniority coming out on top. So why have the two teams hardly ever played each other? Well, primarily because Georgia State didn't field a football team before 2010. Since then, Georgia State has gone FBS, jumping to the Sun Belt Conference in 2013, which then prompted Georgia Southern to move to the Sun Belt in 2014 (I'm not kidding, literally no one at Georgia Southern had any desire to move to FBS at all, they were perfectly happy in FCS, until Georgia State announced that they would be moving up. That lit a huge fire under the folks in Statesboro, that they had to go FBS to keep up with Atlanta). So, this series is now a conference series, at long last, and will be played annually for the foreseeable future. Not to mention that there will now be a trophy up for competition between these two schools, starting with the upcoming season (see here). I would suggest that this situation is something like Giants–Jets rivalry, where the two teams in question have hardly ever played each other (12 all-time meetings in 45 years), yet they are "rivals" primarily for off the field reasons. So, what to do with this article? Well, for starters, I would recommend moving it to Georgia Southern–Georgia State rivalry, which would allow expansion of the article to include other sports besides just football (basketball, baseball, etc.), as these two schools actually have more of an on-field history together in those other sports then they do on the gridiron. But, bottom line, is there a rivalry between these two schools? As someone who actually follows and is familiar with Sun Belt Conference football, I can answer unequivocally, yes, absolutely there is. Ejgreen77 (talk) 12:29, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Assuming for the sake of argument everything you say above is 100% true and correct, this "rivalry" still fails the general notability guidelines per WP:GNG for lack of significant coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources. If this rivalry is real, as you strongly believe that it is, then it should be incorporated into the Georgia State Panthers football and Georgia Southern Eagles football articles.  As a comment on the notability of the more generalized rivalry between these two "GSU" Georgia state universities, I also note that "Modern Day Hate," an article about the rivalry between the two universities, was speedily deleted pursuant to WP:A11 as an obviously newly coined name.  None of Georgia State Panthers football, Georgia Southern Eagles nor Georgia Southern Eagles football so much as mentions this "rivalry," and I would suggest that is where present efforts should be focused unless and until this "rivalry" sufficiently matures to satisfy the GNG criteria with significant coverage in multiple outlets of the mainstream media.  Wikipedia does not cover topics as stand-alone articles unless they are notable per GNG or other applicable specific notability guideline(s).  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:18, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete this rivalry (if it exists at all) has nothing to do with football. The statement that the students at the two schools hate each other may be notable, but making it about a football game that has been played once and scheduled for a second game does not make it a rivalry.  I have no objection to an article about the alleged basketball rivalry or general student discourse that may exist.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I assume that you would have no problem with the addition of new "GSU vs. GSU" rivalry content in the existing Georgia State Panthers and Georgia Southern Eagles articles, correct? Notability of the rivalry topic is not required for inclusion of rivalry content in the parent sports program and football team articles.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:03, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * But, then, instead of simply maintaining, improving, and updating this article, we'll have to create and maintain a similar level of content at two different pages, namely Georgia Southern Eagles football and Georgia State Panthers football, creating twice as much maintenance & updating work as if this page is simply kept, retitled, and expanded. Creating more unnecessary busywork is never a good thing, IMHO. Ejgreen77 (talk) 14:12, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * EJ, every truly notable CFB rivalry should be and usually is covered in the main team articles, regardless of whether there is a stand-alone rivalry article. See, e.g., Florida Gators football and Florida–Georgia football rivalry.  More examples provided on request.  Efficiency is not the issue here; notability is.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:21, 10 October 2015 (UTC))
 * Rivalry information could be included there if editors deem it worthy. Right now it's about the notability of this particular article, and it just isn't there.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:36, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per nomination. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:12, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. I need to ponder this one a bit further, it's a bit of an odd duck.  The lack of history weighs on the 'delete' side.  But there is more coverage of this series as a rivalry than we typically see.  This includes substantial coverage, focusing on the rivalry, in major media outlets like this and this, both from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (perhaps the most respected media outlet in the Southern United States) and this from the USA Today and Associated Press.  Since the rivalry is not limited to football, but is a broader rivalry between the two schools and alumni bases, one possible solution is to move this to Georgia Southern–Georgia State rivalry and expand the coverage to basketball (see this regarding basketball rivalry), volleyball (see this regarding volleyball rivalry), etc. Cbl62 (talk) 18:14, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Living in Atlanta for 14 of the past 21 years, we are familiar withe AJC. One of the AJC "articles" linked above is not a news article at all, but an online blog that does not appear in the actual newspaper and is not editorially reviewed by the AJC editorial staff.  The content of the actual AJC news article calls into question the entire idea of an instant rivalry in football between State and Southern, including sober commentary from both of the coaches about it possibly becoming a true rivalry in the future.  Likewise, the USA Today article quotes one of the coaches as saying "Rivalries are things that are established over years and history. . . .  So this is the start of one because it's natural, we're in the same conference and the same state.  Hopefully in years to come they'll be talking about what a great rivalry it is."  The text of neither article supports the existence of a meaningful rivalry in the present.  At present, this is very much another manufactured rivalry for marketing purposes.  Rivalries are not simply "declared"; they evolve naturally as a result of geographical proximity, shared traditions, common and opposite characteristics of student bodies, politics, competitive series, and sometimes because of unfortunate events on and off the field.  The perspective of the State and Southern coaches in these two articles reflects that reality.  FYI, Altanta.Suntimes.com is a national content aggregation site of the Chicago Sun Times; it is not an Atlanta-based news medium, and the source of much its content is either unclear or clearly outsourced.  In the case of the volleyball rivalry article, the source is a press release of the Georgia State University athletic department website to which the blurb on Atlanta.Suntimes.com directly links.  When we distill it down, we have two legitimate news articles (one each from AJC and USA Today), both of which quote the football coaches as soberly saying that it takes time to build a rivalry.  There is a third article, from the AJC, discussing last spring's end-of-season meeting between the two universities men's basketball teams.  These are very slender sources with which to create a comprehensive article about a multi-sport rivalry between State and Southern, especially when there is virtually no shared history of actual athletic competition.  This is reminiscent of the Civil Conflict rivalry, in which one of the coaches unilaterally declared a "rivalry"; real rivalries evolve from events, they are not delcared.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:58, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm still on the fence, but this article strikes me as presenting an arguably stronger case of rivalry, between the two schools across all sports, than the Civil Conflict. And the AfD in that case (Articles for deletion/Civil Conflict (college football game)) garnered substantial "Keep" support (I was neutral in that one) and was not deleted. Cbl62 (talk) 19:52, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I don't necessarily agree with your contention that the second AJC piece (here) is not reliable. It is published on the AJC web site and written by Doug Roberson, an AJC staff sports reporter (see here. Self-published blogs by individuals with no particular expertise are considered unreliable, but blogs published by those with particularized expertise (e.g., the AJC and its staff reporters) may be considered reliable. See WP:BLOGS. Cbl62 (talk) 20:09, 10 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per nomination, make a single game article if there really is lots of backstory to the contest. Cake (talk) 19:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Georgia (U.S. state)-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Move to Georgia Southern–Georgia State rivalry per schools releases (Georgia St, Georgia Southern) of general sports rivalry and trophy system, with associated follow-on TV and AP coverage of the same. Further supported by Sun Belt Conference and existing AJC articles. UW Dawgs (talk) 18:07, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I wish this discussion was occurring (revisited) in two months. This year's football game is scheduled for Dec 5 and is the last regular season game for each team (a common scheduling hallmark of rivalry games, though obviously not predictive).  The associated, or lack of, media coverage of the presumptive second cycle would be helpful.  I do concede the WP:GNG issues including lack of significant independent coverage, whether attributable to "newness" and/or size of fanbases. UW Dawgs (talk) 18:07, 13 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Move to Georgia Southern–Georgia State rivalry, as per Ejgreen77 suggestion above. There is insufficient history as of yet to have an article focused solely on a one-game "rivalry series".  However, there is significant coverage in multiple, reliable sources, which includes coverage of an overall rivalry between the two schools.  Moving the page and making it broad enough to cover all aspects of the rivalry makes the most sense to me. Cbl62 (talk) 18:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.