Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive-Dec2007

Thank you and welcome back
So anyway, mine and User:Bender235's 24 hour ban for edit-warring at Houston Nutt has ended. Bender has dove right back in reverting things that got us both banned in the first place. So rather than revert him, I'd just like to ask that others involved with WikiProject College football stop on by the Talk:Houston Nutt page and participate in some consensus discussion I am about to start. Thanks --  ALLSTAR  echo  05:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Nebraska Cornhusker subcategories
Category:Nebraska Cornhuskers football players has a large list of subcategories for each player position and I haven't been able to find a another school with a similar setup. I'm just wondering if they need to all be eliminated, since the football players category suffices. DandyDan2007 (talk) 01:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it's fine. There's enough in the way of articles to justify it. Hopefully other schools will eventually have that many articles as well and will then need that many categories. JKBrooks85 (talk) 02:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I do know that the players' should be in only one cat or another, not both. For instance, Zac Taylor should be in the quarterbacks category only since its the highest level, not the quarterbacks cat and the regular players cat.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 13:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Interim coaches in templates
Should interim head coaches be listed in the team head coach templates? What is the consensus on this, if there is one?  Blue  Ag09 (Talk) 23:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I say yes because they were in the official position as head coach, even if it was only temporary. Seancp (talk) 23:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say yes if they coached at least one game for that team. Otherwise, they're not really fulfilling the role that most people associate with a coach... they're acting more like an athletic director. That's just my opinion, however. JKBrooks85 (talk) 02:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur. A good example is Nebraska: Bo Pelini served as interim in 2003 and coached the bowl game. He should appear on the head coach template. On the other hand, Tom Osborne served as interim head coach for 4 days in 2007 and did not coach a game, thus he should not appear on this template. ––Bender235 (talk) 01:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The situation should be explained in detail here. This is regarding Houston Nutt, who resigned from Arkansas and was hired the next day at Ole Miss. As a result, Arkansas' defensive coordinator Reggie Herring is interim coach for their bowl game, assuming Arkansas doesn't hire a new head coach before the bowl game. I just don't see it valid to add interim coaches to the head coach template. If we did that, some colleges templates would be full of 1-game coach names. --  ALLSTAR  echo  03:08, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't mention this, but it's not only about Nutt. I noticed Nmajdan removed Texas A&M's interim HC, Gary Darnell, and replaced him with the new HC, Mike Sherman (see this revision). Darnell will coach the bowl game. Also, someone added Tom Osborne (who's really a nominal coach now) to the Nebraska template.  Blue  Ag09 (Talk) 03:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I would say that anytime an "interim" coach coaches a team in an actual game, they should be listed. If Herring coaches Arkansas in its bowl game, then he counts even if he doesn't get the job permanently. Conversely, Tom Osborne named himself as Nebraska's interim coach today. Since Osborne presumably won't coach Nebraska in any games, he doesn't get listed as having a second tenure as Husker head coach. But Bo Pelini, who coached Nebraska as an interim coach in its 2003 bowl game after Frank Solich was fired, should be counted. Jsc1973 (talk) 04:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you 100% there. Another way to look at it is this:  The schools with an interim coach record that win/loss in the history books as being coached by the interim coach.  I know for LSU in 1999, Hal Hunter coached the team against Arkansas and the LSU record books all acknowledge that, therefore he should be listed on Wikipedia.  And even another way to look at it would be the confusion that some people might have if they just saw a progression from Frank Solich to Bill Callahan...someone might incorrectly think that Solich coached the entire 2003 season, even the bowl game. Seancp 03:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, they should only be listed if they are officially recognized by the school as having been a head coach. For example, Brian Cabral was the interim coach for the bowl game (even though Hawkins had been hired even) at Colorado after Barnett left, but Colorado doesn't attribute Cabral as having been a head coach and attributes the bowl loss to Barnett. I think we should recognize that as the school is the defacto source of their history, and if they don't wish to recognize someone as having been a coach, we should respect that. In the end, having a NPOV, then perhaps we list interim coaches separately from the lineage of coaches on a seperate line, or make sure to mark them as not officially recognized or (interim) at the least. But I definitely prefer recognizing the school's choice on the matter, as some will recognize the interim as having coached, some will not. MECU ≈ talk 14:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Bowl Games
It's bowl season again, and I believe as a project, we need to try and agree on a uniform setup of bowl articles. Furthermore, we should ensure that all links included with each bowl article points to the correct bowl article. Remember, in order of preference, on bowl articles, links should point to:
 * 1) The year's football team article
 * 2) The school's football article
 * 3) The school's athletics article
 * 4) The school's page

I was browsing some of the bowl articles and I noticed we don't adhere to the general trend most of the time. Some bowl articles haven't been updated to the new formatting of Template:Collegebowl and some have last year's matchup as the "current" one. Please help out if you have the time. Comments? If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 02:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ian, I was under the impression that we're now using the new Template:NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader for all our single-game articles now. It seems to serve the purpose for both regular-season and bowl-season games. JKBrooks85 23:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I was talking about bowl-wide articles, such as the Alamo Bowl, not year-specific bowls. A lot of the bowls that use Template:Collegebowl haven't been updated in a while, from what I can tell. Is that a little bit clearer, or am I completely misguided? If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 00:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Do we have a policy here for which bowls even get articles? It seems overboard to have an article of every bowl played in every year. We have some articles on some fairly run of the mill bowls (e.g., Alamo Bowl, where my beloved team is playing). The Evil Spartan 06:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Every bowl is deserving of its own article. Some may not be as important, but they still give money to the schools, they are still broadcast on television, and they are still the subject of numerous news articles. And Ian is correct, Collegebowl goes on the main bowl article while the singlegameheader goes on the year-specific article. The Collegebowl template has fields for the previous and next matchup which we have a tendency to fall behind on.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 12:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, okay. I was thinking of another template. Sorry about that. In regards to bowl articles, I agree that each should have its own article. Wikipedia already has articles for single television episodes, so why shouldn't it have articles for single bowl games? At a very base level, all these bowl games are is television shows as part of the "series" of college football. JKBrooks85 15:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Getting back to the main topic of discussion...

If anyone has any time, we need to ensure that bowl-wide articles have the appropriately-directed links to the articles as described above. Thoughts? If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 19:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

New section added to main page without prior consultation
I have added a new section to the main page for listing articles being considered for deletion. This section is entitled Articles & Pages being considered for deletion, a subsection of College football articles needing help. I would understand if you prefer to not have such a section or to place it elsewhere, particularly since it was placed a non-Member of this WikiProject. Regards, User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:31, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Warning: The following pages will break because of #ifexist:
Reading this signpost and then searching through the reported articles that will break once the limit of #ifexist is set back to 100, I came up with the following list of pages within this project that will break and the source needs to be fixed before next Monday when the temporary limit is reduced back to the hard limit:


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Virginia_Tech_Hokies_football_team
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Virginia_Tech_Hokies_football_team
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Virginia_Tech_Hokies_football_team
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Ball_State_Cardinals_football_team
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Western_Michigan_Broncos_football_team
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Buffalo_Bulls_football_team


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_rankings


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_State_Nittany_Lions_football
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_State_Nittany_Lions_football_under_Joe_Paterno_%28in_the_Big_Ten%29


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:NCAA_Division_I-A_national_football_championship

I may have missed some pages in the list. I didn't look at the pages to see what the problem could be as I don't have time. MECU ≈ talk 14:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible issue with 2007 NCAA Division I FBS football rankings and template
There was a discussion last week on the Village Pump about there being too many #ifexist statements on some templates and these were causing load issues on the servers. According to the Signpost, they have implemented a limit on the number of #ifexists an article can have, similar to the template limits that already exist. I was going through the list of articles that have an issue (its a long log file in the Signpost article) and one of our big articles is listed. They are going to limit the number of #ifexists to 100 per article and right now that article is using nearly 1000, so its definitely an issue (you can see the number by viewing the generated HTML, just as you would when viewing the template limit). However, looking at the code of the article and the code of the template, I do not see any #ifexists. I have asked about this at the VP to see if I get a response. Just thought I'd let all of you know.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 14:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * How in the world did I miss the post above. Ugh, nevermind, its been brought up.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 14:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The issue is with cfb link.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 14:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm still trying to understand this issue fully, but what we need to do as a temporary (or permanent) solution, is to limit the use of cfb link. We can do this by only using it when we know a yearly article hasn't been created. For instance, when I start the 2008 Oklahoma Sooners football team article and I'm creating the schedule, I know that an article already exists for 2008 Texas Longhorn football team, so I will not use cfb link on that one. Also, go back and revisit articles that have already been created and make the change. Similar example, if I'm using cfb link on 2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team and, at the time, there was no 2006 Texas A&M page but there is now, I can replace cfb link with the specific link. Just an idea.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 14:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * cfb link could be modified to help find "pointless" transclusions of the template - if the "best available" article exists, eg, year teamname football team, then add the page to Category:Transclusions of cfblink to fix or something along those lines. --B 15:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Something else that can be done ... right now, the template is looking for  football team and   football.  The latter is incorrect and NOT our naming convention.  Similarly, it is looking for  football team, which is also not our naming convention.  If we remove these two, we risk missing an incorrectly named article, but probably fix virtually every problem page - unless an article uses the template 25 times, it would be under the limit. Thoughts? --B 16:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought about this too. Removing those two reduced every call.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 16:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Can we subst: it when we know that the season article is known to exist, which is going to be the final/best link from the cfb link? The only downside I can think of is if the season article gets deleted, we'd have to go back and re-do the link instead of having it automatically done. MECU ≈ talk 16:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * just replacing it produces cleaner code, but I see what your saying.↔NMajdan &bull;talk 16:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If the article is ever deleted, hopefully the deleting admin has the good sense to either create a redirect or fix the references to it. I have modified the template to place articles in Category:Uses of cfb link linking to incorrectly named articles or Category:Excessive uses of cfb link, as appropriate, so that should help us find what needs to be fixed. --B 16:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There don't seem to have been any links to incorrectly named articles at all ... so I've deleted that category and removed those checks from the template. So now it's down to three uses of ifexists, which should bring everything other than rankings pages under the limit without any effort.  Category:Excessive uses of cfb link still needs to be depopulated, but it's not as big of an emergency.  On the other hand, we need to figure out something for the basketball version - cbb link - basketball teams might have 40 opponents and only a few season articles exist.  Maybe we should just not use the template except for major conference teams? --B (talk) 02:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd be inclined to leave that up to WP:WPCBB. But, make sure they are aware.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 13:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Coordinators?
Wanted to bring up an administration question. With the rate this project is growing, the number of templates, infoboxes, and other tools used to build pages is growing rapidly. In addition, we're starting to get quite a few pages that should go through a GA-class or FA-class review. They're good, but don't have the peer reviews to get them through. With all that in mind, isn't it time that we voted on a few project coordinators/managers?

These people would be in charge of maintaining the project main page, keeping track of templates and infoboxes, give project members a heads-up on AFDs and other things, and take the lead on peer reviews and things like that. They'd also be the ones who would approve project awards — imagine a barnstar-like system that would award things like the Ray Guy trophy barnstar (example) to someone who did a particularly good job on an article or segment of the project. They'd run a project newsletter, and in general volunteer to help out folks interested in the project and maintain the portal.

Until yesterday, we had a dead link for the selected article on the portal — that's never a good thing for people looking for college football things on Wikipedia. If we really want to improve the project, we need at least some sort of structure. I'd propose elections for three coordinators who would fill the position for six months before a new election. What do you think? JKBrooks85 (talk) 18:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need coordinators, just more people helping out with some of the routine tasks such as the Portal, monitoring AFD, assessment, etc. I don't think there needs to be an approval committee for barnstars. We have a WikiProject award/barnstar, and if you or anyone wants to give it out, give it out. We have some pages of organization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_College_football/Templates for starters. I just don't think any sort of "hierarchy" of control is useful or warranted in Wikipedia or this WikiProject, just more people helping out with these areas. MECU ≈ talk 15:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps coordinators would be a bad term for it then ... maybe just a few designated volunteers who agree to take the lead on maintaining the portal and pages and all that other stuff for a set period of time. JKBrooks85 (talk) 17:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * We pretty much have that now. Several of us help out with the Portal when we can, several of us maintain the front page when it needs attending to, etc. While I commend your call for organization, I don't know if this project is big enough to warrant it (unlike WP:MILHIST).↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 20:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if we need coordinators or not. I do know that I have had no trouble getting help from anyone on my NAIA work. The College Football gang has done a great job of stepping up and pitching in when I ask. So I'm saying that if it ain't broke, don't fix it...--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, then. Sounds good to me. Any ideas about the rest of the stuff — creating a set of CFB-specific awards, maybe starting up a newsletter, etc.? I know I'll be working on cleaning up the front page of the project now that my last FAC wrapped up. I'll probably do that alongside my next project. JKBrooks85 (talk) 15:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * We do have College football barnstar. What else is needed? If you want to do a newsletter, go for it. I don't see much use for it, but I'd signup for it. Especially with the off-season coming up when participation slacks off, it may not be too useful. In season I could see a bi-weekly one that lists AFDs and other issues, but we do that here anyways. I tried setting up a collaboration of the month subgroup, but that went nowhere and is "archived", see WikiProject College football/Collaboration of the Month. MECU ≈ talk 21:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, I see more of a need for a newsletter in the off season. During the season, all my wiki-time is pretty much devoted to maintaining the yearly season article for Oklahoma and other little tasks. With the off-season, I (hopefully) have more time to devote to other pursuits. A monthly newsletter would be nice since we could send it out to all members (of course, tell them how to opt out) and get some of the lesser active one to contribute.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 21:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's what I was thinking about... something that could let people know about new FACs, new GA reviews, new templates and other goings-on. AfDs would, of course, be included, and it'd be a forum to let people who don't post here know what's going on. Can't have too many communication tools with something like this. JKBrooks85 (talk) 22:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Team X football under Coach Y
Someone has nominated Minnesota Golden Gophers football under Jim Wacker for deletion, suggesting that its content be merged onto the Jim Wacker page. I know this page format and its purpose has been discussed here before, so I wanted to mention this AfD so anyone who wants to discuss it can do it at Articles for deletion/Minnesota Golden Gophers football under Jim Wacker. Gopherguy | Talk 22:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * How many pages are there like this? It seems reasonable to me to merge this information into the coaches page.--Rtphokie (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There are dozens of them. Search for "football under" (use the quotes to limit your search to pages that have the words together) and you'll see them.  And there will be more.  These pages are not about the coach himself, but about the teams he coached.  The Jim Wacker one takes the place of having individual pages for the 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 Gopher football teams.Gopherguy | Talk 23:19, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it brings up a good question... should we start to separate these pages in accordance with the newer year-by-year standard? It'd be a hell of a lot of work, and I honestly don't think we have enough editors to pull it off. On the other hand, if we don't separate the pages now, we'd eventually have to tackle the beast. What do you all think? JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What is the newer year-by-year standard. I thought the consensus before was that season pages shouldn't be created for non-notable (ie, non national championship) seasons in the past, only to do so going forward with the present. Did this change at some point? I don't see any reason to create an individual page for each past season unless it was a championship season. (I only want to know this because I created two articles like this one). Phydend (talk) 00:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not a newer standard; the coach grouping standard is subset of the season standard that our newer members are just not aware of. Here's the original discussion. <span style="font-family:arial, sans; color:#EF6521;">AU <span style="color:#000063; font-family:arial, sans;">Tiger  » <span style="font-family:arial, sans; font-size:x-small;">talk 01:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see now. Thanks for that. Is this written down somewhere in a non-discussion format? JKBrooks85 (talk) 14:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

(od) Oops; looks like no-one ever thought or got around to writing it up like Yearly team pages format. Guess we should. <span style="font-family:arial, sans; color:#EF6521;">AU <span style="color:#000063; font-family:arial, sans;">Tiger » <span style="font-family:arial, sans; font-size:x-small;">talk 19:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Newsletter
Well, I thought I'd be bold and get the ball rolling on a newsletter for the project. It may work out, it may not, but it could be potentially useful, and it might be a good idea to put the framework down even if the idea doesn't take off on a big basis. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

College Football article up for Featured Article
2006 Chick-fil-A Bowl, an article that's been in the works for several months now, is up for its second FAC attempt. It failed the first time around due to a lack of support. I'd really appreciate it if folks could take a swing by the article and the comments page to leave suggestions or support. There aren't all that many featured articles in this project yet, but by just lending your support, this article will finally make it into the end zone. Thanks for your help. JKBrooks85 22:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, the regular season is over and we have nearly three weeks until the next game. I urge all of you to review this article and make any comments you can to help get this Featured. This project needs more FAs.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 22:15, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Congrats to JKBrooks for helping this WikiProject get another Featured Article. Now, if I were you, I'd go here and request this FA be featured on Dec 31, the day of the 2007 edition of the game.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 13:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * At the least, we should use it on the Portal ASAP. MECU ≈ talk 13:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I have scheduled it to appear in January. Still need to create the actual page, though.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 14:13, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll take care of it. Unfortunately for the TFA thing, it looks as if there's pretty much a dogpile on the nominations page. We'd have to be lucky to hit it right when a spot opens up. JKBrooks85 (talk) 15:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see any nominations for the 31st.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 15:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but unfortunately, there can only be five nominees on the page at any given time. JKBrooks85 (talk) 15:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I did not know that. Seems to be the source of some controversy on the talk page.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 15:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Kinda sucks for us since there's so little time before the date, but it's not a big deal. We'll be able to get your featured article done and nominated in time for the spring game, I think. JKBrooks85 (talk) 15:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Good news! Someone submitted it to the list, and it's currently taking on supporters to be featured on the front page for December 31st! JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Another
Featured article candidates/2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 19:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a good one. I'd encourage everyone to come out and take a look and give input. JKBrooks85 (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Highlighting eventual BCS champ in rankings article?
I'm curious what everyone else thinks about this edit to 2006 NCAA Division I FBS football rankings which highlights Florida within the pre-season rankings collection. Is this desirable (and should carry through for this year and future years)? Should it be expanded to track the champion's performance through the other polls for the season? All or just BCS rankings and components (USAToday/Harris)? Thoughts? <span style="font-family:arial, sans; color:#EF6521;">AU <span style="color:#000063; font-family:arial, sans;">Tiger » <span style="font-family:arial, sans; font-size:x-small;">talk 02:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Works for me. It makes the information about the BCS champion that much easier to access, and I'm always a fan of making things easier for the readers. JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure. Needs to be added to the Legend though. MECU ≈ talk 16:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

BCS Football Schools template
User:Cbl62 and I have been refining Michigan Wolverines Football. I think almost any BCS school may want to emulate it so we are bringing it to your attention. It looks like this: --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 23:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh. Too much in my opinion.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 02:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Mmmm.. I think you mean way too much. <span style="font-family:arial, sans; color:#EF6521;">AU <span style="color:#000063; font-family:arial, sans;">Tiger » <span style="font-family:arial, sans; font-size:x-small;">talk 03:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * TMI? Don't forget that those templates have to conform to template policy and I don't think what's been done to it is acceptable. I know since someone decided to come along to the Ole Miss Rebels template and remove the first names of all the coaches and said it was policy. So if you get away with this, I'll be sure to use it as reference when I restore the Ole Miss template back to its original state. haha -- <strong style="color:#fff;background:#DC143C;border:1px solid #000">ALLSTAR <strong style="color:#FFF;background:#0F4D92;border:1px solid #000"> echo 03:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with AUTiger. Way too much. It takes too long to even scan it and find something to click on. -- Billma (talk) 12:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * WAY too much info. Templates don't need to summarize the whole article. I think I'm the one that did that to the Ole Miss coach template. I don't think (I hope) I called it policy, but something more like "like all the other coach templates from WP:CFB". Using first names is largely irrelevant in a template and don't help, unless there are multiple people with the last name. I did a lot of the coach templates which is why they are that way and others copied my method. I'm open for discussion though, but I think this is the best, most professional, looking way. MECU ≈ talk 14:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * A vast majority of templates with names just include the last name. Look at the nav templates of politicians. The Presidents one lists first names but a lot of the governor ones just use last.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 14:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think everyone is missing the point. This is not an attempt to summarize Michigan Wolverines football. Much of the info on the template is not in the article. This is a navigational template to link most articles that are important to the football program. If I am looking at Desmond Howard and I want to know about other Michigan stars this directs me to them much the way Heisman Winners would direct me to other Heisman templates. It has the advantage of replaceing multiple template for retired numbers, coaches, and each other section of the templat.e  It is a useful navigational template and was inspired by the template at Walter O'Malley for the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is common for other sports to use such summary navigational templates. See New York Yankees. The Michigan template is longer than most would be because we have the 2nd most All-Americans and among the most active NFL alumni. I would guess that an Ole Miss template might be slightly shorter and an Auburn one might be as well but less so. The real chore of the template is the creation of articles for all the All-Americans that you will discover who don't have them. This will push programs to create articles for All-Americans who don't have article or who have stubs. You can see all the DYKs on my user page to see what we at Michigan have had to do in the last few weeks to make this look good.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 07:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. I should note that User:Cbl62 got this going and I just started cleaning up his work after seeing the template added to Greg Skrepenak, while it was at the WP:GAC queue.  My problem with the template before was it lumped important players together and no one knew who was who.  We have split the players into classifications of important players for the program to add some clarity to the template.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 07:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not missing the point. Its flat out too big for my taste. I'm on a 1280x1024 monitor and that thing takes up my whole browser screen.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 17:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:NAVBOX. Here are some key thoughts:
 * "A navigational template is often a small list..."
 * "Try to avoid navigation templates that are too large."
 * Just because Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees are ridiculously large doesn't make it acceptable; if everyone jumped off a cliff... <span style="font-family:arial, sans; color:#EF6521;">AU <span style="color:#000063; font-family:arial, sans;">Tiger  » <span style="font-family:arial, sans; font-size:x-small;">talk 21:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

WOW that's not a Navbox, that's a freaking article in itself: "LIST OF ALL COOL THINGS MICHIGAN FOOTBALL-ISH THAT WE CAN THINK OF" ... I don't like it, looks too busy to be useful...--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Navboxes are supposed to help readers located related articles. They should not be repositories of knowledge.  This one navbox would be better broken up into a couple of nav boxes.  (1st rounders, noteworthy seasons, players in the pros, etc.)  There is already a head coaches nav box.  Also, this navbox duplicates WolverinesCoach.  It doesn't fit on my 1680x1050 screen.--Rtphokie (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Issue with misalignment in College coach infobox
Some of you may have noticed that in a lot of the College coach infoboxes, the years and the teams at the bottom don't line up. It appears this is being caused by the <tt> </tt> tags that are going around the coach's position. As I see them, I'm going to remove them. This is just a heads up in case anybody else notices the same thing, now you know how to resolve.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 18:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Lists of Michigan Wolverines football receiving leaders
Please consider supporting Featured list candidates/Lists of Michigan Wolverines football receiving leaders.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 15:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Single season pages and champs from non-D-IA(FBS) divisions
I was watching some of the Championships games last night (yes, I am a pro-playoff person) and a thought came to me: As UW-Whitewater won their first title in D-III, I could theoretically see a dedicated fan trying to create a page here. Now, going into the season, I wouldn't want to see season pages on every D-III team, or even the top-25 from D-II. However, I think once a team has won their title for that season (or even been the runner up), they are probably notable to warrant a single season page like the top-25 of D-IA. There might also be exceptional situations, like when a transitional team (moving up divisions) is #1 or #2 but is not qualified to be in the playoffs. Not that these pages must be made, but that, if they were made by editors, we would already agree that they have notability. That's my thought, I was hoping to get more input. --Bobak (talk) 17:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think 2007 Appalachian State Mountaineers football team is certainly a justifiable article, with the potential for Featured Article status, consider this season included their 3rd straight NC plus the win over Michigan. I don't know about the other champions.  I think a better idea might be an article like 2007 NCAA Division I-FCS tournament, similar to how we do the 2007 College World Series and NCAA basketball tournaments. Seancp (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd definitely support the creation of articles for each of the championship tournaments, and potentially for the teams participating in them; particularly for the champion and second-place team. Beyond that, I think notability is an issue. JKBrooks85 (talk) 21:07, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Football Good Articles
FYI: There is an extremely large backlog of articles under the Sports and Recreation category over at Good Article Nominations. A number of college football articles are waiting for GA review, and if you have the time or inclination, I'm sure the authors would appreciate someone taking a look at them. I'll be digging in as well, but the sheer number of articles means that more hands are needed. Obviously, you shouldn't be reviewing an article to which you contributed, but it only makes sense that if you have knowledge of a subject that you should review it. Any help would be great. Thanks. JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations#Sports_and_recreation

Stay on top of the discussion here: Use RSS/Atom
For those of you that use an RSS/Atom reader, you can easilly keep track of the discussions here by going to the history part of this page, and then in the toolbox click RSS or Atom for your needs. MECU ≈ talk 13:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

NCAATeamFootballSeason infobox Template Question
Why don't the 2007 season articles have a link to the 2008 season? If you look at 2006 LSU Tigers football team you'll see that the infobox links to the previous and next years at the bottom. The 2007 LSU Tigers football team article only links to the previous year. And the 2008 LSU Tigers football team links to both the previous and next year. I have looked at the text and haven't seen anything noticeable that would cause this. So what gives? Now that 2008 season articles are being created, it would be nice if all the 2007 articles linked to them in the infobox....wouldn't you agree? Seancp (talk) 15:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd imagine (I don't know that this is the case, but it's my best guess) that the reason it wasn't automatically included was because people were hesitant about creating a link to an article that may not be created. For bigger teams, it's obvious that a season article would be created. For smaller teams, however, it's not a guarantee. That being said, there should definitely be a next year link in the season summary infobox. JKBrooks85 (talk) 15:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:FLC
Lists of Michigan Wolverines football receiving leaders passed yesterday. Today, I nominated Lists of Michigan Wolverines football rushing leaders and Lists of Michigan Wolverines football passing leaders. Please consider supporting them as well.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 18:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Small College Update/Feedback
Hey gang, I've made what I think to be some progress on the small college articles, particularly in the area of small college coaches. I'd like to get some feedback and pointers.

First, a list of samples: Ed Sweeney (football coach), Art Kahler, Harold Elliott (football coach), Jerry Kill (football coach), Craig Schurig (football coach), and Mike Gardner (football coach) are some of the articles that I've put solid work into.

Second, another list of samples: Tony DeMeo (football coach), Samuel Colgate, Jr. (football coach), Dick Biddle (football coach), and Jake Cabell (football coach) are samples of the 100 or 150 or so stub-articles that I've assembled on coaches.

Third, let me give you my procedure that I've been using so far: I started with my Alma Mater, Southwestern College (Kansas) with their press guide, which gave me a list of all coaches in the history of SC. One was a guy named Dennis Franchione, who we've all heard of... but the others didn't really have articles about them. So I put together a coach's Navbox for Southwestern, and realize that there are a bunch of coaches to work with. I assemble a stub article skeleton (like J. J. Thiel (football coach)) for each coach in the navbox and put it to Wikipedia if an article does not exist, or integrate it in to existing articles if it does exist. Then I start going through those coaches one at a time to write articles about them, create navboxes for other teams where they have coached, etc.

So I do that for Southwestern, and the very first coach I pick was |Bud Elliott. Turns out this guy has been head coach at six different colleges: [{Washburn University]], Emporia State, UT-Arlington, Northwest Missouri State, and Eastern New Mexico (plus Southwestern). So I've got some Navboxes to build there (can't find information on UT-Arlington, program discontinued. Drat!).

Anyway, that leads me to several other colleges, so I hit Washburn--about 40 coaches there, including a guy named John Outland (outland trophy) and another name Ellis Rainsberger, among others. So I build some quick stub-artilces there and make a navbox for Washburn.

My next stop for Elliott was Emporia State, which led me to Coach Kill, who went on to Southern Illinois University. I put a quick article together on him. The next day, ESPN announces he's been hired at Northern Illinois University, a Division I-A (or was that FBS?) school. Hallelujauh! Stub article is in place, and some NIU fans take over!

I go back to Southwestern and hit Art Kahler, which takes me to Dickinson College, which takes me to Colgate University... you get the picture.

Bottom line is this: I now have a SAS program that can take a "Coaching Record" page from the College Football Data Warehouse (Kansas State Example) and not only create a navbox, but stub articles. I can create an entire team worth of coaches and navboxes in about thirty minutes to an hour, depending on the number of coaches.

There's still some manual work to do, but it makes for a great start. But before I go any further on this, I want to get some feedback from everyone--should I attempt to add some more to the process or articles, or what? Suggestions? Comments??--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Holy crap....that's a lot of information!!! Awesome work.  It's always great to go learn how all these coaches just moved around everywhere.  Thanks for the excellent contributions! Seancp (talk) 20:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Magnificent work! I wish I had the programming talent and motivation that you've got. I'd say the best route from here would be to run through a formal bot process, and get your program certified (if that's what you want) and make it a permanent part of the Wikiproject. That program would definitely take a lot of drudgery out of creating stubs for coaches, and if we can categorize them and organize them so they're easy to find and expand as needed, it'd be probably the biggest addition to the wikiproject in a long, long time. The only thing I could see to add would be a talk page for each of these with the college football wikiproject box on it. That box automatically adds the article to our list of college football articles, and is a big help when we're improving and categorizing. If that could be added as an automatic function to your program, it'd be a huge help.JKBrooks85 (talk) 15:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, gang! I'm moving forward with it. Yesterday I did Wichita State, and today I did Drake and Saginaw Valley State University coaches. Missing from this process would be a nice "team page" or even an athletics page, but I'm not getting that into it just yet... smaller schools may not need a specific "football" page methinks...

By the way, requests for me to process a smaller school can be made here or on my home page. Remember, they'll need to be in the College Football Data Warehouse...--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Fumble Rumble
Anyone know if this is legit? Fumble Rumble MECU ≈ talk 16:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is legit. Don't know if its worthy of an article, though. At least not in its present form. Needs more context/references/etc. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22fumble+rumble%22+cunningham ↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 16:36, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This article appears to have been created and deleted before. Note that the article does not tie in clearly with the current Las Vegas Bowl and it is unclear if it was during an all-star game or a different incarnation of the Las Vegas bowl. Group29 (talk) 16:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right. It was deleted on May 2, recreated, and redeleted on May 3. Should we go ahead and delete this again per CSD G4?↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 16:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

FBS national champions table
As documented here, a new FBS national champions table has been created and can be seen on my user page. The table documents both consensus and non-consensus champions from 1869 to the present (-1871), in accordance with the National Poll Champions and Consensus National Champions sections of the official NCAA record book and the table on the official NCAA sports site, along with notations of contemporaneous and retroactive champions and selectors. It also includes records for each team, and coaches, excluding the period from 1869 to 1887, when none of the teams had coaches, and Princeton (who did not have a coach until 1901) from 1889 to 1899. I have double-checked the information about a thousand times, and, although most of it is extremely in-depth, I would appreciate as many reviews for errors as possible before it "goes live". I plan on updating the table in the FBS national championship article as soon as possible, along with (a) new Most National Championship table(s). I also hope to clean up the rest of the article, with help from other users, as it is in dire need of revision (see StiltMonster's comment on the FBS national championship talk page). Iowa13 (talk) 19:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Very nice work. Spot checks on random listings turned up all right. The only thing that bugged me were all the acronyms. I know it's the best way to do things, but would it be possible to insert an abbreviated index every 20 years or so? You wouldn't need the full thing that's under rankings overview, merely a quick-access index that wouldn't force you to scroll up to figure out what the hell R(FACT) means. JKBrooks85 (talk) 02:33, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice suggestion, hadn't thought of that. I was planning on a full acronym table, and that would probably still be necessary, as it would also list years, but I'm glad you brought up that issue.  Something else that might work would be an in-article link to the acronym table, every decade or so.  It would basically require the same amount of time as an index within the table, but would take up very little space.  That's the only issue with inserted indexes — there were quite a few selectors, as you saw, so it would be kind of a stretch space-wise, depending on how it was done.  Obviously, with in-article links it would be tedious to then scroll back down to the year, though.  We could probably work out something with one of those possibilities.  Any other ideas?  Thanks for reviewing the table, by the way. Iowa13 (talk) 03:51, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You'll have to see how it looks, though. Who knows... it could end up looking like crap and end up more confusing than without the extra table legends. JKBrooks85 (talk) 14:53, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Single game naming convention
This is a matter of styling and I cannot find if this has been discussed. Also, I do not know what the NY Times manual of style or otherwise might say about it. Anyway, I always understood that when naming a single game it was either

or There are a number of regular season single game articles where it is the opposite (Visiting team vs. Home Team). I just need to know who belongs on what side of the vs. Thanks, Group29 (talk) 16:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Home team vs. Visiting team
 * Visiting team at/@ Home team
 * I don't think the two different forms are mutually exclusive. The second example, I imagine, would be preferred for normal games. But what happens when you're at a neutral site? That's when you'd use the first example. Visiting team at X is standard, but if it's at a neutral site, use Home team vs. visiting team. JKBrooks85 (talk) 16:43, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The convention we have agreed to use is "Visitor vs. Home team" as in 2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game where Ohio State was the host school. We decided to stick with vs. instead of @ to avoid confusion in neutral-site games, such as the Red River Shootout.  Johntex\talk 17:56, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Help/verification...
Hmmm, I think I'm on to something but I'm not exactly sure how to prove it... Samuel Colgate was the football coach at Colgate University from 1890-1892, and may have been the only person ever to be a head football coach whose name was the same as the university or college where he coached... any takers on that one??--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that'll be a tough one to prove. Unless you luck out and find a fairly recent source that confirms that. But, good luck. Not even sure where you would begin to look. But, that's possibly true given a lot of universities/colleges are named after cities/states/etc and the ones that aren't are not usually named after somebody in athletics. I'm not implying Colgate was named after him, merely coincidence. But, yeah, few and far between I'm sure.↔<span style="font:bold 11px Verdana,sans-serif;">NMajdan &bull;<span style="font:9px Verdana,sans-serif; color:#000;">talk 22:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, Colgate University was indeed named after William Colgate (grandpa), Samuel Colgate, Sr.(dad), and James Boorman Colgate (uncle) -- the name change happened in 1890, the year coach Samuel Colgate, Junior started the team. I should have been more clear...--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Fight song proposals
Anyone interested in possible policies (guidelines) about inclusion of university fight songs should review the discussion and offer your input at Centralized discussion/Fight songs. <span style="font-family:arial, sans; color:#EF6521;">AU <span style="color:#000063; font-family:arial, sans;">Tiger » <span style="font-family:arial, sans; font-size:x-small;">talk 07:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Beware of copyright issues. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 08:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, seems to be a nest of worms with that issue. JKBrooks85 (talk) 14:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The big issue I see there is that "fight songs" don't necessarily belong to the football team. There are several good quality band pages where the topic is well-covered. For example, Kansas State University Marching Band (okay, I'm biased) but go to the bottom and see the category for University Maching Bands--and, of course, WikiProject Marching band. HOWEVER, I would be very much in favor of listing the marching band project as a kind of "family member" to our project.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

In fact, since the marching band project says they "live across the street" from us, I'll go ahead and put it on the project page (I ran across and knocked, it's them--they were having a party).--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear, I didn't bring it up here proprosing that fight songs be a part of this wikiproject, but merely to inform likely interested editors about a discussion debating whether fight songs should be covered on Wikipedia at all. Good idea about the marching band project; I can't believe I didn't remember them since I'm a member there too. LOL. <span style="font-family:arial, sans; color:#EF6521;">AU <span style="color:#000063; font-family:arial, sans;">Tiger » <span style="font-family:arial, sans; font-size:x-small;">talk 21:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)