Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2018 Saint John's Johnnies football team

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

The result was keep. RL0919 (talk) 06:12, 3 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2018 Saint John's Johnnies football team[edit]

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2018 Saint John's Johnnies football team (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Came across this at NPP and am not sure it's significant enough for a standalone article per WP:NSEASONS, so decided to bring it to AfD (to be clear, my current position is delete.) It's a - I think it's a fourth tier amateur university season, and everything I can find in a WP:BEFORE search is local. SportingFlyer T·C 02:48, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. SportingFlyer T·C 02:48, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Minnesota-related deletion discussions. SportingFlyer T·C 02:48, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Saint John's is a small college (total undergraduate enrollment of 1,782 students) that competes at the fourth or fifth tier of college football: Power Five conferences > the rest of Div I FBS > Div I FCS > Div II > Div III. I support the notability of season articles for Division I (FBS and FCS) programs, but have reservations about the notability of season articles for very small programs like this, except in rare cases like a Division III championship team. For this reason, I lean to "delete". That said, I am open to being persuaded and therefore posted a note about this AfD at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2018 Saint John's Johnnies football team. Cbl62 (talk) 04:03, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:28, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Saint John's Johnnies football. Not notable as others have said but WP:NSEASONS suggests a redirect is appropriate. Smartyllama (talk) 17:09, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: According to our article, the team has won two Division III championships (although not in 2018), and its long-time coach John Gagliardi (now deceased) has an article. Whether season articles should stand alone (cf. 2007 Mount Union Purple Raiders football team) or be part of a larger article seems to be an open question. I don't know if a general article on the a lends itself to a season-by-season tabulation of game data (of if the data are easily accessed elsewhere), but in any event this article does no harm. Kablammo (talk) 00:03, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
2007 Mount Union Purple Raiders football team won the Division III national championship. A Division III national championship team would likely merit a stand-alone article. Likewise, the two seasons (1976 and 2003) you reference in which Saint John's won national championships. 2018 was not a national championship season for Saint John's. Cbl62 (talk) 00:43, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I said that St. John's did not win in 2018. As for the 2007 champion, please reread the Mount Union article, and look at 2007 NCAA Division III football season.  Kablammo (talk) 02:20, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct. 2007 Mount Union lost in the championship game. 2018 Saint John's, on the other hand, didn't even make it to the championship game. In any event, the larger point is that we need to decide whether the 450 Division III programs, many smaller than the typical urban high school, should have stand-alone articles for each of 100+ individual seasons -- opening the floodgates to perhaps 45,000 articles (450 schools x 100 seasons = 45,000 season articles). My inclination remains "no", that Division III programs only warrant an article in extraordinary cases like a national championship. Cbl62 (talk) 03:00, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or merge I like the enthusiasm of the creator. Typically articles like these for Div III programs are merged to a season article for the conference with that season or cut completely. It just makes a little more sense based on the coverage that tends to occur at that level. We do have a few season and even game articles for some play at DivIII and similar, and perhaps this team could be an exception. Would listen to more and would like to see more coverage if possible.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changed to Keep new sourcing makes it stub-worthy, I have no problem.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:57, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @Cbl62: how does the notability of this 2018 Saint John's team compare to that of say, 1941 Detroit Tech Dynamics football team? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:00, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Jweiss11: I'm not sure the point you are trying to make, and I remain open to reconsidering if more coverage is presented, but to answer your question, here are some distinctions: (i) the 1941 Detroit Tech was not a fourth-tier program (there were no division at that time); (ii) the 1941 Detroit Tech team played games against opponents (e.g., Dayton and Toledo) that now complete in Division I as well as an elite Canadian program (Western Ontario) -- in contrast Saint John's only played other Div III opponents; (iii) the Detroit Tech team received significant coverage in multiple, reliable sources (many cited in the article) such that its passage of WP:GNG is clear -- in contrast, the coverage cited in the Saint John's article is quite thin even though the season was played in the internet era; and (iv) the 1941 Detroit Tech team was coached by Julius Goldman, an important figure in the history of college athletics (and a bio article that warrants significant expansion). Do you really think we should have season articles on non-championship Div III teams? When we have not yet even come close to completing season articles for Division I programs? Cbl62 (talk) 11:45, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Saint John's football program appears to get regular coverage in the Star Tribune and coverage in other reliable sources. Sourcing for this article could easily be made as solid the 1941 Detroit Tech article. How about 1992 Carleton Knights football team, another article you created? Achievements for the 1992 Carleton team are on par with 2018 Saint John's. What makes 1992 Carleton more worthy of an article than the 2018 Saint John's? You also created 1941 DePauw Tigers football team. Do the DePauw Tigers seasons stop being worthy of stand-alone articles once college football gets split into tiers, in 1956 or furthermore in 1973? My point here is to move us toward some consistent general standards. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:47, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I support a move toward more consistent general standards for which CFB seasons warrant stand-alone articles and believe that a higher standard should be applied to Division III season articles (including 1992 Carleton). What do you suggest? For example, do you support season articles for Division III non-championship seasons? What about NAIA? Cbl62 (talk) 17:02, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, other recent Division III season article AfDs: 2017 Wisconsin-Whitewater (closed as merge); 2008 Buffalo (closed as delete); 2008 St. Norbert (closed as delete); 2012 Chicago (closed as delete). Cbl62 (talk) 00:26, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The major issue for season articles in their entirety, and regardless of sport - many of them just regurgitate statistical information from one or two sources. Many season articles are exceptionally low quality. This article includes three sources, including two game recaps and a primary source. I'd propose that we use an WP:AUD argument and require national coverage of any DIII season in order to show notability - this likely would reduce it to championship-winning seasons and seasons that are otherwise notable for some extraordinary reason, and would probably have to be considered at a policy page, but that's my thoughts at the moment. SportingFlyer T·C 01:47, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Cbl62, yes, can we have discussion about those consistent general standards at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football? In the meantime, can we stop cherry-picking the AfDs? Because a bunch of one-off AFDs is a surefire way to get inconsistent results. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:00, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I encourage the discussion. Would help if you gave some idea of what you propose for Division II, III and NAIA seasons. As for the two add'l AfDs (Olivet and UChicago), I'm not sure what you mean by "cherry picking" -- these are appear to be clear deletes, and opening the AfDs helps bring focus to the discussion. Cbl62 (talk) 02:27, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Before making any more AfDs of this sort, it you would help if you could propose some sort of systemic criteria for sub-DI team seasons, including how we deal them we pass the NCAA tiering in 1956 and 1973. None of the articles you have proposed for deletion strike me as any more of a "clear delete" than 1941 DePauw Tigers football team, an article you created several weeks ago. 2018 Saint John's Johnnies football team, a conference champ that went to the D3 playoffs, seems more notable than 1941 DePauw, a 6–2 team with no titles that played Butler and Louisville, DI teams now, but not exactly top flight programs at the time. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:46, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've given my view - D3 seasons limited to championships or something extraordinary. (1941 had no D3.) What is your view? You keep avoiding the question which I've posed to you several times. Cbl62 (talk) 03:13, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, the Depauw article, while a bit light on prose for my taste, is properly cited throughout with a number of different newspapers featuring. SportingFlyer T·C 03:25, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Cbl62, I honestly don't know for sure. I'd default to including it all by default, as that's what is suggested by the sub-DI navbox development at Category:American college football team navigational boxes. But am open to endorsing some coherent and consistent limitation, which I have not yet heard. So every DePauw season from 1884 to 1972 is notable, and then in 1973 DePauw season becomes non-notable, because now they are Division 3? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:45, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand my position which can be summed up in four parts: 1) Season articles for the era before divisions were formed should remain governed by WP:GNG. I have never said that all such seasons are notable: some seasons will pass, others will not. 2) But the development of multiple divisions provides a clear framework for assessing notability from that point forward, and when you get to the third and fourth tiers, there is an established framework that we can and should work with. 3) There are 450 D3 schools, 251 NAIA schools, and 314 D2 schools, opening the door to articles on all such seasons (roughly 50,000) would be a gi-normous mistake, and 4) there is a good reason to limit the third and fourth tiers to exceptional cases (I suggested national championship seasons, but others might advocate for dropping the bar a bit to include teams making the playoffs or teams winning a conference championship). Cbl62 (talk) 05:23, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
SportingFlyer, lack of sourcing in an article is not on its face a reason to delete. It's a reason to attempt to find sourcing. I just easily found three sources from three different newspapers in three different states about the 2018 Saint John's Johnnies football team and added them to the article. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:05, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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