Talk:2007 Trinity vs. Millsaps football game

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A fact from 2007 Trinity vs. Millsaps football game appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 November 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that in 2007, the Trinity Tigers threw 15 backward passes in 62 seconds to defeat the Millsaps Majors with the longest play in college football history?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/November.

Wikipedia

Another good source

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

For those working on this article: Pat Forde did a good write-up, with quotes from players in his weekly ESPN column here. --Bobak 21:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's a good write up, but people contributing to the article need to learn the distinction between a column and a report. This is a column. When Forde writes, "It has to be the longest play in college football history," this should not be transliterated into "ESPN reports that this is the longest play in college football history." No one has reported that so far. Whether or not it is the longest play in college football history is entirely unverifiable, since records were not kept of the length of plays in its early days. Pat Forde is simply speculating, as should be clear from the language he uses. 24.199.116.243 16:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I disagree. He is a sports analyst and he is making a statement based upon his knowledge of the sport. It is clearly not "pure speculation". It is very common usage to state "ESPN said..." or "the San Antonio Express-News reported..."

Also, it is not just one source that claims this. The article contains 4 different media sources either calling it the longest play or saying that it is probably the longest play. No source claims it is NOT the longest play in college football history so it is an uncontroversial claim. Johntex\^talk 02:21, 4 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

"Longest Play..." or "Mississippi Miracle"?

Latest comment: 17 years ago16 comments3 people in discussion

I've never heard this play being called the "Longest Play in College Football History", so why are we naming this like that then? Besides, there is no accurate measure to say for sure if it was or was not the "longest play". Moreover, "longest play" may not even refer to time, instead it may refer to how many yards the play covered, and there have been PLENTY of plays that went longer than the 61 yards here. The "longest play" title is way too misleading in this regard, so I think we should refer this as the "Mississippi Miracle", as it was refered to by Trinity University itself [1], the San Antonio Express-News [2], as well as the Associated Press [3]. I say we should defer to the Mississippi Miracle title for this article, as it is less misleading than the current one. Anyone esle agree? Dknights411 20:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's in one of the ESPN links that the reporter calls the 62 second length the "longest". I see both sides, and do not have an opinion strongly myself for which title should stick long term. But in the short term, the article is in line to go up on the DYK section of the main page in the next update, and under the "Longest Play" label. At least until it leaves the front page, could we please hold off on this debate and leave the title to match the DYK entry? After that we can resume the debate, and I would really prefer that the debate occur here, not on the page in edit summaries and reverts. Anyway, since DYK updates every 6 hours or so, we can hope that it will be off of the main page by sometime mid-day tomorrow. - TexasAndroid 05:17, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

We should keep the current name for several reasons:

The "Longest play in college football history" is a more descriptive term. "Mississippi Miracle" could refer to anything.
The "Longest play in college football history" is a factual statement. Several different media outlets have either said it "is the longest play", "must be the longest play", or "probably is the longest play". No one has offered any evidence or even any proposed play that might be longer.
"Mississippi Miracle" has been used to describe the game, but so has "Lateralpalooza" - there is no compelling reason to choose one over the other. For that matter, "Longest play in college football history" has also been used by the media, as explained above.

Johntex\^talk 05:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

"Longest Play" could refer to number of yards fromn scrimmage (at 61 yards, this play was FAR from the longest in history), and this title could infer the former conclusion. In this respect, it is a very misleading title. Moreover, there isn't a concrete record about how long a play lasts in football, so all these "longest play" claims are not 100% certain. What about plays 50 years ago? What if one of those lasted longer? To say that this was THE longest play in college football history is REALLY stretching it IMHO. I understand your issue about no concrete name for this, but at least change the "longest play..." heading. That title is VERY misleading in its own right, even more so than "Mississippi Miracle". Dknights411 05:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

We could consider a synonym or qualifier for "longest". For instance, we could say "Most time consuming play in college football history" or "Longest lasting play in college football history" or even "Longest (time) play in college football history".
However, I don't think any qualifier is needed. Unfortunately, the English language features several words that have two or more meanings. "Longest" can be a measure of "distance" or "time". It is not "misleading" to use it in reference to either of these measurements. The introduction of the article makes very clear which meaning is being used.
As to it being THE longest play in college football history; it is not a stretch at all. College football does not pre-date recorded history. If a play like that had happened 100 years ago it would still have been written about and talked about. One could theorize it is possible that ESPN and the other cited media sources might not know about such a play happening before, but this is not likely. They are the experts in keeping track of these sorts of things. Occam's razor says to take the simplest hypothesis over a more complicated hypothesis. The simplest (and most likely) version of events is that such a play has never happened before.
Again, we have multiple references calling it the longest play and absolutely none that claim it was not. That is plenty certain enough. If anyone citable reference comes forward to claim that this is not the longest play, then that would be something we should pay attention to.
In the meantime, we have the article under the best possible title. Johntex\^talk 06:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry Johntex, but I don't see your reasoning here. Why don't we rename "The Play" as "The kickoff return with the band on the field", or the "Music City Miracle" as "The lateral that won the game for Tennessee"? These are more descriptive than the predecessors, right? My point is that this article does NOT have the best possible title. You don't always have to default to the "most descriptive title". It makes the article that much harder to follow as a reader, especially if your a sports fan. Anyway, reasoning or not, the current heading can still confuse the reader, simply because of that multiple meaning issue. And confusion is something I try to avoid here on Wikipedia. I'm just saying we should use a heading that would eliminate this confusuion, which is why I'm advocating or "Mississippi Miracle". I've already the outlets who have called it that, and I feel at this stage, it is the safest possible heading for this article. Moreover, why do we want to emphasize the longest play aspect anyway? As a Trinity fan, the "Longest Play..." heading takes away from the uniquness and overall impact the play had on that game. A "Longest play..." could have happened anytime during the game. What that heading doesn't take into account is the miraculous aspect of the finish, which in my own opinion, is millions times more important than any "longest play" claims. The "Mississippi Miracle" heading gives the play an unofficial name that won't confuse the reader, as it denotes something crazy happened in the football game anyway (and we can change Mississippi Miracle to something else once an established name arises). The longest play claim can be mentioned in the first paragraph of the article, but it doesn't belong in the title. Dknights411 16:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

The article has now come and gone from DYK. A little bit of a let-down that it ended up being up there during the dead of night, but oh well. Anyway, my specific reasons for asking that it remain at "Longest Play" are now expired with it's passing from DYK. I do ask that you both try to work this out here first instead of resuming reverting, but my part in the situation is mostly done, as I still have no strong opinions over which title should remain going forward. - TexasAndroid 14:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Dknights411, I still disagree. The title "Mississippi Miracle" is a dis-service to the reader because it tells them nothing about the play, or even that it refers to a play. Your references to other Wikipedia articles are not compelling to me.

"The Play" is a well-established name. "Mississippi Miracle" is not.

It has not stood the test of time.
It is not even the only nickname in use contemporaneously. You mention the references to "Mississippi Miracle" but you fail to mention all the sources calling this the "longest play" or referring to it as "Lateralpalooza".

2.I have no strong opinion about "Music City Miracle" - it is possible that article should be renamed.

Since their is no one-name for this play that has stood the test of time, our title should be something descriptive. As I mention above, I could possibly see changes to the description if you want to clarify that we are talking about time, not distance. We could even mention the number of laterals or the fact that the play won the game. Something like "Longest play features 15 laterals", etc.

However, "Mississippi Miracle" remains an extremely poor choice for all the reasons outlined above. Johntex\^talk 17:17, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think we are at an impass here. Although I would prefer something along the lines of "The 15-lateral miracle" or something like that as a compromise. I just think that the "Longest Play..." title is extremly confusing overall and should be changed. Dknights411 18:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I posted a request for more opinions. Let's see what other people have to say. Best, Johntex\^talk 18:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

WP:3O is another good place to go to seek additional input. - TexasAndroid 18:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Besides the question of being informative to the readers, I am also concerned that if we use "Mississippi Miracle" or "Lateralpalooza" that we might actually be causing one of the nicknames to stick. I don't think it should be Wikipedia's mission to propagate the nickname. Johntex\^talk 01:20, 6 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

(reindent) If that's you biggest concern, then maybe we can use "Mississippi Miracle" with an asterix that denotes it as an unofficial name. But if we want to use a "descriptive", than something like "the 15 lateral miracle/play", or something to that effect. What about that? Dknights411 01:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'd be OK with "the 15 lateral play" or "the 15 lateral play that won the game". I've listed several other suggested alternates (E.g. "longest (time) play in college football history") above. I don't think an encyclopedia needs to be using the word "miracle" unless it is an exact quote or well defined-saying. Johntex\^talk 15:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I actually like calling it simple "The 15 lateral play" for now. It's simple, yet descriptive all at once. I think we should go with that. Dknights411 15:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

OK, it seems like we can both live with that, so let's make that change for now. If other people come to contribute we can change it again based on the further discussion. Thanks for your help in reaching a solution. Best, Johntex\^talk 18:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)Reply