Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Carolina–Tennessee football rivalry

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 delete. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 20:55, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

South Carolina–Tennessee football rivalry[edit]

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The South Carolina-Tennessee college football game series is not notable under the general notability guidelines per WP:GNG, for lack of significant coverage -- as a traditional college football rivalry -- in multiple, independent, reliable sources. Instances of mainstream coverage in reliable sources of this purported "rivalry" are trivial, and any significant coverage of this series as a rivalry is only found in blogs and other sources that are not suitable for establishing notability per GNG. Article was previously submitted for proposed deletion per WP:PROD today, but the article creator removed the PROD tag without explanation. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:46, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nomination. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:27, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Despite the fact that one blog calls this "a major SEC East rivalry" (see here), this series doesn't appear to have the characteristics of a traditional rivalry: 1) there is no trophy; 2) there isn't a close geographic proximity (Tennessee and S. Carolina aren't bordering states); 3) there is not a historical parity and competitiveness between the programs (Tennessee won 19 of the first 21 games and has an overall record of 24-7-2 in the series); and 4) there is an absence of significant coverage in multiple, reliable, and independent sources treating the series as a traditional rivalry. The first three factors are not essential, but can be indicators, but the fourth factor, as highlighted by the nominator, is a key element under WP:GNG that is missing. Cbl62 (talk) 21:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep A very famous football rivalry ThisGuyIsGreat (talk) 00:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

{@ThisGuyIsGreat: It would be helpful if you could provide some evidence of this being "a very famous football rivalry," such as links to significant coverage of this series as a rivalry -- and not just passing mentions -- in mainstream national and major regional publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, The Sports News, or stand-alone books about the history of this "rivalry" such as one may easily find for "very famous football rivalries" like Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, Oklahoma-Texas, Florida-Florida State, Notre Dame-Southern Cal, Army-Navy, Clemson-South Carolina, Florida-Georgia, Alabama-Tennessee, Harvard-Yale, etc. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:49, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Alabama, Florida, Vandy, and Kentucky are the only ones of Tennessee's I can see keeping for sure. South Carolina is easily last of the remaining. Cake (talk) 02:19, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cake, you're also forgetting Tennessee's close-fought series with Georgia, and its historical rivalry with Auburn: both are much, much bigger than anything that's evolved in the lopsided series with South Carolina since 1992. Bottom line: unless every conference opponent is a "rival," this ain't a meaningful "rivalry." Most importantly, from a Wikipedia notability viewpoint, there is almost ZERO significant, in-depth coverage of this series as a "rivalry" in independent reliable sources. Which is all that really matters for our present AfD purposes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:51, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I know there are others, and hence the qualifier "for sure." Just commenting on the ones I know; and my perception of any USCe-UT rivalry. For example. I don't know much about the Tech-Tennessee rivalry, but given the likes of Bobby Dodd, it seems more plausible than the Gamecocks. I concur with your bottom line. Cake (talk) 11:00, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete "Winsipedia" ??? Need we go further? Try another wiki oh wait, they did! No opinion on the suitability of the article for Winsipedia.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep See
{http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/steve-spurrier-has-changed-the-south-carolina-tennessee-rivalry/}}
{http://www.goupstate.com/article/20141031/ARTICLES/141039867}

ThisGuyIsGreat (talk)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by CollegeRivalry (talk • contribs) 17:24, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since both of those links are broken, I still see no reason to change position.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:43, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Paul, the first link is from a Southern college football fan site called "Saturday Down South." Here's an archived link from the Wayback Machine: [1]. As you can see, the blog uses the word "rivalry" exactly once, to poo-poo the existence of a USC-UT rivalry before Spurrier's arrival in Columbia. It is not a significant discussion of the history, tradition and impact of the series as a rivalry. And, in any case, we do not treat blog sites and fan sites as reliable sources for the purposes of determining notability. And, yes, I found this blog post when doing the WP:BEFORE due diligence.

The second link above is not broken, but is mis-coded. Here's the working link: [2]. It's an October 2014 online sports column from GoUpstate.com, the website of the Spartanburg Herald Journal. The article uses the word "rivalry" twice and discusses the Gamecocks' four biggest games of 2014: Clemson, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee. There is little or no discussion of the history, tradition and impact of these four series as rivalries. Ask a Florida or Tennessee fan, player or coach whether South Carolina is a traditional "rival" of Florida or Tennessee and you will get blank stares. But this is what these AfD rivalry discussions have boiled down to: some AfD participants are willing to accept two local sources that mention the word "rivalry" -- with no significant discussion of the history, tradition and impact of the purported "rivalry" -- and suddenly we have another Wikipedia "rivalry" article with no meaningful content because we have editors who feel slighted if their favorite CFB program doesn't have 5 or 6 rivalry articles. It's goofy. We are so far removed from the truly noteworthy traditional CFB rivalries like Michigan-Ohio State, Alabama-Auburn, Notre Dame-Southern Cal, Oklahoma-Texas, Florida-Georgia, Army-Navy, Clemson-South Carolina, etc., that it's laughable. We should either adopt a specific notability and suitability guideline for CFB rivalries, or we should just give up and accept that every one of 1400+ CFB game series (120x120) is a "rivalry" because it's been played more than once and we can find two local sources that use the word "rivalry" in reference to any given series. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:59, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Carolina-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Tennessee-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete for lack of significant coverage in independent reliable sources. As the nominator said, substantial coverage of this series as a rivalry is only found in blogs and other sources. The independent reliable sources have only trival mentions. This includes the sources cited by CollegeRivalry above. --Bejnar (talk) 05:11, 8 October 2015 (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.