Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football

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To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject College football: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2022-12-11 Take photos at games, spring practices, other events! Tag Talk pages with {{WikiProject College football}} Rate articles. See Category:Unassessed college football articles or College football articles by quality. Tag stubs with {{Collegefootball-stub}} or {{Collegefootball-coach-stub}} Create organizational structure for categories Add {{collegebowl}} to all bowl articles (current and defunct). See the template's talk page for the complete list. Convert tables to the more preferred "wikitable" class. See Help:Table#Style classes. Help peer review any articles currently up in the WikiProject's peer review department. Add infoboxes to all college football related biography articles. Eliminate red links at MasterTeamTable. Expand a stub Maintain College football Portal Aid in the selection of Selected Articles and Pictures at the nomination page. Add top-level information to Current sports events as it occurs. #1 ranking team games, other notable events. Recruit new members by searching Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:College_football and Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:College_football_stubs and seeing if anyone not involved with the project has made an edit of one of our designated pages. (See list: Wikipedia:WikiProject_College_football#Participants). Look at their talk page, and if they don't have lots of negative things (complaints about edits, vandalism, etc), edit and add {{subst:CFBwelcome}} to the page. Finish creating all userboxes for rest of NCAA teams. See NCAA Userboxes Do NOT use logos in the userboxes, they will get removed quickly. Articles needing improvement/attention Articles to Clean Up: Glenn Parker, Brian Billick, Earnest Byner, Pat Swilling, Terrell Davis, Dan Marino, Mike Hollis, Harold "Tubby" Raymond, Donovan McNabb, W. Thomas Smith, Jr. Articles needing Expert Attention: Mark Boyer, Jeremy Lincoln, Frosty Westering, Matt Farrior, NCAA Division I-A football team records by decade, Grant Mattos, NCAA football bowl games, 1983-84, In the Bleachers, Mike Juhasz Articles needing Wikification: Big East Conference, Tommy Blake, Jake Scott, Georgia Bulldogs football under Wally Butts, George Clark (football coach) Articles with NPOV Issues: Jason Hill (American football), Shaun Alexander, Tom O'Brien (football coach), Brian Cushing, Jim Tressel, Marty Tadman, Mike Wagner, Bill Wade, Mike Renfro, Buddy Ryan Articles needing Verification: Colt David, Houston Hoover, Bluegrass Bowl, Herb Tyler, Joe Mickles, Harry Caray, Derrie Nelson, Godfrey (comedian), Doug Pederson, Big East Conference Articles needing Expanding: Rick Stockstill, Tony Jackson (football player), Mike Mularkey, 2003 Florida Gators football team, Forrest K. (Fergie) Ferguson Award, Ken Whisenhunt, Jefferson-Eppes Trophy, Harold Sebring, Louis Oliver, 2007 Clemson Tigers football team Articles needing Merge / Split issues: Capital One Bowl Results, List of schools by Bowl appearances, Battle for Nevada, 2001 Minnesota Golden Gophers football team, Art Baker (coach) Articles possibly up for Deletion or with Redirect Errors: Scooter Berry, Ricky Tucker

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I just spent some time editing the 1901 Washington football team article and finding contemporary sources from Newspapers.com. I was primarily interested in the previously unknown Athletic Park where many of the games were played, rather than at Denny Field. But I also discovered many errors in the games themselves.

This article was previously sourced only to the Washington Yearly Results page on the now defunct College Football Data Warehouse website.

Several of the games had incorrect dates and scores. CFDW also lists a 16–6 game vs. University of Puget Sound that was in fact played by UW's second team.

I know that this CFDW site was referenced heavily in the past, perhaps before we had better regulations against using WP:SELFPUBLISH sources. Now that Newspapers.com is available via the The Wikipedia Library, we should endeavor to cite contemporary reliable sources instead. Is there a way to tell how many CFDW references still exist? How many of our early season articles are sourced only to CFDW?

PK-WIKI (talk) 20:23, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You can type "College Football Data Warehouse" or other variations into the search bar to find the references. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 20:45, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

College Football Data Warehouse went defunct around 2015 or 2016. Prior to that, I had sent David DeLassus probably 100 emails over the years with error corrections. Note that https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/ and many media guides also have a lot of errors, particularly concerning the late 1800s and early 1900s. I've reached out to sports infomation directors at various schools about correcting their errors with varying degrees of repsonsiveness. Recently, I discoved Billy Crawford (American football), who was head coach at Butler and Wisconsin in the early 1890s, and is completely omitted or misattributed in media guides for both schools. Corrobation with contemporary sources is always best. We have a growing collection of media guide errors at Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Media guide errors. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:03, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• From my ten-plus years working on season articles, I found that all of the major sources for older game results (Sports Reference, College Football Data Warehouse (CFDW), and school media guieds) have some errors (I would estimate at less than one percent overall for Sports Reference and CFDW, a bit higher for some of the media guides). On balance, my assessment is that CFDW had fewer errors than Sports Reference. I found both to be reliable but not perfect. David DeLassus (who ran CFDW for many years) is/was a meticulous researcher, and his work is invaluable for many of the historically-but-not-currentley-significant programs whose results have never been compiled elsewhere. (Becuase of DeLassus' reliability, many newspapers and other publications relied on CFDW as their go-to source for historic game results. I hope that Wikipedia is now becoming that "go-to" source.) My best advice: Use one or the other to construct the initial skeleton for an article's schedule/results, but where available we should include citations to newspaper articles with actual game results as our best practice to ensure the accuracy and reliability of our content. Cbl62 (talk) 22:29, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1905 Washington football team lists a game vs. the crew of the USS Chicago (1885).

CFDW shows this game as well as another undated one vs. Seattle High School.

Contemporary reports however call both a "practice game".

Do we have a standard for including "practice games" in team articles? PK-WIKI (talk) 18:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As for practice games, if you can find contemporary newspaper reports, I would include them in the schedule table and season or game summary detail sections, but if such a game is not counted in the team's official records (as in its media guide), for now I would note the game a practice game with a parenthical "practice" after the score, and not inlude the decision in the team's won–loss record. We may want to build some sort of standarized various for practice games into the table templates. For the 1905 Washington team, the game on October 4 against USS Chicago is listed in the media guide and counted in the team's official record, so I would treat that as a normal regular season game. The game played against Seattle High School, prior to that, probably in late September, is not mentioned in the media guide, and should be treated as a practice game. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This would appear to be an instance of the modern Media Guide being wrong.

Page 89 of the Tyee 1907 yearbook (which for some reason contains the 1905 season...) shows the 1905 Washington football team's first game as Whitman with no mention of either of the earlier games.

• https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/uwdocs/id/24090/rec/16
• https://gohuskies.com/sports/2020/3/5/uw-football-historical-stats-rosters.aspx
• https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/washington.sidearmsports.com/documents/2020/3/26/1905_recap.pdf

The Seattle P-I also reported it as a "practice" game on the day of the event. PK-WIKI (talk) 22:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a WAC-Idaho rematch that's missing from the 1902 Washington Agricultural football team and Battle of the Palouse articles and the WSU records but present in the 1904 (1902 season) Idaho yearbook and seemingly in contemporary newspaper reports. PK-WIKI (talk) 03:59, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent Idaho football media guide, from 2018, that I can find doesn't list this November 15, 1902 game either; see page 161 at https://govandals.com/documents/2018/7/30/2018_Football_Media_Guide.pdf. Note that the Spokemans Review article states "Today's contest, being not a championship game..." Usually the verbiage "championship game" from this era means more or less what we mean to be a conference game now. But neither school's media guide records the game at all. Perhaps this should be noted as a "practice" game? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment, which I believe is consistent with the above replies. I've created multiple articles about the earliest seasons of New Hampshire Wildcats football. I've found multiple instances of the school's media guide and CFDW differing from contemporary newspaper accounts. This ranges from minor differences in scoring, to different overall records depending on which games of the season are considered to have been varsity contests. The approach I've taken is to list both what "modern" sources say, and what contemporary sources said—a couple examples are 1896 New Hampshire football team and 1903 New Hampshire football team. I've also seen "practice games" end up in varsity records as late as 1912 New Hampshire football team. Dmoore5556 (talk) 00:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding practice games, University of Chicago began its seasons in 1890s-1900s with several practice games against local high schools. Sources have included these as part of the team's annual records. If it were up to me, these games should not count but that's original research, so I have not removed them. Cbl62 (talk) 01:38, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that approach. Early New Hampshire teams had a number of matchups against non-college opponents—including high schools, athletic associations, and crews of US naval ships from a nearby shipyard—that remain part of their official record per the school's Media Guide. Dmoore5556 (talk) 01:49, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As for "Denny Field" at the University of Washington, the first reference I can find on newspapers.com is in 1907. This article from August 1901 discusses "Athletic park" and a potential on-campus alternative for football at Washington: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-post-intelligencer/159875152/. PK-WIKI, I see you redirected Athletic Park (Seattle) to Championship Field, which was built in 1994. Did you find a source to indicate the the Athletic Park of 1901 was on the same site? Confusingly, the 1901 Washington University football team also played at an "Athletic Park", better known as Sportsman's Park in St. Louis! Jweiss11 (talk) 21:25, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the Athletic Park was at the same location as current-day Championship Field (or within a half-block or so, if not the exact site).

I started a discussion on this at Talk:Championship_Field#Previous facilities at this site: Athletic Park, YMCA Park, baseball field with some preliminary sources.

Per the sources I added today most of the 1901 games were played at Athletic Park, but in one game on October 6th UW "...defeated the Vashon college team on the university campus..." which I take to mean Denny Field. I'm guessing that many/most of the games prior to the mid-1900s were played at either Athletic Park or Madison Park (Seattle). But Wikipedia currently locates almost all of the post-1895 games to Denny Field, which should be researched/corrected. Perhaps they had a rudimentary field and practice site on campus circa 1895, which was later expanded with bleachers as documented in your clipping. Perhaps also later named in memoriam of a Denny (Arthur A. Denny 1899, David Denny 1903). PK-WIKI (talk) 22:35, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The 1904 Washington football team played their home games at Madison Park (Seattle), except for their very first game vs. California to end the season at Recreation Park (Seattle). A stadium that seems to have been in the eventual Seattle Center area and is mentioned at List of Pacific Coast League stadiums. PK-WIKI (talk) 17:15, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While we are on the topic of descrepancies between conteporary coverage versus modern-day media guides and encyclopedias, 1904 Arkansas Cardinals football team is really a head scratcher. I brought this up a few months ago here, but didn't get any input. Please see: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive 26#1904 Arkansas Cardinals football team. Would love to some other eyes on this one. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 05:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GMs may become a thing in college sports. This Athletic article gives a detailed scope of Andrew Luck's responsibilities. Might be worth a WP page at some point or expansion of General manager (American football). —Bagumba (talk) 04:25, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a more directly involved, football-specific athletic director better suited for the NIL and transfer portal (basically free agency) era. It probably does warrant an expansion if this becomes a thing moving forward. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 02:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2023 Georgia Tech vs. Miami football game has been nominated for deletion. Please see the discussion here. An article for this past week's 2024 Georgia Tech vs. Georgia football game was also just created and has been tagged for notablity. Thoughts on that one? Jweiss11 (talk) 00:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My view is the 2024 Georgia Tech vs. Georgia football game article is far from being ready and should be placed in Draft unless/until the creator(s) build it out. That said, whether an 8-overtime game, by itself, warrants its own article will be a point of contention. I would say no, as I feel that adding sharp/focused content to relevant articles (such as Overtime (sports) and the articles about the teams) is more helpful to readers than making them go to an independent article where they need to read through what will end up being an epic-like account of the game. Dmoore5556 (talk) 02:37, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hard agree on UGA-GT being draftified. The only substantive content in the entire body of the article is under "Controversies" and it looks to me like SEVEN of the article's eleven citations are used just to support the fact that the game went into eight overtimes. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 02:43, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Butters.From.SouthPark: would you have any concerns/opposition to draftifying the UGA–GT article for now? It's not ready for mainspace in its current state and hasn't been edited constructively in three days apart from the scoring summary. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No concerns Butters (talk) 21:01, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to Draft:2024 Georgia Tech vs. Georgia football game. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 21:12, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jweiss11 and Dmoore5556: Unrelated to Georgia Tech, but we have another pop-up single game article for 2024 Texas vs. Texas A&M football game that includes some questionable lines neutrality-wise. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 22:28, 9 December 2024 (UTC) @Tejano512: I would recommend you hold off on creating articles on standalone games as the vast majority of games are not worthy of their own articles. These articles have to pass WP:SPORTSEVENT, and at present they do not. I think this article is best suited to redirect to Texas–Texas A&M football rivalry (which, funnily enough, isn't even the rivalry page that's linked in the lead). PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 22:37, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Resurrection of one the most storied rivalries in college sports. I'd say it's fairly significant and/or about as significant as a bowl game. Tejano512 (talk) 22:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Tejano512 Maybe, but what you say isn't relevant in this case. It comes down to what the sources say, and it is far, far too soon to make any sort of determination as to the long-term impact of this game from the perspective of outside sources (plus, the game itself was fairly mundane, so basically all of the "notability" being ascribed to the game is purely based on circumstance and pre-game hype, which is getting off on the wrong foot as far as I'm concerned). PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 22:46, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up note for anyone interested in participating: the deletion discussion for 2024 Texas vs. Texas A&M football game can be seen here. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 22:56, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template talk:CFB schedule#Template-protected edit request on 8 December 2024

I have made all the changes necessary to incorporate seed= and oppseed= parameters. Example in the edit request. This would clean up a lot of confusion and follow college basketball norm. Thanks Admanny (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bagumba sorry to randomly ping you, but I know you're an admin who is also involved with the project. I think Admanny has an excellent idea here - any way you could help him get it implemented? PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:44, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Dissident93: and @Frietjes: as they last edited the template this calendar year Thanks Admanny (talk) 04:15, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you to @Dissident93: for approving the request! I have gone through every team in the playoff's schedule to implement the new seed and oppseed parameters. Works perfectly! @PCN02WPS:, I am alright with removing rankings from the bracket now. Side note: @TheGoodGeneral 1:, I see your efforts to "standardize" how seeding would look in the schedule tables, thank you for that, just letting you know this is a thing now. Thanks Admanny (talk) 01:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see it works without issue. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 01:57, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@PCN02WPS: I pinged the wrong person my bad! Admanny (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, just wanted to bring to everyone's attention that 2024 Clemson vs. Texas CFP football game has been created by Tejano512. It was redirected by CoconutOctopus shortly afterwards but undone and expanded by Tejano less than 20 minutes later. I was under the impression that we would not be creating standalone articles on first round games - thoughts? Pinging @Dmoore5556, Jweiss11, PK-WIKI, and Zzyzx11: as all of you commented on this thread where I posed that question earlier this year and/or at this merge discussion where the details of individual edition CFP articles were discussed. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 01:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still of the (rather strong) opinion that the first-round (non-bowl) games can and will be adequately covered in the 2024–25 College Football Playoff article and the articles for the participating teams. Dmoore5556 (talk) 01:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Not sure how to proceed with this though, maybe try a PROD? Open to suggestions. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 01:43, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For now, I rolled back the article to the redirect, and left a message on the talk page of Tejano512. Dmoore5556 (talk) 01:45, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Normally, I wouldn't disagree, however I believe there are many reasons why a stand alone article should be considered/is warranted: Nearly unprecedented seasons for many teams, First time CFP expansion creating unique matches (teams barely missed higher seed), Highly covered teams (pre, reg and post season), Extensive media coverage, Prominent players, coaches, staff and fans, etc, First match in history, etc Tejano512 (talk) 02:02, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I believe those aspects can be well covered in the team articles and the 2024–25 College Football Playoff article. Note that 2024–25 College Football Playoff is a dedicated article about the playoff, independent of the broader 2024–25 NCAA football bowl games article. Having a "grouped" article covering more than a single matchup (game or series) between two teams has work effectively in, for example, baseball—such as 2024 American League Wild Card Series, 2024 American League Division Series, and their National League equivalents. Other editors are welcome to opine as well. Dmoore5556 (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose creating standalone articles for every single CFP first round game. As Dmoore5556 mentioned, there are currently no standalone articles for every single MLB Wild Card Series and Divisional Series game. There are also currently no standalone articles for every single NBA playoff series, every single NHL series, and certainly no standalone articles for every single NFL playoff game. Otherwise, where will it end if these playoffs -- not just the CFP but the other postseasons I mentioned as well -- eventually expand to include additional teams? The only way I would support a separate article on a CFP first round game is if, after it is played, passes criteria #4 of WP:SPORTSEVENT: A game that is widely considered by independent reliable sources to be notable, outside routine coverage of each game. This is why some individual NFL playoff games like the Tuck Rule Game do have separate articles, but most other NFL playoff games do not. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PAGEDECIDE is a relevant guideline:

... at times it is better to cover a notable topic as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context (and doing so in no way disparages the importance of the topic).

Moreover, WP:LASTING is not even met at this point.—Bagumba (talk) 11:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think our best bet is to handle CFP first round games at 2024–25 College Football Playoff and relevant team season articles, not with stand-alone articles. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:49, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The CFP first round games should be discussed at 2024–25 College Football Playoff and relevant team season articles. I also think it may be worth thinking about whether all bowls should have a stand-alone article moving forward with the implementation of a multi-round playoff structure, similar to other sports. - Enos733 (talk) 17:23, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Agreed. Cbl62 (talk) 17:24, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Every now and then, we as a project come across a new area to be developed. E.g., WWI and WWII military teams, black college football champions, small college football national champions, etc. User:JTtheOG has created 2024 Borregos Salvajes Monterrey season, the 2024 champion of a Mexican college football competition. It appears well sourced, but I know little about college football in Mexico. Do we have other articles on Mexican college football champions? Is there an applicable list or category? Is this a notable vein of gold that should be mined? Or merely fool's gold? (If nothing else, I've found a new candidate for favorite team mascot: "Borregos Salvajes" = "Savage Sheep") Cbl62 (talk) 19:59, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To answer your (first) question: no, I believe this to be the first Mexican college football season article on Wikipedia, either English or Spanish. American football has a century-old history in Mexico and receives extensive coverage, especially at the collegiate level. The Borregos Salvajes Monterrey, located in the gridiron hotbed of Monterrey, are the dominant college team. They even broke away from the ONEFA in the 2010s to create their own league, CONADEIP [es], although they have since returned. JTtheOG (talk) 20:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also add that while the competition is around the DIII/JUCO level, the amount of coverage (at least for this team) is more akin to a high-performing DII or FCS program. JTtheOG (talk) 02:42, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While in the 2024–25 NCAA football bowl games article the first-round bowl games, being played at campus sites, have been collectively noted as "Non-bowl game" and excluded from the Bowl record by conference totals/table, the NCAA is counting those games along with traditional bowls here. As we know, the NCAA doesn't sanction the CFP, they are independent entities, but NCAA records are rather comprehensive. Input welcome on whether the first-round games should "count" is welcome. Note that this will also affect the counts and percentages at Bowl Challenge Cup. Dmoore5556 (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given that other sources (such as USA Today, here) are also lumping first-round games in with named bowls, I'm going to be WP:BOLD and update the bowl game article to include CFP first-round games. This will add 4 games, thus 8 teams to the overall counts (3 Big Ten, 2 ACC, 2 SEC, 1 Independent). Dmoore5556 (talk) 21:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think they are bowl games, but they're certainly post-season games with the equal/greater important to the lesser bowls. Article titles can likely stay as-is, stats should be updated as if they were bowl games, and article leads should have "...and post-season playoff games" or etc. appended. I imagine that's how the reliable sources will handle it but we should observe as they do. PK-WIKI (talk) 22:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the infoboxes of Marcus Freeman and Curt Cignetti to include last night's CFP first round game in bowl records. However, Indiana Hoosiers football and Notre Dame Fighting Irish football need to be updated accordingly. We should keep an eye of the articles for progams and coaches of the first round participants. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant to the above topic discussing if first-round playoff games are "bowls".

In 1924, California and Stanford were both unbeaten, played to a 20–20 tie, and were co-champions of the Pacific Coast Conference.

In two New Year's Day East-West post-season classics in California, Stanford played unbeaten Notre Dame in Pasadena, while California played unbeaten Penn in Berkeley.

Contemporary newspapers show the games sharing the top billing, both described as post-season unbeaten vs. unbeaten East-West big games.

Is our coverage of post-season college football currently lacking due to our modern conception of "Bowls"? That terminology was probably popularized circa 1934–35 NCAA football bowl games with the introduction of the Sugar and Orange bowls. Are we missing coverage of other earlier January 1st post-season games? Does the Penn game deserve to be listed at 1924–25 NCAA football bowl games, List of Pac-12 Conference football champions, List of California Golden Bears bowl games, etc.? PK-WIKI (talk) 05:18, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CC 1922 San Diego East-West Christmas Classic, which was originally supposed to feature Oregon but was opposed by the PCC in favor of only playing the Rose Bowl. The conference also disapproved of 1922 Stanford football team scheduling a post-season December 30th game vs. Pittsburgh, which was played. PK-WIKI (talk) 18:50, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello college football editors! Which of these two styles do you prefer, and why, for the lead paragraphs of bowl game articles? Or if neither, what do you suggest? In both of these styles, the short name of the game (e.g. "2025 Rose Bowl") as well as the sponsored name (e.g. "Rose Bowl Presented by Prudential") are mentioned in boldface in the lead paragraph. (1) Mention the sponsored name in the first sentence, after the short name, without a link to the sponsoring company -- like this. (2) Mention the sponsored name in the last sentence, with a link to, and very short description of, the sponsoring company -- like this. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 19:47, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to advocate for style (2) myself. One reason is that it makes the lead sentence less messy and more direct. Another reason is that I'm sure some of our readers would like find out at least some minimal information about the sponsoring companies. In the example above, some people won't know what Prudential is, but style (2) tells them in three words -- "financial service company" -- and if they want to find out more they can just click through. (A lot of last year's bowl game articles follow style (2), but we need not feel bound by tradition.) — Mudwater ^(Talk) 19:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give my thoughts since I was the one that brought this up on Mudwater's talk yesterday - I used to use (2) exclusively but have since switched to (1), as can be seen in my more recent articles (2024 College Football Playoff National Championship, 2024 Rose Bowl, 2024 Sugar Bowl, etc.). I think it looks cleaner and keeps the boldface stuff in one place, plus that construction is used widely elsewhere for other sports (Emirates Stadium, Belgian Pro League, Croatian Football League, EFL Championship, etc.). I like having the full name in the first sentence, instead of giving a shortened name and then coming back to the full name at the end, and I don't think we owe it to the sponsors to link and describe their companies (or at least we don't owe it to them any more than the soccer articles do). PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:03, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For all that are interested, Alabama–Penn State football rivalry has been nominated for deletion. The nomination is available here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alabama–Penn State football rivalry (3rd nomination). PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 23:33, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a bunch of editors have starting creating 2025 season articles already. I thought we had agreed not to create the next season's articles until the current season is over. That's doesn't happen until January 20. Nevertheless, I don't we should start deleting stuff that would just have to be recreated in a few weeks. But if and when you do create 2025 season articles, it would be helpful you could properly categorize any such articles, create any needed categories and standings templates, and properly tag and rate the talk pages for such articles, templates, and categories. By default, FBS team season articles should be set to mid importance. FCS and anything lower should be set to low importance by default. Also, please do not copy over offensive and defensive schemes in the infobox from 2024 to 2025 (ahem, looking at you Butters.From.SouthPark). No one knows what schemes teams are going to running next season. It may be the same thing as this season, particularly if the coaching staff stays the same, but we don't know. Please wait until you have a media guide or some other reliable source, likely not before late next summer, before populating the scheme fields. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 05:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Motdattan, heads up here regarding the offensive and defensive schemes in the infobox. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:51, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Got it. Will delete them from now. I get the point that they may not run the same scheme even though the staff doesn't change. Motdattan (talk) 21:20, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I thought we had agreed not to create the next season's articles until the current season is over. That's my recollection as well, and we should not be creating season articles way in advance. However, I think it's fine once the "regular season" is over at the end of November. Especially with the new playoff system prolonging the season all the way out to January 20 (the championship game), I don't see a need to wait until January 21 to start creating 2025 season articles. That said, any 2025 season article will be vulnerable to deletion or draftification if it lacks appropriate sourcing. So any articles created should be supported by the best sourcing available. And if good sourcing is not available, probably best to create the article as a draft until the sourcing becomes available. Cbl62 (talk) 17:11, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to Motdattan and anyone else, when you create articles like 2025 Washington State Cougars football team, please remember to properly tag the talk page with appropriate project banners. Failure to do so may lead to unfamiliar editors tagging the wrong project at Talk:2025 Washington State Cougars football team. Dclemens1971, note that college football season articles like this should be tagged for this project, WikiProject College football, not Wikipedia:WikiProject American football. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clarification. I am indeed not aware of every possible banner available in Rater. Dclemens1971 (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I can do that. Motdattan (talk) 23:42, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Papichulo52 recently created a series of 27 articles for "All-South" independent teams, all-star teams for major independents in the South for the years 1968 to 1994. Most of these articles have been tagged with Template:One source, and yesterday, Reywas92 PROD'd one of them, 1973 All-South Independent football team. I obejctived to the PROD because this subject isn't obivously non-notable, and these articles should be adjudicated together, either in discussion here and, perhaps, at AfD. Note that we have analogs for these articles at Category:All-Eastern college football teams, Category:All-Pacific Coast football teams, Category:College Football All-Southern Teams, plus the many articles for all-conference teams. Gjs238, GhostInTheMachine, and Hey man im josh each did a bunch of cleanup on these articles, but they still need some work. And more importantly, what does everyone thing about notability here? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 02:42, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My indirect input is the series of articles appear to lack context. They could likely benefit from an "anchor" article that explains the All-South independent teams—what entity bestowed the honor, how were players selected (e.g. a poll of media/coaches/other players), was this only at the University level or did it also include Small College players, did the composition of the "team" change over time (it appears that Special Teams were added at some point), and such. And perhaps a bit of "so what"—did the honor raise the profile of seniors heading to the NFL draft, or might it have raised the profile of underclassmen heading into the next season's Heisman consideration, or ? Clearly someone(s) put a chunk of work into 27 different articles, but a lot of it comes across as a wall of mostly non-notable names. Dmoore5556 (talk) 04:15, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The same criticism could be applied to the All-Eastern teams (88 articles), largely created by Cbl62 and Cumberland Mills. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:25, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would support consolidating them all at a new article 1973 College Football All-Region Teams to match 1973 College Football All-America Team. Could also do 1973 College Football All-Conference Teams rather than an article for each conference? This would be an "anchor" article that explains the concept of regional teams, and would also allow minor regions/conferences to be easily added without the overhead of a new article or risk of deletion. Would also consolidate a bunch of references and boilerplate, as I imagine many of the selectors are ranking multiple regions in the same article.

Also, IMO articles like 1973 All-Big Eight Conference football team should be retitled to 1973 Big Eight All-Conference football team.

I also think we are missing a lot of history on pre-conference regional team rankings. Some articles like Lambert-Meadowlands Trophy exist, but regional newspaper rankings of teams and regional "mythical" championships were extremely common in the pre-conference era. Tables like Template:1917 Eastern college football independents records collect the teams and standings, but not the sportswriter rankings. Is there a place for regional rankings at articles like 1917 college football rankings, or is that supposed to be national? Should they live at a new article?

PK-WIKI (talk) 04:56, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PK, I'm pretty sure the common names of the all-conference teams generally take the form of "All-Big Eight Conference", not "Big Eight All-Conference". The phrase "College Football All-Region Teams", if used, should certainly not be capitalized. Same for "College Football All-Conference Teams". Those early regional rankings certainly seem apt for inclusion in the prose of team season and national season articles. Not sure they belong in standings tables. Probably too fragmented to be standardized for that sort of thing. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:10, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally, there'd be WP:BROADCONCEPT pages like College football all-region teams and College football all-conference teams. However, are there sources that deal with this at a high-level? Otherwise, is it WP:OR? There's existing pages like List of All-Big Ten Conference football teams, which at the very least serve as navigation to all the conference's year-specific pages. In basketball, pages like List of All-Pac-12 Conference men's basketball teams enumerate every years' teams, not merely links to year-specific pages. However, the size of football teams (off+def+special teams) seems to make it unwieldy to combine each years' selection onto a single page (also discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive 16 § Help needed: All-SEC and All-Pac-12 teams).—Bagumba (talk) 08:26, 24 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a good idea to consolidate each of the regional teams rather than each one having its own article. Reywas92^Talk 20:00, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I created All-East team articles for the period ending in 1979. During that time, All-East teams were a big deal because the major Eastern teams (Penn State, Syracuse, Pitt, Army, Temple, Rutgers, etc.) were not members of conferences, and there weres no all-conference teams to cover an entire region of major college football. The All-East selections became less notable after the 1970s, as the Big East Conference was formed and the eastern majors began to join the Big East or other conferences like the ACC and Big 10. I have doubts about the notability of All-East teams post-1979, but the All-East teams of the 20th century at least through the 1970s received extensive coverage and pass our notability standards. (I don't have the time to look into the All-South independent teams at the moment, but unlike the East, the South was historically dominated by major conferences (SEC and Southern Conference), so I'm less confident in the notability of this grouping. Cbl62 (talk) 05:12, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on a rewrite of Frederick W. Hinitt's article, which originally claimed (via navbox and category) that he was the head coach of the football program at the now-defunct Parsons College for one season in 1900. This would have been during his first year as president of the school, but I haven't been able to find any indication that this was the case on Newspapers.com, in this wonderful book about the school, or in Google searches in general. The creator of the navbox template, {{Parsons Wildcats football coach navbox}}, is retired and did not include any sourcing in the navbox, and Hinitt's name was added later by Bigredlance, who hasn't edited in about a year. I might have just overlooked it somewhere, but if anyone has some time to spare and wants to help me out, I would welcome some assistance! PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:13, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The 1967 football media guide provides some help: [1]. Page 44, in particular, has a historical sketch that discusses the pre-1909 squads. Hinitt is not mentioned. Mackensen (talk) 21:12, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I hadn't found that. I still haven't been able to find anything so I think I'll stick with leaving that stuff out of the article. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 19:14, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• There's a lot of reportage (e.g., this) on Hinitt when he came to Parsons in the second half of 1900 but nothing that I found about him coaching football. Cbl62 (talk) 20:14, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for taking a look. I'm starting to suspect that the user who added him to the infobox accidentally saw stuff about him "arriving at Parsons" as president and mistook that as him coming to coach. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 16:30, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  It's also just unlikely that the president would be the coach in a time where athletic directors generally coached damn near every sport a school has to offer, especially a 'smaller' school. I have found previous coaches added to numerous navboxes (ie {{Buena Vista Beavers football coach navbox}}) from Bigredlance which, after some digging, have proven to not be accurate. (Not to discredit their effort because there is more accurate data than inaccurate that they've added. Thetreesarespeakingtome (talk) 16:55, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please weigh in at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 December 28#NCAA FCS/FBS playoff team navboxes. Thank you. —SportsGuy789 (talk) 19:34, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See the edits User:Cfbrivalries [2] posting non-official rivalry websites to pages, first as an external link then as a source. WP:AGF, this is a misguided attempt to be helpful posting an WP:NOTRELIABLE source? At worst, these all look the same and are suspect websites.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 03:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• @Glman: who has reverted an edit of that user in the past.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 03:37, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See here. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 19:25, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Several years ago, it became popular to add "depth charts" to team/season articles. See 2024 Michigan Wolverines football team#Depth chart. It has long been my view that these sections are problematic in that: (i) they are almost never supported by citations, let alone citations to reliable sources; and (ii) depth charts continually evolve during the course of a season as players move up and down the depth chart or sustain injuries/suspensions. If depth charts are to be kept, they need to be properly sourced, and there needs to be clarification as to the time period (e.g., start of season? end of season? some particular date in between?). Lacking these elements, we are tolerating vague, unsourced, potentially inaccurate, and WP:BLP-violative information. Cbl62 (talk) 20:29, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks to be a fair and accurate concern to raise. I might suggest adding an "unsourced" tag/flag to applicable sections, such as the Michigan one noted above, and remove them if they remain unsourced. Or WP:BOLD and do so directly. Dmoore5556 (talk) 20:41, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like the templating idea. Can anyone point me to the correct template for an unsourced section? Cbl62 (talk) 22:12, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cbl, Template:Unreferenced section. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:42, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For most of the same reasons, there's no depth charts on NBA pages (WP:NBADEPTH). Even if cited, the sources' content itself did not seem to be reliably updated. —Bagumba (talk) 03:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

and there needs to be clarification as to the time period. That's what {{As of}} is for. Left guide (talk) 04:31, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just created an article for Tiger Bech, who was killed in the 2025 New Orleans truck attack. Thriley (talk) 21:10, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dissident93 created a new College Statistics table format where he had relocated the college name banner to the left side of the table. You can see an example of this in the Jayden Daniels article. Here is an example of the current format for comparison. I wanted to get opinions on his new format and ask whether or not it should replace the current format. SteeledDock541 (talk) 01:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just commenting that the format I've been using on certain pages contains the same information without needing additional lines to clutter the table. It also follows the same format as NFL stats tables. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 01:22, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is preferable to the existing format. Although, I know there is a movement here (which I am in agreement with) to remove the overreliance on colors for the team boxes. Couldn't this be updated to have a link to the 20YY NCAA Division X football season then the 20YY College Name football team just like how the NFL version has NFL season then team season link?-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 05:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea, but I think having just a three letter acronym for college teams wouldn't work. It works in the NFL because there's only 32 teams, whereas there's hundreds of college teams. One example I can think of is Georgia State University and Georgia Southern University. State has the acronym of GSU while Southern has GS. In my opinion that can get confusing to people unfamiliar with the schools pretty quickly.

Also, there are editors (including myself) who feel that the colors help signify each team better compared to not having colors at all. SteeledDock541 (talk) 17:57, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd argue for removing that from NFL stats tables as linking to the team's season is preferable than the overall league year. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:47, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NFL stats table link to both the NFL (year link) and team season page (from team link) e.g. Justin_Herbert#NFL_career_statistics —Bagumba (talk) 01:41, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, colors are distracting, esp. now with transfer portal. Either way, college and NFL sections of a bio should be consistent. —Bagumba (talk) 01:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No acronyms should be used, they aren't used in head coaches tables. Colors are distracting and are overrused. Consensus on this project has stated as such.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 19:20, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per the team colors, we've established consensus to not use them in places like the tables at Pigskin Classic or 2021 Big Ten Conference football season, where, if used, you have a gaudy rainbow of many team colors. I think there's a good argument not to use them in these statistics tables as well, given now that in the transfer portal era, players can easily play with three or four teams, e.g. JT Daniels. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:32, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, since there's multiple people that think that the colors are not necessary for the statistics tables, do you guys want to completely move on from using colors in the tables? If so, do you think Dissident93's format (albeit without colors) is good, or is a format like this better? (this is basically what UCO2009bluejay initially suggested) SteeledDock541 (talk) 00:44, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Commenting that I also support having no colors and only viewed this as a compromise as removal seemed to mostly just be enforced by me. The repeating team name in the Meyers example can be merged and the links moved to the year, as the overall NCAA season isn't that important to the player as their team's season is. They all link back to the NCAA season on their respective page for people curious enough. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 00:54, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep status quo of the links to the NCAA year. It's consistent with NFL stats format's link to league year, as well as coll basketball and NBA. It doesnt take up any extra space in the table (the words already there) —Bagumba (talk) 02:15, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mid-table headers I didn't realize that "current format", which linked to Shedeur Sanders#Statistics, was to have the team name as a mid-table header (esp. for players w/ multiple teams). This is counter to MOS:COLHEAD:

Do not place column headers in the middle of a table to visually separate the table.

There's also no reason to have college and NFL stats formatted differently. Something like Dan Marino#College statistics used to be the standard.—Bagumba (talk) 08:50, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does nobody else find the school name repeated several times to be less than ideal? ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 15:32, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I personally don't have a problem with it. As Bagumba mentioned in one of his comments, the college format should be the same as the NFL, college basketball, and the NBA. The college basketball table has the NCAA year and then the team name links to the that school's year in football. I kinda get what you're saying about the school name being repeated several times, but most college players are in college on average for 3-4 years, so in my opinion its not that much of an issue. SteeledDock541 (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Jason White (American football). This article has a table and the school name spelled out. (I didn't do this and the table has been this way for a while.) Standardizing these might be good.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 03:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At some point, some editor(s) started putting colorized banners of the lone school, like at Brett_Hundley#College_statistics (permlink), but still retaining the school name and links on every row. —Bagumba (talk) 04:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I removed like all of those last year but people always add them back. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 05:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We all need to enforce it when we see it, it only takes a second to remove. Maybe my issue is simply using the university name instead of a common abbreviation. Is there some template that already has a list of school abbreviations for other uses that we could use as a base? ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 16:46, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The major problem with this is that there are multiple universities with the same abbreviations. Look at the List of colloquial names for universities and colleges in the United States page. There are multiple schools with the abbreviations of AU, BU, CSU, etc. With the NFL having 32 teams, no one team has the same abbreviation, but with college, this isn't the case. Using names like Georgia or UC Berkeley are not long, but at the same time, they make each university distinguishable. SteeledDock541 (talk) 18:35, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I guess it's unavoidable. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 23:29, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You inspired me to scrap it from Hundley.—Bagumba (talk) 05:27, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here's our culprit if you want to play whack-a-mole with the rest of the headers. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 05:31, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. It seems we had a limited discussion about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive 26 § Team colors on stats tables —Bagumba (talk) 06:11, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like a majority of you think that the Jason White (American football) / Brock Vandagriff table formats should be the standard going forward. To reach a consensus on this, do you think that this format should be the standard format? Please reply to this comment stating whether you support or oppose this. Thanks, SteeledDock541 (talk) 18:11, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support the removal of colors but still think the repeating full school names could be improved. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 18:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support Removal of colors and those mid-table team headers (like this). Team names should display and link to the team season in the same format for both college and NFL.—Bagumba (talk) 15:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to add rosters for older teams such as 1889 Washington football team, but Template:American football roster/Header requires |offensive_players=, |defensive_players=, and |special_teams_players=.

Those distinctions of course didn't exist in the days of one-platoon football.

Are there any roster templates built for historic elevens? PK-WIKI (talk) 09:59, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• 1901 Michigan Wolverines football team#Personnel: not a template, but it provides a richer array of information. Cbl62 (talk) 12:38, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Benny Friedman#Requested move 4 January 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Yeshivish613 (talk) 19:40, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We allow navboxes for college football national champions, but should that apply to lower level national champions? Template:2023 Harding Bisons football navbox suggests to me that the answer should be "no". There's not a single player who has his own article, and so there's nothing meaningful to navigate between. Cbl62 (talk) 02:26, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generally no, as the amount of articles that seem to be needed to establish navbox usefulness seems to be around a minimum of four links (just as a generally accepted rule I have witnessed throughout my adventure with templates for deletion) and lower level teams generally will not have four+ notable players on them. With that being said, if a lower level team has enough to be notable then they should stay, but the ones with two or three (which I am guilty of creating) should be deleted. Thetreesarespeakingtome (talk) 03:28, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, User:Thetreesarespeakingtome. I did come across Template:2023 Cortland Red Dragons football navbox which you created. Would you be willing to compile the lower-level champion templates with fewer than four entries (or at least those you created) and submit them for deletion? If you explain the situation, as you did above, the nominatins should be non-controversial. Cbl62 (talk) 19:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Compiled a list of every single one I could find. I am not too familiar with the deletion process but if you're willing to do that that's up to you.

• One
  • Template:1880 Princeton Tigers football navbox
• Two
  • Template:1872 Princeton Tigers football navbox
  • Template:1873 Princeton Tigers football navbox
  • Template:1874 Yale Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:1875 Harvard Crimson football navbox
  • Template:1875 Princeton Tigers football navbox
  • Template:1881 Princeton Tigers football navbox
  • Template:1992 Jacksonville State Gamecocks football navbox
  • Template:2008 Minnesota–Duluth Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:2010 Minnesota–Duluth Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:2019 North Central Cardinals football navbox
  • Template:2020 Lindsey Wilson Blue Raiders football navbox
  • Template:2023 Cortland Red Dragons football navbox
  • Template:2023 Keiser Seahawks football navbox
• Three
  • Template:1872 Yale Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:1876 Yale Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:1877 Princeton Tigers football navbox
  • Template:1877 Yale Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:1878 Princeton Tigers football navbox
  • Template:1879 Princeton Tigers football navbox
  • Template:1989 Mississippi College Choctaws football navbox
  • Template:1994 Albion Britons football navbox
  • Template:2003 Saint John's Johnnies football navbox
  • Template:2015 Northwest Missouri State Bearcats football navbox
  • Template:2016 Mary Hardin–Baylor Crusaders football navbox
  • Template:2018 Mary Hardin–Baylor Crusaders football navbox
  • Template:2021 Ferris State Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:2022 Ferris State Bulldogs football navbox
  • Template:2021 Mary Hardin–Baylor Crusaders football navbox

Thetreesarespeakingtome (talk) 20:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing disparities in team schedules whether conference championships are marked as nonconf=y or not. What's the standard? Admanny (talk) 04:44, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Conference Championship games are conference games. Jeffrey R. Clark • talk • contribs 04:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jeffrey R. Clark: I can see that; however conference championship games do not count to their conference record as noted in 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season#Conference standings. Admanny (talk) 05:02, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, I know it's weird, but it's been that way for as long as I can remember it. Jeffrey R. Clark • talk • contribs 05:12, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Conference championship are not conference games. They do not count in a team's conference record, and they should be noted as "non-conference" in schedule tables. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:39, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perusing some relevant articles, looks like we have a big inconsistent mess here. Jeffrey R. Clark, "it's been that way for as long as I can remember it", are you referring to our convention about this here on Wikipedia? Because I believe at some point, I made sure that all conference games were denoted as non-conference. But other editors have removed many of those notations. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:49, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, if we have a convention that's states that they shouldn't be counted as conference games, then so be it. I could be just simply forgetting that discussing had taking place. Jeffrey R. Clark • talk • contribs 06:33, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree that they should be marked with a * and noted as non-conference games. That goes against the very meaning of the words. It's the conference's championship game, of course that's an in-conference game. Conference templates like Template:2023 Pac-12 Conference football standings have a row for the conference championship game because it's part of the in-conference slate of games.

Now, they shouldn't be included in a team's "conference record". That should be understood to be the regular season record, while the CCG is a separate post-season game. I'm not sure where I stand on them being included in all-time team records and coaching records, we should consult secondary sources. PK-WIKI (talk) 08:20, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As for the "very meaning of the words", depends on what you mean by "conference". As for all-time team records and coaching records, do you mean things like Dan Lanning#Head coaching record and List of Oregon Ducks football seasons? Oregon's 2024 conference record was 9–0, not 10–0 (including their win in the 2024 Big Ten Football Championship Game), and not 10–1, also including the playoff loss to Ohio State. And also not 9–1 per NorthernShore's edit on January 6! Clearly, any all-time conference totals for Lanning and Oregon should reflect the 9–0 record from the 2024 season. Jweiss11 (talk) 09:10, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can see an argument for including CCG records in a coach's all-time conference wins/losses, if we saw secondary sources doing that. Or in all-time team conference wins. I'm interested in how college basketball does it (both on Wikipedia and in third-party sources), as each team has multiple conference tournament games to end the year.

I agree that any singular season tally should show just the 9–0 regular season conference record.

2016–17 Saint Mary's Gaels men's basketball team shows a 16–2 WCC record, omitting 2 wins and 1 loss in the WCC tournament. But the conference tournament games are rightly not marked with a confusing * to indicate they are "non-conference".

Readers will be WP:ASTONISHED that the conference championship game is marked as "non-conference", and the asterisk will be continually deleted/re-added forever across every season article. Avoiding that is for more important than getting the non-asterisked table rows to exactly sum up to the conference record. PK-WIKI (talk) 17:20, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree - I'd be more astonished if there was something marked with an asterisk that didn't count towards a team's conference win-loss total. SportingFlyer T·C 17:33, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SportingFlyer, can clarify you comment? Seems like you were disagreeing PK-WIKI, but maybe there a typo? Did you mean to say, "I'd be more astonished if there was something not marked with an asterisk that didn't count towards a team's conference win-loss total". Jweiss11 (talk) 18:56, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would expect any game that counts towards a team's conference standings to have an asterisk, and otherwise not. SportingFlyer T·C 19:19, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, well that's the exact opposite of the scheme that was established here nearly 20 years ago, and a different, more fundamental issue that what Admanny brought up. We put asterisks on non-conference games, not on conference games. Perhaps it would be less confusing if we eliminated the "nonconf" field, replaced it with a "conf" field, and inverted the entire scheme. That would require a massive, bot-assisted overhaul to tens of thousands of articles. PK-WIKI, let me ask you this: if we had a scheme where we denoted conference games with asterisk, would you want the conference championship games to get an asterisk, even though they don't count toward the team's conference record? Jweiss11 (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The major issue is explicitly marking the CCG with a big asterisk as a "non-conference game" when IMO it very clearly is a (post-season) conference game. That's why people remove them. If the asterisks were inverted I guess I would be fine having the CCG un-annotated alongside the bowl games, that's less of a glaring "mistake".

The need for asterisks comes down to the regular season games each season. If we had a separate table for post-season play, that post-season table wouldn't need the distinction... none of the games count towards the conference record, and it's assumed that CCGs are conference and bowl games are non-conference games anyway. It's not really useful to asterisk. The legend could be changed to something like "Non-conference regular season games". Or a section header be added near the end of the table to differentiate between regular season and post season play.

My preference would be to only asterisk the 3 non-conference regular season games. Or, the 9 regular season conference games. And then justify excluding asterisks on the CCGs and bowls through some other means like the design of the table or the text of the asterisk note.

PK-WIKI (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Adding to the messiness, there are conferences that have divided into divisions that only count games against divisional opponents as conference games. It seems bizarre to me that opponents in the same conference (but different division) should be counted as non-conference games, but that's how at least some conferences do it. Cbl62 (talk) 20:13, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think that practice has only taken place as sub-Division I levels. The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) comes to mind, e.g. 2017 IUP Crimson Hawks football team. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I should also note that the Army-Navy game, despite both being AAC members, is NOT a conference game, and is reflected accurately in both teams' pages. So my point is, there are indeed exceptions. Admanny (talk) 06:27, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, are some instances where two teams in the same conference play in the regular season and it's not a conference game, e.g. 2012 Portland State Vikings football team. Conversely, there are some instances where games against non-conference opponents were designated as conference games and counted in the conference standings for one team, e.g. 1968 LSU Tigers football team. Jweiss11 (talk) 07:16, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User Ha2772a (talk · contribs) has undertaken an effort to make "standardizing" edits to a large number of bowl game articles. These include, from what I briefly have seen, adding "CFP New Year's Six" as an infobox sub-header of non-playoff games (for example, 2023 Orange Bowl) and adding "National Championship Game" as an infobox sub-header of various historical games, such as 1973 Rose Bowl and 1971 Nebraska vs. Oklahoma football game. All look to be good-faith edits, but I certainly question deeming them to be "standardizing" when it appears to narrowly be one editor's preferred style. More narrowly, I don't agree with either of the two specific examples, as NY6 sub-headers for non-playoff games are just infobox clutter, and retroactively deeming certain games which, in retrospect, yielded a national champion is very different than a game that is specifically played for that purpose. Other editors may like the changes. Comments welcome, as I feel this type of broad change deserves some attention. Dmoore5556 (talk) 01:31, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comment on the 1971 Nebraska vs. Oklahoma football game, now deemed a "National Championship Game"—after Nebraska defeated Oklahoma, they still had a non-conference game to play (at Hawaii, which they won) and they then accepted a bid to the 1972 Orange Bowl (which is also now deemed a "National Championship Game"), where they defeated Alabama. That Nebraska's next-to-last regular-season game was a "National Championship Game", the first of two they played in the same season... this is not encyclopedic. Dmoore5556 (talk) 01:41, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, "CFP New Year's Six" stuff is at least technically accurate. We can debate whether it's a necessary subheader in the infobox. I believe we've recently discussed the topic of pre-1992 "national championship games here. The 1973 Rose Bowl was not a "national championship game". What if Ohio State had narrowly beaten USC, while Oklahoma had beaten Penn State in a blowout at the Sugar Bowl? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:44, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think either is necessary. The NY6 stuff will surely be present in the lead of those articles, and adding "national championship game" to any pre-BCS championship seems flatly incorrect to me. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 01:53, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No opinion on any of the particular games mention here; citations should be added and discussed. But there certainly were "national championship games" prior to the advent of the BCS. The 1932 Rose Bowl awarded two separate national championship trophies directly to the winner. The 1969 Game of the Century was proclaimed as a national championship game by the president of the United States. The 1972 Orange Bowl and 1973 Sugar Bowl both awarded the MacArthur Bowl, one of the most prestigious CFB national championship trophies, directly to the winner of the game. All of the above are no more and no less "national championship games" than the 1993 Sugar Bowl, 1996 Fiesta Bowl, 1999 Fiesta Bowl, or 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship. PK-WIKI (talk) 02:10, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

PK-WIKI, all of that stuff is appropriate for inclusion and explanation in prose in the lead and body of these articles, but "Richard Nixon national championship game" does not belong in an infobox. The 1993 Sugar Bowl what a very specific kind of structurally defined national title game and is noted as such, as the "Bowl Coalition National Championship Game". Jweiss11 (talk) 02:21, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to this comment but have read the rest of the discussion (@Jweiss11 @PCN02WPS @PK-WIKI). My edits were only looking to standardize how the subheaders are formatted in the infobox. There were vast differences between bowls with how they handled BCS Championships and their predecessors as well as the CFP NY6 indicator and BCS Bowl Game indicator. For example most bowls had the CFP NY6 moniker when not a quarterfinal for the first six years, but didn't with more recent editions. It was a similar state for "BCS Bowl Game." I agree that it shouldn't just be the preferences of a single editor, I was simply looking to make a set of pages consistent within what was already existing for those boxes. The inconstancies confused me since all these bowl games are basically identical types of an event.

As for championships predating the Bowl Coalition, I did not add NCG to any box that it did not already exist in. Some of these linked out to the page about college football championships, some did not, I elected to link all of them so at least explanation could be ensured on that page. Although the list on that page raises questions because there are championship games listed there that did not have any mention on their page. Perhaps the pre-Bowl Coalition games need some kind of indicator like quotation marks if it isn't 1 vs 2 in a bowl game?

I delved into games of the century as well because there was a separate formatting method for those titles that was applied to the 2006 Rose Bowl that formatted the infobox title with the year at the end instead of preceding the bowl name. The same standard was used here, moving Game of the Century to the subheader and using the bowl name or teams as the game name. Again a similar problem exists with the GOTC page since it lists additional games that do not have the moniker mentioned on their page about the game. Ha2772a (talk) 03:39, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The generic term "national championship game" is a misnomer, given that the NCAA has never sanctioned a championship at the highest level of college football. All that has existed are championship games of specific structures, such as Bowl Coalition National Championship Games (e.g. 1993 Sugar Bowl) or BCS National Championship Games (e.g. 1999 Fiesta Bowl) or College Football Playoff National Championship games (e.g. 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship) and that is all the infoboxes should call them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmoore5556 (talk • contribs) 02:49, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I generally agree with you that we should title the infobox "BCS national championship game" or whatever, depending on the selector. However I'm not sure how to square that with the historic reality of national championship games in the poll era. Games such as the 1969 Rose Bowl were widely regarded as national championship games, so much so that the AP Poll delayed its final poll specifically to account for the game. It was regarded as a national championship game in the de facto / generic sense, but I think it would be incorrect for us to label the infobox as "AP Poll National Championship Game" when no such designation was made. "National championship game" with citations seems like the best solution. PK-WIKI (talk) 05:22, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal — infobox labelling of any "national championship game" that was not contested as part of a notable postseason structure (e.g. Bowl Coalition, BCS, or CFP) is WP:SYNTH and should be removed. Notable games of any era that led to one of the participants being named a national champion can be (and hopefully already are) highlighted as such in the article. Comments welcome. Dmoore5556 (talk) 04:46, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support proposal that such "national championship games" should not be noted in infoboxes. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:58, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - Limiting NCGs to those within a "notable postseason structure" is WP:RECENTISM and WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. The 1988 Orange Bowl and 1994 Orange Bowl were exactly the same type of national championship games: informal matchups within the existing bowl invite system that, through luck and fortuitous scheduling, happened to produce a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup. (The Bowl Coalition one was actually "worse": the Coaches Poll had it as a No. 1 vs. No. 3 matchup.) Both should be noted as national championship games. The powers that be have been scheduling those types of NCGs for the last 100 years. The media has called the qualifying ones "national championship games". Trophies have been awarded on the field to the winner of the game. National championship games did not begin in 1992 or 1998. PK-WIKI (talk) 05:12, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I think that "National championship game" should only be used in the cases where the winner of that game became the national champion not by being ranked No. 1 as a result but rather by the very act of winning the game itself. (I guess another way to frame this would be the fact that the game was played for the purposes of determining a national champion rather than having the game serve as a "national championship" if the participants happen to be No. 1 and No. 2 [or the clear top two contenders].) From what I can tell that first "National Championship Game" would be the 1993 Sugar Bowl. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 07:01, 11 January 2025 (UTC) — I am amending my vote to a soft oppose as I would support infobox inclusion of any game which is determined via rough consensus to have met the criteria at Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/National championship games. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 23:51, 13 January 2025 (UTC) — I keep changing my mind so neutral it is. Lots of good debate at the talk page. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 02:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly did Alabama win in New Orleans? The Sugar Bowl trophy, and that's about it. The Los Angeles Times reports the next day that after the game, all Gene Stallings could see was a scoreboard that read Alabama 34, Miami 13. This morning he will see another sight to cherish: the Crimson Tide perched alone atop the final polls, an improbable national championship of well-earned certainty.

How exactly was the 1993 Sugar Bowl a new type of national championship game? It wasn't. They waited for the polls the next day just like every other year. Who recognized them directly for winning the game itself? No one. The recognition came from the AP and Coaches the next day. The game was exactly as much of a national championship game as, say, the 1988 Orange Bowl where the program and broadcast were similarly branded as "The National Championship". PK-WIKI (talk) 08:31, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From what I understand after reading a bit of Bowl Coalition was that the 1993 Sugar Bowl, as the first Boal Coalition National Championship Game, marked the first year of "we are going to definitely have a national championship game with No. 1 playing No. 2" as opposed to "we just so happen to have No. 1 vs. No. 2 in this bowl game, so it's a de facto 'National Championship Game'". It seems to be the first year that the penultimate rankings are more important than the final rankings, since the national champion became dependent on the game (with the rankings merely a formality afterward) and its participants (who were, by definition, the top two teams in the penultimate rankings) rather than dependent on simply waiting on the rankings, especially in the majority of cases when the top two teams weren't paired together. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 08:39, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's incorrect. The Bowl Coalition didn't have the Big Ten or Pac-10 champions. The Bowl Coalition got lucky that they were able to schedule the top two teams in a single bowl. We very well could have had No. 1 Michigan playing No. 2 Washington in the 1993 Rose Bowl, which would then itself have been the "national championship game". They also got lucky that Miami was in the Big East, as hypothetical No. 1 Nebraska (Orange Bowl) would not have played No. 2 Alabama (Sugar Bowl) despite both bowls and conferences being in this "coalition". There was definitely no guarantee that the Bowl Coalition would be able to schedule a national championship game; the agreement simply made it a bit easier than before. If anything had messed up the No. 1 vs. No. 2 pairing there would not have been a national championship game, the exact same fragile situation as every season prior to 1992. PK-WIKI (talk) 08:59, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I appreciate the explanation. In that case I feel Bowl Coalition should be rewritten because an agreement among NCAA Division I-A college football bowl games and conferences for the purpose of forcing a national championship game between the top two teams was the quote that led me to believe that the system was designed for the sake of always having a No. 1 vs. No. 2. Now that I read BCS National Championship Game#History, I feel like the first labeled "National Championship Game" should be the 1999 Fiesta Bowl, since I guess that was the first year where, prior to the start of the season, you could guarantee that there would be a definitive national championship game taking place to conclude the year. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 17:10, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that the advent of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998 was the first season where, prior to the season, the top(*) two teams were pre-confirmed to play in a national championship game. And, additionally, that it would specifically happen in the 1999 Fiesta Bowl. That was an important milestone but I don't believe it diminishes the prior national championship games that occurred by happenstance.

The 1993 Sugar Bowl was unquestionably that season's national championship game. That fact should be noted in the game's infobox.

Likewise, the 1988 Orange Bowl was also unquestionably that season's national championship game. That fact should be noted in the game's infobox.

PK-WIKI (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fair point. I don't have an issue with saying "national championship" in the infobox so long as it's covered in prose with appropriate sourcing, which I suppose goes without saying anyway. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 20:50, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would you agree that the 1978 Cotton Bowl Classic was a national championship game? Or not really? Alex9234 (talk) 21:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Potentially. I would want to see what the contemporary reliable third-party sources said about it. PK-WIKI (talk) 21:15, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semantically, every Bowl Coalition National Championship Game was a Bowl Coalition National Championship Game, nothing more or less. The Bowl Coalition was a notable (as in, Bowl Coalition) postseason structure and its championship games (independent of their value) can be precisely enumerated, and their infoboxes should identify them as such. Deeming any games as being "national championship games" (used as a generic term) is subjective, as seen in the list at College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS#National championship games. They cannot be precisely enumerated ("This list is incomplete") and various entries are debatable (e.g. 1946 Army vs. Notre Dame football game, played when the two teams had 5 other total games left to play). I am advocating not tagging any games with generic "national championship games" labels. Dmoore5556 (talk) 08:41, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You are assigning too much value to this supposed "Bowl Coalition National Championship Game", which didn't really exist as a first-class enterprise. The phrase as a capitalized proper noun basically does not exist in a search on Newspapers.com. I question if we should even be using that phrase on Wikipedia due to its lack of usage in reliable third-party sources. Searching for "Bowl Coalition" does not turn up a single piece of vintage memorabilia on eBay.

I'm not assessing its "value"; it was a notable (Bowl Coalition) postseason entity. I am fully supportive of discontinuing the use of a capitalized proper noun if it was spuriously created; adjusting to "Bowl Coalition national championship game" or even perhaps "Bowl Coalition title game" ("title game" being the phrase that appears multiple times in the target article) seems appropriate. Dmoore5556 (talk) 00:41, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Orange Bowl (Orange Bowl) was also a notable postseason entity. As was the Fiesta Bowl (Fiesta Bowl). Both independently endeavored to schedule No. 1 vs. No. 2 "national championship games", which they successfully accomplished in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988. When those two bowls and a few others made a coalition to make the bowl selection process a bit easier, that new organization is no more or less notable than the previous independent bowls that did the same thing. While the Bowl Coalition was an important milestone in the march towards the BCS/playoff, it was certainly not "the first official national championship game". That is the "value" I'm talking about being overestimated.

I think it would be more accurate to describe the games as "the national championship game in the Sugar Bowl... which was scheduled last month by the Bowl Coalition agreement". There was no "Bowl Coalition title". There was no "Bowl Coalition national championship" to be won. The titles that these teams were winning were the AP and Coaches poll titles, and these national championship games in the 1980s and 1990s were all de facto. Even the ones set up by the Bowl Coalition.

PK-WIKI (talk) 02:02, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly all of the NY6 games are notable in general, and Wikipedia has articles about each individual contest, various of which are rightfully notable in their own right. I'm in agreement with your example wording (and variants thereof), which are appropriate for article prose. The question at hand is infobox labels (now "standardized", including wikilinks). We seem to have agreement that, for example, 1986 Orange Bowl shouldn't have proper noun "National Championship Game" in its infobox and 1993 Sugar Bowl shouldn't have proper noun "Bowl Coalition National Championship Game" in its infobox. What, if anything, goes in the infobox? Secondarily, at the bottom of said infoboxes is a set of prev/next links under the title of "College Football Championship Game" (another incorrect use of a proper noun). Those links seem to incorporate yet a different set of games, that are not enumerated anywhere, at least that I can find. For example 1956 Orange Bowl, which does not appear in College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS#National championship games. Having infobox labels and prev/next link trees, presented with seemingly well intended but made up proper nouns, is not encyclopedic. What do we do with those? Dmoore5556 (talk) 03:37, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My thought is to use the branded/official/common name if that exists: "College Football Playoff National Championship", "BCS National Championship Game"(?), "Bowl Alliance Championship Game"(???), etc. Use the generic "National championship game" if no such name exists, with proper citations of course. Add the selector or trophy to the text or infobox somehow if such award is explicitly tied to the game: "National championship game (MacArthur Bowl)" or "National championship game (Erskine Trophy)".

Remove the navigation links between years, unless navigating between an explicit set (CFP, BCS, BA...). Link between those 3 for convenience. I would argue against Bowl Coalition years, as that would open the whole above can of worms of also linking back to the 1980s Orange and Fiesta Bowl NCGs. PK-WIKI (talk) 18:37, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm supportive of those actions. Other editors are welcome to comment. With regards to the list at College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS#National championship games, would that work better as a stand-alone article (perhaps "List of college football national championship games" or similar)? A bit more visibility might help, especially with regards to sourcing. Dmoore5556 (talk) 19:52, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What the Bowl Coalition was was an internal conference/bowl agreement that attempted to schedule No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchups in one of the participating bowls. Nothing more, nothing less. They could have easily been unsuccessful, in which case no national championship game would have been played in their bowls. Their NCGs can only be "precisely enumerated" because they got lucky 3 years in a row.

This is history that, with appropriate sourcing, would enhance the Bowl Coalition article. Dmoore5556 (talk) 00:41, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Rose Bowl was similarly an organization and conference agreement that hoped to have the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in its annual bowl. If they had the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup, they would have promoted it as a "national championship game" exactly as the Sugar Bowl did. The press would have treated this hypothetical 1993 Rose Bowl NCG identical to the Sugar Bowl NCG. In this case none of the other individual bowls (aka "the Bowl Coalition") would have had a national championship game.

As above. Dmoore5556 (talk) 00:41, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Orange Bowl, prior to joining the coalition, was also an organization and conference agreement that independently attempted to schedule a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup its annual bowl. For the 1987 season they succeeded, and the 1988 Orange Bowl was thus the national championship game, promoted as such, and widely proclaimed as such in the press.

This is history that, with appropriate sourcing, would enhance the Orange Bowl article. Dmoore5556 (talk) 00:41, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All these organizations and agreements are exactly the same: fragile attempts at matching the No. 1 vs. No. 2 team in a bowl. As the years went on, they brought in more conferences and loosened the tie-ins that made this difficult. But in the early years, especially the Bowl Coalition where there was no dedicated trophy, no rotating dedicated top bowl, no guarantee of the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup, no guarantee of even the Bowl Coalition's top two teams meeting, no crystal football, the national championship game was essentially exactly the same as the NCGs in the 1980s. Treating the Bowl Coalition as a "notable postseason structure" separate from what came before it is ahistorical. PK-WIKI (talk) 09:47, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Bowl Coalition, warts and all, doesn't somehow grant notability to each entry in the open-ended list presented at College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS#National championship games. Nor should there be a capitalized proper noun ("National Championship Game") appearing in infoboxes. While 1988 Orange Bowl is a great example of a game that pitted No. 1 vs No. 2 in both team's final game of the season with the winner being named consensus national champion in the polls, other entries in the open-ended list were neither a 1 vs. 2 matchup and/or were not the teams' final games of the season and/or the winning team was not a consensus selection in the polls. We even have examples of seasons and teams with more than one ""National Championship Game". Hence my continued issue with the use of that term in infoboxes. Dmoore5556 (talk) 00:41, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree that list should be better sourced and edited, and welcome lower case capitalization etc. Note that due to the multiple selector reality of college football, a season very well might have multiple "national championship games" deciding multiple national championship awards, titles, and trophies. The easiest example being one played for the pre-bowl UPI Trophy while another is later played for the post-bowl AP Trophy. PK-WIKI (talk) 02:06, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notify @Alex9234 of the above discussion per recent edits at 1933 Rose Bowl, 1963 Rose Bowl, 1969 Rose Bowl, 1973 Rose Bowl. PK-WIKI (talk) 20:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. Alex9234 (talk) 21:07, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - I agree with @PK-WIKI: Limiting NCGs to those within a "notable postseason structure" is WP:RECENTISM and WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. The 1963 Rose Bowl, 1969 Rose Bowl, 1973 Rose Bowl, 1983 Sugar Bowl, 1987 Fiesta Bowl, 1988 Orange Bowl and 1994 Orange Bowlwere no different from the Bowl Coalition/Alliance, BCS and even 4-team CFP national championship games: informal matchups within the existing bowl invite system that, through luck and fortuitous scheduling, happened to produce a No. 1 vs. No. 2 or a No. 1 vs. No. 3 matchup - especially since the No. 3 teams usually automatically jump to No. 1 after winning over the top-ranked team.

Most of them should be noted as national championship games. As PK said: The powers that be have been scheduling those types of NCGs for as long as the sport has existed. The media has called the qualifying ones "national championship games", and some, or most of them I’ve cited have been referred to as NC games by the media. Trophies have been awarded on the field to the winner of the game. These games did not begin in 1992 or 1998. Alex9234 (talk) 21:06, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I was suggesting labeling the 1978 Cotton Bowl Classic as a national championship game as I feel it meets the criteria. But that’s just me. I wouldn’t mind hearing others opinions on this. Alex9234 (talk) 21:08, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with the assertion that the list of de facto national championship games you listed are no different from the Bowl Coalition/Alliance, BCS and even 4-team CFP national championship games. The CFP national championship seems like the opposite to me: unlike the de facto games, the CFPNCG is scheduled not only before the season, but years out, with the intention of serving as the national championship. While the de facto games are viewed as national championships because they just so happened to be No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchups, the CFPNCG is viewed as a national championship because it was created solely for that purpose, regardless of the rankings or seedings of the teams that participate - it's the national championship no matter what. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 21:16, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ha2772a, Dmoore5556, Jweiss11, PK-WIKI, and Alex9234: (hopefully I didn't leave anybody off the ping list) I created Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/National championship games as a place for us to determine which games were "national championship games" and compile sourcing used to make those determinations. I recognize that this table exists, but I feel like the WP-space page is more appropriate for this issue since it seems to be more internal. I have included some criteria for pre-BCS national championship games that make sense to me; comments and revisions are welcome at that page. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 21:42, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support proposal that such "national championship games" should not be noted in infoboxes. Cbl62 (talk) 05:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Linking @Jeff in CA to the above wikiproject list as well per recent edits in the mainspace article. PK-WIKI (talk) 23:03, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just created Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Designated conference games to keep track of the teams that played "designated conference games", games against non-conference opponents that nevertheless counted in the that team's conference record. All the examples I've found occur between 1954 and 1978. Note that Sports Reference (https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/) doesn't reflect any of these designated conference games, so it has erroneous conference records and standings for the relevant teams and conferences. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

North Dakota in 2018 and 2019 competed as an FCS independent but had a scheduling alliance with the Big Sky. They were ineligible for the Big Sky title but games played against them counted in conference standings. Is this relevant? Esb5415 (talk) (C) 14:19, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Esb5415, yes, thanks. I had forgotten about that. Those are indeed designated conference games for all the Big Sky members that played North Dakota in 2018 and 2019. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't an easy way to tell who was inducted this year (or any other) because this list is split up into three different lists and then further broken up by letter for each subsection, so the table sorting function is kind of pointless. Thoughts? Maybe there should be navboxes for each year like the Pro Football Hall of Fame ones? It looks like these lists have been split since the very beginning. In 2006, Nmajdan questioned it on the talk page as well. We can keep the coaching list separate though. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These lists should probably be reorganized into one table, so that the sorting is more functional. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Jweiss. If reorganizing into one list with sortable columns is feasible, it would make for a much more useful sorting function. Cbl62 (talk) 19:56, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Terrence Cody has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:34, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Nick Gates (American football)#Requested move 19 January 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Векочел (talk) 19:18, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See the linked discussion re proposed deletion of Template:2023 Harding Bisons football navbox. Cbl62 (talk) 15:01, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Also Template:2019 North Central Cardinals football navbox Cbl62 (talk) 16:46, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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