Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football

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AfD: Nick Floyd

Not directly related to this project, per se, but of tangential interest to some members here as a former NCAA Division I athletic director. Please see: here. Thanks, Ejgreen77 (talk) 00:09, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Category:College football multi-season team articles

I created Category:College football multi-season team articles, a hidden administrative category to keep track of all the multi-season team articles and help maintain them. Please add this category to any such article I may have missed. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 15:48, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for creating the category. Years ago, we had many such articles. Over the last decade, we have systematically split most of them into individual team-season articles. Additional multi-season articles should IMO be created only as a last resort. If sufficient coverage exists, individual season articles provide space for full expansion and development and should remain our preferred layout. Cbl62 (talk) 17:27, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree except generally Division II, Division III, NAIA, and potentially junior college individual seasons will never last as they'll ultimately be systematically deleted since they can't all be conference championship, playoff, or national championship seasons. A decade-by-decade format makes an entire decade of football noteworthy with non-noteworthy seasons combining to make one noteworthy page (which even then may not even last, but I won't further elaborate on that).

I would like to assume that like what I have done with Buena Vista (Draft:Buena Vista Beavers football, 1960–1969 and others) would show as a blueprint of what can be done. Thetreesarespeakingtome (talk) 19:40, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not familiar with the level of coverage that the Buena Vista football program receives. In general, I would offer the following: if the program's seasons receive WP:SIGCOV in multiple, reliable, independent sources, then season articles are valid and preferable. The virtue of a season article in the wiki model is that it allows for incremental improvement by multiple users, adding such information as roster, game summaries, statistical leaders, etc. Cbl62 (talk) 22:50, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At least some Buena Vista seasons do pass WP:GNG. E.g., 1973 Buena Vista Beavers football team. Cbl62 (talk) 01:02, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One more point: Decade articles are not exempt from WP:GNG. Accordingly, before moving to main space, decade articles should have sourcing to WP:SIGCOV in reliable, independent sources. (Sources such as Buena Vista school yearbooks or school websites are not independent.) Sorry if my comments seem to be laying out a bit of a Goldilocks paradox (decade articles unwarranted where coverage it "too cold" and where there is "too hot"), but they really should be IMO a last resort. Cbl62 (talk) 03:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The way they currently are definitely isn't going to pass any sort of deletion protocol, but I also have no way of sourcing them outside of non-newspapers.com since it hasn't been working for those going through Wikipedia. Thetreesarespeakingtome (talk) 10:30, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Group CfD: NCAA University and College Divisions, 1956 to 1961

Per the recent new consensus about NCAA University and College Divisions being first applied to football in 1962, not 1956, and the associated pages move, I've nominated a whole bunch of related categories for merging. Please see the discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 01:14, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This CfD could still use some more input. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:10, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NCAA team codes

Jweiss11 has been adding citations to the NCAA's annual team-by-team statistical reports. E.g., here. The reports include a wealth of useful statistical information that can be used in improving/sourcing our team season articles. A challenge in using the database is that the NCAA uses team codes instead of school names. We should build a directory showing the applicable code for each team. Examples: 50 (Bates), 100 (Cal State Los Angeles), 155 (Colorado Mines), 197 (East Stroudsburg), 224 (Ferris State), 251 (Georgetown), 300 (Illinois Wesleyan), 400 (UMass), 447 (Morningside), 499 (NE Missouri), 500 (Northeastern), 501 (Northern Arizona), 503 (Northern Illinois), 508 (Nortwestern Louisiana State), 511 (Norwich), 550 (Portland State), 602 (Saint John's (MN) 650 (South Dakota), 696 (Texas A&M-Kingsville), 750 (Wartburg), 774 (Western Michigan), 800 (Wisconsin-Platteville), 808 (WPI), etc.

If someone has the time and desire to create a complete list of these codes, it would be a very helpful resource. Cbl62 (talk) 04:25, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cbl62, something like this, perchance? Thetreesarespeakingtome (talk) 02:30, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, exactly. Thank you trees. I encourage anyone working on season articles to check this database and incorporate the useful information, which includes team stats (offense and defense), individual leaders, and schedules with attendance. Cbl62 (talk) 03:22, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:College Football National Champion pre-AP Poll navbox

I happened to notice that 1875 Columbia football team contains {{College Football National Champion pre-AP Poll navbox}}, but the article isn't even listed on it. Per the navbox's talk page, there was discussion of trimming down the inclusion criteria, but it doesn't seem finalized per strong consensus. On January 16, 2022, User: Son of Kenway removed a ton of championship season articles without an edit summary. Like most fly-by editors, it was a half-assed edit and he never removed the navbox from all of those article he took off from it. I'm bringing this up to WP:CFB to see what you'd like to do: [1] revert his edit, or [2] keep his edit but manually go through all those season articles to remove the navbox? I'm not partaking any further than this post, but it's something you ought to be made aware of. SportsGuy789 (talk) 23:17, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I reverted the Son of Kenway edit. He appears to have removed teams without any explanation or consistent reasoning. For example, he removed (i) 1934 Alabama (10–0) despite selection as NC by five "major" selectors, (ii) 1932 Michigan (8–0) despite selection by three "major" selectors, (iii) 1921 Iowa Hawkeyes football team (7–0) despite selection by Billingsley and Davis, (iv) 1906 Yale despite selection by Whitney, Davis and Billingsley), and (vi) 1905 Yale despite selection by both Davis and Whitney. I'm not saying discussion/refinement aren't worthwhile, but the wholesale removal of dozens of NCs without discussion or explanation is not the way to go. Cbl62 (talk) 10:01, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaning up NCAA University and College Divisions

I've removed and cleaned up most of the remaining references to the NCAA's University and College Divisions for years prior to 1962. Template:Infobox college football season and Template:Infobox NCAA football rankings need some work to clean up the season navigation links. Frietjes, when you have a chance, can you help there? NCAA University and College Divisions should start in 1962, not 1956. Also, we need to clean up the naming scheme for the yearly rankings articles; see Category:College football rankings. The small college rankings began in 1958. Should we call everything prior to 1958 simply "YYYY college football rankings"? Jweiss11 (talk) 23:09, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jweiss11, I changed the cut-off dates in Template:Cfb division and Template:Infobox college football season/type but there is probably more to change. Frietjes (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Frietjes, thanks for your help. Template:Infobox college football season looks good now. Template:Cfb division is supporting Template:Infobox NCAA football rankings. We need to clean up the naming scheme for the rankings articles that use that infobox, and then we may need some help with that template again. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:45, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or we could have separate lists for "YYYY small college football rankings" and "YYYY major college football rankings" for those years. We just need to eliminate the anachronistic "University/College Division" nomenclature. Cbl62 (talk) 16:07, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cbl62, as for I know, there were no small college rankings prior to 1958; there were just rankings. Everything from 1937 to 1955 is named "YYYY NCAA football rankings". You recently changed the 1956 article to 1956 college football rankings, noting that the "NCAA did not issue or sponsor the rankings". I think the same applies to 1937 to 1955 regarding the NCAA? 1957 is still named 1957 NCAA University Division football rankings. Looks like that should be moved to 1957 college football rankings. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Two points in response:

Back in June 2023, you moved "1958/1959/1960/1961 NCAA College Division football rankings" to "1958/1959/1960/1961 small college football rankings". I support what you did.
The change I made for 1956 was from "1956 NCAA University Division football rankings" to "1956 college football rankings. The rationale for that was twofold: (i) we've established there was no "University Division" in 1956, and (ii) the NCAA did not issue the rankings. I have now made the same change for 1957. You are correct that the second rationale also warrants renaming the earlier rankings articles to eliminate "NCAA" from the title. I would support such a change. Cbl62 (talk) 00:44, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. We're in agreement here. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:02, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I went ahead and made all the page moves for the rankings articles. Frietjes, we need to update the logic at Template:Cfb division and for Module:CFB schedule for "getdivision" at line 35 to reflect the following naming scheme:

before 1958: "college"
1958–1961: "major college"
1962–1972: "NCAA University Division"
no changes for 1973 onward

Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:55, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jweiss11, okay, I changed that template and that module. Frietjes (talk) 17:16, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia Newspapers.com outage

For all of those affected by the Wikipedia Newspapers.com outage, just a heads up that a work-around has been found. It requires the use of the Firefox browser, as well as some rather hackey-type stuff (basically, tricking the computer to think that you're already logged in on the proxy site), but I can verify that it does indeed work. See here at the bottom for a blow-by-blow description of what needs to be done to restore a user's access. Ejgreen77 (talk) 06:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1961 Pittsburg State Gorillas football team#Player gallery

Working on the above NAIA national championship season. I have my doubts about the efficacy of the team portraits that we usually use in team articles -- you can't see any faces and one team photo looks about the same as every other team photo. So, in this case, I decided to create a gallery of public domain photos of each notable player taken from the school yearbook. This layout allows us to at least distinguish the faces of the key players. Something to consider for other team articles where public domain yearbook photos are available. Cbl62 (talk) 20:36, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 21:47, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've submitted it at DYK: Template:Did you know nominations/1961 Pittsburg State Gorillas football team: ... that the undefeated 1961 Pittsburg State Gorillas (pictured with UPI trophy) shut out seven opponents, featured four All-Americans and won three national championships? Cbl62 (talk) 11:36, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More colors to delete

Per recent discussion of other list articles using team colors, can someone knowledgeable about the coding get rid of the colors on these pages?

Cbl62 (talk) 04:48, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Empty game summaries added by IP

Would someone please check the edits by 2603:6080:4F00:4700:89A5:B98D:5950:9C6F which were made on 26 August 2024. For example, see 2024 Howard Bison football team#Game summaries which was added by the IP. Are these empty game summaries likely to be expanded? Or should they be bulk reverted? Johnuniq (talk) 07:00, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]