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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2000 Sugar Bowl

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 19:41, 15 November 2008 [1].

2000 Sugar Bowl edit

Nominator(s): JKBrooks85 (talk)

Hello all. 2000 Sugar Bowl is another in a series of college football bowl game articles that I have created. Similar featured articles can be seen at 2008 Orange Bowl and 2005 Sugar Bowl. This article has been through the Good Article vetting process and received an informal peer review by a handful of editors in Wikiproject College Football. Its biggest drawback is a lack of photos, but I don't feel this is an overly large problem. The external links checker has turned up no problems, but any comments, concerns, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and I will address them as soon as possible. Thanks for taking the time to look at this article, and have a great day! JKBrooks85 (talk) 12:25, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Tentative support—The standard of writing is pleasing; here's a skilled editor. I do hope you're helping to raise the standard of US sports writing here more generally. However, I was still able to pick out things that could be improved just in the lead, as an example of the whole text. Can you find someone with fresh eyes to go through it during the nomination period?
  • Of course. I'm contacting editors who were involved in previous college football FACs, and I have high hopes that they'll participate in this one as well.
  • Are you aware that date autoformatting is now deprecated at MOSNUM? I've removed it. Many US writers would disagree with the comma after the year in a full date, although some like it. To me, it's an unnecessary interruption to the flow. There are other commas that could go, too, since the writing is quite dense with them. For example, after "Big East Conference".
  • Thanks for the date catch. The portion of the article you removed the links from was written prior to the rule change. I'm aware that you were a driving force behind that rule change, and I'd like to say thanks for removing that bit of drudgery.
  • "School history"; many English-speakers think of "school" not as college, but as high school or grade school.
  • Changed to "program history."
  • Watch those close repetitions: "highest ... high ... high.
  • Rewritten during trim.
  • I was about to say that "kicked off" and "fumble" were overlinking, but no, they're good, since the destination articles are quite specific and technically focused on American football.
  • I understand that a lot of these college football articles can be somewhat technical, so I try to err in the direction of putting more wikilinks than are needed. I do make an attempt to avoid linking the same thing twice in the same section, however, so if you see any of those, please let me know.
  • "This allowed Florida State to score first, then take advantage of ..."—smoother as "... first and take ...". "Then" is often redundant in sequential narrative.
  • Rewritten during trim.
  • I was a little uneasy with the loss of the sense of overview in the lead, with all of the vivid, cinematic detial provided in the third para. Can it be vastly trimmed or moved, and perhaps something of more broad significance added in its place (or not, leaving just a shorter lead)?

Tony (talk) 14:34, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've trimmed that third paragraph slightly, removing information about how the teams scored and keeping more of a basic scoring summary. That also addressed some of your other concerns about the lede. JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quick Comment - many of the references are to the teams websites or the BCS website. While not a big deal, it might be nice if there were more third party discussion type references. Also, something of the game's place in the broader recent history of college football, and/or the two teams in particular. Otherwise, nice read. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the compliment, Rocks. I also appreciate the suggestion. I've added a "Subsequent seasons" subsection to the Post-game effects section that covers the matchups that have happened since the Sugar Bowl. It's kind of appropriate, because this Saturday is just the fourth matchup between the two teams since the Sugar Bowl back in 2000. As to the item about potentially too many items from the schools' Web sites, let me draw your attention to the author information on many of those cites. In many cases, the schools are reprinting information originally published by the Associated Press or another third-party source such as the NCAA. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments -

  • Just a quick note to say that a website (like BCSfootball.com) isn't strictly speaking the "publisher" for the site. In this example, the publisher would be the Bowl Championship Series. It would be nice if the correct publishers were given instead of the website urls in the references. Also make sure you spell out the lesser known abbreviations in the references.
  • Fixed, for the most part.
  • Per the MOS, link titles in the references shouldn't be in all capitals.
  • Fixed.
  • Newspaper titles are usually in italics.
  • Fixed.
  • Why does ref 53 (Weiss, Dick) have a last access date when there is no weblink in the reference?
  • Because I'm a moron and forgot the link.
  • I also note the heavy reliance on team websites for the information and point this out for other reviewers to watch out for unintentional bias creeping in.
  • As I mentioned above, the Florida State links and many of the Virginia Tech ones are reprints of Associated Press and other reports. The authors listed for those are AP writers or other members of the media. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:16, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:26, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support - No need to contact me. I'm here already for my typical review.

  • Regarding the pictures, you could always use ones of players involved in the game. I noticed that there weren't any good photos of Michael Vick, and that's a tough brerak. But I'm sure something can be thought of to illustrate this.
  • Thanks for the suggestion! I managed to dig up a few photos, but I'll keep looking. IIRC, Vick participated in one of those USO tours overseas, or there might be a U.S. government photo of him because of his trial. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:16, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The 2000 Sugar Bowl, was the ..." What's the purpose of the comma.
  • Illustrating my stupidity and ability to use comma splices, of course. :)
  • "the team's second national championship in program history." I'd suggest changing "program" to "its" because the former seems repetitive when combined with team.
  • Good idea.
  • Extra bracket in the third paragraph.
  • I don't see it, but I might've removed it when I trimmed up the lead.
  • Fourth paragraph: Peter Warrick's first name would be helpful, as I don't see it in the first three paras.
  • Good catch.
  • Florida State: "The victory was FSU head coach Bobby Bowden's 300th win as a coach..." Again, some repetition with two coaches. I know what this is trying to say, but I just think it can be worded clearer.
  • Fixed.
  • Virginia Tech: Italics for Sports Illustrated.
  • Did you mean the wikilinked ones or the ones in the references? I italicised the appearance where it wasn't wikilinked, and added italics for the ones in references.
  • I mean the wikilinked one in the text, where the magazine predicts that VT will contend for the Big East title. Giants2008 (17-14) 03:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Florida State offense: "including 33 of his past 38 kicks less than 50 yards." How about "of less than 50 yards"?
  • Fixed.
  • Before I stop, I should touch on the references. Things like game reports and general news should still be avaliable online through Sports Illustrated, USA Today or ESPN. If you'd like, I can search on Google News to remove some of the school site links. While I'm on the subject, ref 34 is the one in caps that Ealdgyth was talking about.
  • I'd appreciate any help you can give. The game reports are surprisingly difficult to find. ESPN doesn't make any game prior to 2002 easily accessible, and I didn't have much luck looking for other stuff. As I stated above, however, the FSU site just reprinted AP reports, so those, at least, are perfectly fine. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:16, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was not happy when I started reading the article, but cheered up when I dug further into it. I'll be back later to look at the game, but I'd like to make a simple cleanup pass beforehand. Giants2008 (17-14) 02:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Before I begin reviewing the game recap, I should declare that I changed 18 primary sources to third-party references. I still count 20 references from the Florida State and Virginia Tech sites, but print sources should be avaliable for most of the rest, if necessary. I did change a couple things, but nothing major.
Thank you for those fixes.
  • In Virginia Tech's fourth-down fumble in the first quarter, there are two "pick up the first down" uses that are quite repetitive to me.
  • Replaced one usage.
  • If I remember right, a Seminole receiver is referred to as Don Dugans and Ron Dugans at various times in the text.
  • Good catch. That's a misspelling on my part.
  • Third quarter: "The play (two-point conversion attempt)... failed. Despite that failure..." Can a word other than failed or failure be found for one of these? How about unsuccessful for the former?
  • Fixed.
  • "As Winke completed a five-yard throw." I think we both missed that one.
  • Oh, he just winked a lot, that's all. :) Fixed.
  • "Unlike Virginia Tech's failures, the Seminoles were successful in a pass to Warrick" I don't like this because it reads like the Hokies had Warrick on their team too.
  • Fixed.
  • One more thing from the Game Summary that I almost forgot: "79,280 people attended the game in person" It's not encouraged to have numbers lead off a sentence like this.
  • Yeah, and I don't really want to spell it out, so I just added a prepositional phrase before it.
That's it from me. Great read overall, at least from a college football fan's perspective. Giants2008 (17-14) 22:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you very much for all your help, particularly with the citations. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:39, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Excellent readability, strongly written and nicely sourced. Another great Hokies article by JK. --Geologik (talk) 23:16, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support I was quite impressed with the quality of this article. I would prefer it to have more images, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to fail it. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:40, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for checking those images. I'm not that familiar with image procedure. I don't recall your question coming up before, which is probably why we don't have a year-specific logo for the 2005 game. I'll see if I can dig one up. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Note: the dab finder in the tool box indicates numerous links in the article needing disambiguation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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