Talk:Skyline Conference (1938–1962)

Renaming "MSC" football standings templates and football season categories

The "Mountain States Conference" was not commonly known by that name after 1948, yet all of the standings templates and yearly season categories use the "MSC"/"Mountain States Conference" naming convention. I propose fixing the years after 1948 based on common usage data supplied below.

1949: In 1949, the conference was commonly known as the "Skyline Six Conference". Evidence of common usage is drawn from Newspapers.com. During the 1949 football season (September to November 1949), a search of Newspapers.com reveals the following "hit" counts:

• "Skyline Six Conference" - 263 hits
• "Skyline Conference" - 58 hits
• "Mountain States Conference" - 37 hits

1950: By 1950, expansion was on the horizon (Montana and New Mexico were added in 1951), and common usage began to shift in favor of the generic "Skyline Conference" name. Thus, during the 1950 football season (September to November 1950), a search of Newspapers.com reveals the following "hit" counts:

• "Skyline Conference" - 360 hits
• "Skyline Six Conference" - 186 hits
• "Mountain States Conference" - 53 hits
• "Skyline Eight Conference" - 28 hits

1951-1956: From 1951 to 1956, use of the number "6" or "8" fell out of usage, and the common usage overwhelmingly favored "Skyline Conference" as shown in the chart below:

Year	Skyline Conference	Mountain States Conference
1951	1,424 hits	37 hits
1952	1,756 hits	20 hits
1953	1,872 hits	146 hits
1954	1,952 hits	60 hits
1955	2,164 hits	37 hits
1956	2,144 hits	59 hits
1957	2,149 hits	4 hits
1958	2,433 hits	5 hits
1959	2,457 hits	26 hits
1960	2,758 hits	19 hits
1961	2,828 hits	58 hits

Based on this clear common usage, the standings templates should be moved/renamed as follows: "1949 MSC football standings" --> "1949 Skyline Six football standings", and "1950-61 MSC football standings" --> "1950-61 Skyline football standings". And the categories should be renamed in like fashion as "Category:1949 Skyline Six Conference football season" and "Category:1950-61 Skyline Conference football seasons". What do others think? Cbl62 (talk) 15:36, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Makes sense. Should the main article Mountain States Conference be renamed to "Skyline Conference" since that was its final common name before dissolution? Jweiss11 (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

There's already a page for the more recent Skyline Conference, which is in NY. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 00:02, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

@UW Dawgs: Are you ok with the proposed moves? Cbl62 (talk) 21:20, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

I didn't look at the particulars, but have no doubt in your metrics. It's the same as seen in Category:Big Eight Conference football standings templates or Category:Pac-12 Conference football standings templates. Mountain States Conference and Category:Mountain States Conference football standings templates might be another for cleanup. UW Dawgs (talk) 23:34, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

• Given the lack of opposition after more than two weeks of notice at the college football project talk page, I am going to move forward with the proposed move. Cbl62 (talk) 20:10, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

@Cbl62: no objection to these moves in principle, but we need a do to a few more things as well. First, if "Skyline Conference" was the final name of this conference and the name for which is was known for the longest time, this article needs to be renamed accordingly. Since Skyline Conference is already in use for the current NCAA Division III conference, I think we need to rename this article to Skyline Conference (1938–1962). Perhaps the D3 conference gets a parenthetical disambiguator as well and Skyline Conference becomes a disambiguation page? Also, the lead of this article suggests that "Skyline Conference" or "Skyline Six" came into use in 1947. The intro notes at Category:Mountain States Conference football standings templates suggest the use of "Skyline Conference" from 1947 to 1950 and "Skyline Eight Conference" from 1950 on. We need to get this all synced up. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:22, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to changing the conference article name. As pushing the name change to 1947, my preliminary research suggested that the common usage became prevalent in 1949 with Skyline Six and then Skyline in 1950. If you want to do the research and it shows a different common usage in 1947 and 1948, let me know and I'll support the move. Cbl62 (talk) 00:43, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

@Cbl62:, I did some more searching of terms on Newspapers.com. This is what I found:

Year	"Skyline Conference"	"Skyline Six"	"Skyline Eight"	"Mountain States Conference"	"Big Seven Conference"
1938	2	0	2	157	1338
1939	1	0	0	96	1368
1940	0	0	9	38	2096
1941	0	2	0	25	1782
1942	1	5	0	41	1621
1943	1	1	0	197	371
1944	2	4	0	91	494
1945	0	1	0	19	994
1946	1	9	0	20	1478
1947	9	129	0	98	1526
1948	69	1629	0	481
1949	248	3033	0	171
1950	881	4567	276	320
1951	4037	2561	836	148
1952	4905	124	524	253
1953	5562	133	244	240
1954	6017	32	353	130
1955	7024	59	95	305
1956	5639	16	47	209
1957	6013	0	36	19
1958	6417	4	113	23
1959	6759	1	25	47
1960	8790	8	73	34
1961	8083	8	27	141
1962	4353	0	3	26

The only change from what you determined above seems to be 1950. It appears that "Skyline Six" was still more common than "Skyline Conference" in 1950. The other thing to note is that "Mountain States Conference" doesn't seem have ever been used much. From 1938 to 1947, "Big Seven Conference" appears to be much more common. However, I think we want to keep "Mountain States Conference" for those years to avoid confusion with another major conference of the era. In 1948, Colorado left the Mountain States Conference and joined the "Big Six Conference", which became the "Big Seven Conference" and eventually the Big Eight Conference. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• Based on 1948 data, I agree we should go with Skyline Six. But I am not convinced about 1950. To compare apples to apples, it seems more faithful to compare "Skyline Six Conference" to "Skyline Conference". Using that methodology (and looking at the football season months from September to November 1950), "Skyline Conference" gets twice as many hits (360) as "Skyline Six Conference" (186). Cbl62 (talk) 05:07, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I do get your point, though. Writers appear to have referenced "Skyline Six" WAY more commonly (1,353 hits during the 1947 football season) than any other variation. Mabye "Skyline Six" is the right pick for the 1950 template and category. Cbl62 (talk) 05:20, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• The data you compiled for 1938-1947 really throws a wrench into the works. It appears "Mountain States Conference" was never in common usage. Those years should probably be modified as well, but at least for now we've got consensus on all of the later years from 1948 to 1961 with the exception of one (1950). . . . Feel free to chime in at Rocky Mountain Conference as well. Cbl62 (talk) 05:12, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

The source at External Links says the official name of the conference was "Mountain States Athletic Conference". So perhaps the opening sentence should read "The Skyline Conference, officially named the Mountain States Athletic Conference, ..." Funny that it was never much called that, but the official name should be retained. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 05:31, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Per above table, there are two areas in need of further dicussion and possible cleanup.

1) As a global consistency fix, (almost) everything within Category:Mountain States Conference seems in need of renaming as Category:Skyline Conference (1938–1962).

2) Narrowly within the 1938~1947 era per the above table/common name, there is another renaming effort re swapping "MSC" with "Skyline" or "Big Seven" in standings templates. See Category:Mountain States Conference football standings templates where we have:

• Template:1938 MSC football standings

...

• Template:1947 MSC football standings
• Template:1948 Skyline Six Conference football standings
• Template:1949 Skyline Six Conference football standings
• Template:1950 Skyline Conference football standings

...

• Template:1961 Skyline Conference football standings

This work would include

1. Rename/move templates from "1938~1947 MSC football standings" to "1938~1947 'Skyline' or 'Big Seven' football standings"
2. Update the 1938~1947 "YYYY team articles" (Ex 1938 BYU Cougars football team) from stating "MSC" to state "Skyline" or "Big Seven"
3. Update the seven teams' "List of TEAM NICK football seasons" articles (Ex List of Utah State Aggies football seasons, List of BYU Cougars football seasons) from stating "Mountain States" to state "Skyline" or "Big Seven".
4. Change Big Seven Conference from the current redirect of Big Eight Conference, to a new DAB with two links of (already partially done, open to revert)
   1. Big Eight Conference
   2. Skyline Conference (1938–1962)
5. More / less?

UW Dawgs (talk) 22:33, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

So, the conversion of the Big Seven Conference Page to a DAB page caught me by surprise a little when link conversions started showing up on my watch list. I’m not hard over about it, but I think “Big Seven Conference” was the WP:COMMONNAME for the later Big 8 over and above the Mountain States claim (so I guess I’m saying I think that Big Seven Conference should remain a redirect for the Big 8). I own a lot of period basketball guides from the time in question, and while the 1938-39 guide does show the Rocky Mountain as the “Big Seven” (the later Big 8 is the “Big Six Conference”), But when I look at the 1948-49 guide, the Big Seven Conference refers to what is later the Big 8 and the “other” conference is covered under the header “Mountain States “Skyline Six” Athletic Conference” with members BYU, Wyoming, Denver, Utah, Utah State and Colorado A&M. Feels like the later Big 8 staked claim on “Big Seven” after being known as “Big Six.” I haven’t had time to check all the guides in between (I have most but not all). Rikster2 (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

related discussion at Big Eight Conference football standings templates

There is a related thread at Category talk:Big Eight Conference football standings templates#Category talk:Big Eight Conference football standings templates

It relates to the above section re "Big Seven" content, but the two topics seem severable. Hence this notice and the new thread. UW Dawgs (talk) 02:19, 1 February 2019 (UTC)