Wikipedia:Peer review/2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl/archive1

2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl

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From a distance, the 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl was merely a matchup of two mediocre 7–5 college football teams, another forgettable bowl game in a sea of 34. Look closer, however, and you'll see both teams have their own unique and interesting story. The South Carolina Gamecocks started their season hot, winning five of six games, including over the No. 4 team in the country, only to collapse down the stretch, losing four of five. They found a measure of redemption in their final regular season game, beating their archrival who had already won a berth in their conference's championship game. Their opponent, the Connecticut Huskies, had already experienced half a difficult season with multiple close losses when, on the night of October 17, everything changed. Coming out of a dance at the UConn student union, star cornerback Jasper Howard was brutally stabbed and murdered, dying in his teammates' arms. The Huskies mourned and suffered through three straight last-second losses, until finally finding victory in a highly emotional, double-overtime victory at Notre Dame that sealed the fate of Charlie Weis. Connecticut won its remaining games, including the last on a last-second field goal in the snow, to secure a bowl bid that had looked doubtful just a few weeks before.

This article is currently a Good article nominee. I am submitting it for peer review in order to seek suggestions for improvement in order for it to reach featured article quality. As I believe it is close to my previous featured article, the 2009 International Bowl, if reviewers here think the article is ready I may bypass the long queue at WP:GAN and go to WP:FAC directly. Any comments or concerns directed at improving the article would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, –Grondemar 03:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: I think you have the basics for a good article here. It's certainly broad in coverage and well-sourced. However, after enjoying the exciting lead, I got quite bogged down in the first three sections, which I think are largely unnecessary. I think it would improve the article to combine the most essential bits of these three sections under one head, perhaps "Regular season", ending with a couple of minimalist sentences about bowl selection. Here are a few other comments.

Heads

• In the "Pregame buildup" section, using the more telegraphic "Connecticut" instead of "Connecticut offense" would eliminate the repetition of "offense" already made clear by the "Offensive matchups" subhead. Ditto for the other three similar subheads that repeat "offense" or "defense".

Lead

• "marked by the loss of five games by a total of fifteen points between them" - I believe that should be "among them" since there were more than two.

• "Pregame coverage focused on the tragic circumstances of the Huskies' season as well as head coaches Randy Edsall of Connecticut and Steve Spurrier of South Carolina." - Maybe "and on" instead of "as well as" to avoid suggesting that the two coaches were also "tragic circumstances".

Team selection

• "the PapaJohns.com Bowl had contracts with the Big East and the SEC that allowed them" - Since "Bowl" is singular, should this be "it" rather than "them"? Ditto for "its" rather than "their" later in the sentence? Ditto for "team" and "its" later in the article or similar constructions such as "Connecticut" and "it" rather than "they".

• "The Big East had a contractual bowl bid since the first PapaJohns.com Bowl in 2006 and had a team play in the game every year." - Should "contractual bowl bid" be clarified somehow? Could this be rewritten as "The Big East had signed an agreement with the PapaJohns.com Bowl in 2006 to have one of its teams play in the bowl every year"?

• "The Big East's contract with the PapaJohns.com Bowl stated that the bowl would share its selection with the International Bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl, following the selections of the bowls with higher priority." - I don't think foreign readers will have any idea what this means. Could it be made more clear how one bowl can "share its selections" with another bowl? And what does "following the selections of the bowls with higher priority" mean?

• Note 2 will likewise mean almost nothing to an outsider to the sport. I wonder if it would improve the article to simply omit these complications, which seem to have little bearing on the central matter at hand, the 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl? Are these details necessary?

• On further reflection, I think it might help improve the article to omit most of the "Team selection" complications. Perhaps just a couple of paragraphs mentioning the essence would be sufficient. I think most readers will not care about the team-selection complications even if they can understand them.

Connecticut

• "The departure of NCAA rushing leader running back Donald Brown" - I'd suggest re-casting this to avoid the long string of adjectives in front of Donald Brown. Maybe: "The departure of NCAA rushing leader Donald Brown, a running back,"

• "UConn opened their" - Shouldn't this be "its" rather than "their"?

• I'm not sure that recapping the entire Connecticut season is germane to the topic. Any team in a bowl game will have played many games in the regular season, but the scoring details of each of these games seems at best remotely related to the bowl game. The murder of Howard is relevant. Connecticut's overall record is relevant, and summary of its strengths and weaknesses in the regular season would be relevant. But all the rest seems unnecessary.

South Carolina

• Ditto for this team. Are the individual game details necessary to an understanding of the bowl game?

• The sections from this point on seem relevant. It shouldn't be hard to reduce the early sections and get right to the heart of the matter.

Aftermath

• The Manual of Style deprecates fancy quotes and recommends using blockquotes instead for quotations of four lines or more. WP:MOS#Block quotations has details.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR; that is where I found this one. I don't usually watch the PR archives or check corrections or changes. If my comments are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 03:05, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for the above suggestions. My apologies for not replying earlier; User:Maclean25 began the GAN review before this peer review was posted. I was trying to get the GAN closed out before addressing these issues.

• I believe I have caught all of the grammatical and formatting issues and fixed them. Thanks for catching them.

• Regarding the headings and article structure, I am reluctant to deviate significantly from the formats of the vast majority of already-featured bowl game articles, such as 2009 Orange Bowl, 2009 International Bowl, and 2000 Sugar Bowl. I cut back the information in the season summaries and moved more information in the team selection section to footnotes, but I'd rather not cut them back as far as you suggest as bowl selection is a major topic in college football in and of itself; bowl projections are made by reliable sources as early as the end of the preceding season. Readers familiar with college football would want to know how the two teams in the game were selected. I've tried in the season summaries to give a feel on how the season flowed for each team, without going into excessive detail.

• Thanks again for your detailed and thoughtful comments. I appreciate your input. –Grondemar 17:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)