Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Naming conventions

In general, the year should always come first. School names should be the short preferred version and not acronyms. "Oklahoma" and not "University of Oklahoma" or "OU". "Penn State" and not "Pennsylvania State University" or "PSU" or "PA State" (Penn is generally acceptable, therefore an exception to fully spelling out the name). There should never be "University of" in an article name. The names on the Master Team Table can be used for reference.

Nickname should be the proper male (if exists) version of the name. "Buffaloes" and not "Buffs".

This guideline does not list any bad examples to prevent confusion. To determine whether a name is following this guideline, please use the talk page.

Special note: The University of Southern California (USC) must never be referred to as "Southern Cal", either in an article name or in general text. The school specifically declares this to not be a valid name.

Team historical articles
Generally, historical article about teams should be in the format "  football under ". Examples:
 * Baylor Bears football under Guy Morriss
 * Minnesota Golden Gophers football under Glen Mason
 * Georgia Bulldogs football under Kid Woodruff
 * Georgia Bulldogs football under Pop Warner
 * Georgia Bulldogs football under Robert Winston

General
The general article about the entire team at a should be "  football". Examples:
 * Iowa State Cyclones football
 * NC State Wolfpack football
 * San Diego State Aztecs football
 * Virginia Tech Hokies football

Individual seasons
An individual season is certainly acceptable for some instances, such as a national championship team or even a conference championship team. However, if an editor begins an individual team article before or during the season, and the team fails to achieve a championship, it should not be deleted since it would discourage future articles. Over the long run, the article may be able to be merged into an article in the style above. However, starting a past individual season article is discouraged until the season is notable and there is likely enough information to be able to create a full article about the single season.

The naming convention for individual seasons shall be "   football team". Examples:
 * 2005 Texas Longhorns football team
 * 2006 Texas Longhorns football team
 * 1998 Tennessee Volunteers football team
 * 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team
 * 1927 Georgia Bulldogs football team

Regular season
An article name should be "  vs.  football game". Examples:
 * 1985 Oregon State vs. Washington football game
 * 2006 Michigan State vs. Northwestern football game

Notes: neutral sites will still have a visitor and home team, it should still follow this guideline as above.

Postseason
An article about a single bowl game should be " ". Examples:
 * 2006 Rose Bowl
 * 2007 Fiesta Bowl

An article about championship games should follow "  Game". Examples:
 * 2007 BCS National Championship Game
 * 2005 Big 12 Championship Game

Special cases
Some games have special names, which can supersede this guideline. Such as Fifth Down or The Play. Further, games that are cyclic or annual in nature can also supersede this guideline such as the Red River Shootout could have 2006 Red River Shootout.