Is Home Field really an Advantage/Look Inside/You Decide

[BTHOtu]

Kyle Field was feared...back in the 90's

 

[Deep Creek]

More Off Season Topics to further our knowledge/discussion of College Football. (or something to that effect)

So I started thinking what the best way to determine if the Home Field Advantage vs Away Games is a real thing or not.

Most people accept that if everything is equal, then the Home Team is a Field Goal Favorite/3pt Favorite.
I think this is universally accepted but thought there should be some numbers to back it up, and where the fuck does that come from.

Again, I pulled these numbers manually, and some mistakes may exist, but a pattern developed the more I looked at it. I didn't pull a lot of teams as I was doing this manually and a pattern developed early. Maybe @Gator could put something together to show what these percentages show as far as point spreads.

These numbers represent winning percentage at Home vs. winning percentage Away and the difference in that percentage. In every single case without exception, playing at home always provided a higher winning percentage than playing away. (I know big surprise)

I knew that consistency was going to be key, so the I came up with the following.
1. I took only Conference Games into consideration.

• playing the same teams every year.
• playing alternate home/away every other year.
• knowing your opponent and his tendencies.

2. Time Frame/1946-2015

• considered the "modern era" of CFB
• conferences were mostly stable with little change during this time.
• the rules had mostly been established leather helmets/face masks/etc
• easy to look up.

3. Long Time Frame

• would take out much of the peaks and valley's of any programs ups and downs
• although teams play home/away and teams may vary from year to year, its the best thing we have.
• longer time frames produce better results. (just my opinion).

Percentage Differential/Team/Home Field Winning%/Away Games Winning %
1.2%/Georgia/.661/.649*
5.7%/Ohio State/.791/.734
5.7%/Tennessee/.649/.592**
5.7%/Texas/.761/.704
6.4%/Oklahoma/.831/.767***
6.6%/Nebraska/.735/.669
7.0%/Southern Cal/.750/.680
8.0%/Michigan/.749/.669
9.0%/LSU/.625/.5.35***
9.0%/Oregon/.570/.480
12.1%/Clemson/.716/.595
14.6/Florida/.714/.568****

So I took some Scrub Teams to compare to the above.
6.6%/Washington State/.422/.356
6.9%/Northwestern/.372/.303
7.8%/Iowa State/.340/.262
10.8%/Vandy/.272/.164
12.3%/Kansas State/.415/.292
13.6%/Mississippi State/.419/.283
14.6%/Indiana/.367/.221

I think the advantage is real as it affects every team no matter how good they are.
How real in terms of point differential in wins and losses??? Don't know. (need help here)

Some Programs are bigger Mama's Boy's than others.
So don't leave home without your Mama. (looking at you Clemson, Florida, MSU, Indiana)

What The Fuck Does All Of This Mean???
Not sure about that, but am sure its the off-season.



Discuss






*Congrats to Georgia but can't tell if they just play bad at home or just play good on the road.

**SEC Teams will have to calculate Alabama because of that Birmingham thing

***Must point out that Oklahoma is 4th on this list only because of such a high home winning %, and that Oklahoma's away winning % is better than everyone else's home winning %, except for Ohio State, thank you.

****Am surprised that Florida has such a high % differential with their annual neutral site game with Georgia being taken out of the equation.

Good work. Gotta be a difficult item to truly quantify because of so many intangible variables.

 

[outofyourmind]

Eggheads with their egg-tardery

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[BamaDude]

4Down20, you obviously weren't paying attention when he announced that he covered conference games only and covered the years from 1946-2015.

 

[BamaDude]

I'm somewhat surprised at Florida's overall winning percentage since they were usually a pretty crappy team before the mid-1970s. I guess they've made up a lot of ground in the last 40 years. The same could once be said for FSU before Bobby Bowden came along.

If you could find the information, it would be interesting to see if these same trends hold true among FCS, D-2 & D-3 schools.