Homefield Advantage (for people who like statistics)

[Goldmember]

I was trying to see if it was possible to quantify the homefield advantage in college football a few months ago.

The best method I could think of was to look at the difference in winning percetage between conference home games and away games over the last 10 years. I was surprised by the results. Here's the Big Ten (plus ND, because they played many B10 opponents):

There is an advantage for nearly every team in the country. But it is surprising that Michigan, OSU, Wisconsin (and many other purported "tough places to play") seem to offer no more of a homefield advantage than the Metrodome.

Interested in feedback on these numbers.

 

[josh087]

This is misleading for Michigan and OSU - When you already win 68% and 73% of your road games respectively, the disparity between home and road record is not going to be very big.

 

[Ski U Master]

This is misleading for Michigan and OSU - When you already win 68% and 73% of your road games respectively, the disparity between home and road record is not going to be very big.

Correct. I would rather win 70+% of my games regardless of location than have a 25% differential but only win approx. 20% of my total games.

Interesting stats to look at though.

 

[myleslong]

I was trying to see if it was possible to quantify the homefield advantage in college football a few months ago.

The best method I could think of was to look at the difference in winning percetage between conference home games and away games over the last 10 years. I was surprised by the results. Here's the Big Ten (plus ND, because they played many B10 opponents):

There is an advantage for nearly every team in the country. But it is surprising that Michigan, OSU, Wisconsin (and many other purported "tough places to play") seem to offer no more of a homefield advantage than the Metrodome.

Interested in feedback on these numbers.

I would think that if one were asked to quantify homefield advantage you would look at the winning percentage at home. Road games, bowl games and neutral site games would seem to be irrelevant variables for an equation providing data on homefield advantage.

Now if you were looking for a differential on winning at home vs. the road and the spread between the two, you seem to have done that.

 

[husker70]

The stats are leading me in a completley different conclusion. If you are Ohio State or Michigan you had better win at least 75% of your home games. And as good as they were they slip to 70% on the road. The stats also Illustrate that teams like Indiana and Illinois were pretty bad at home and about the same on the road. While the Gophers have won at Ohio State, Michigan they have seasons go down the tube at Indiana. That cannot happen. The Big 10 has opponents you must beat when you are home. And some you should beat on the road. And 25% percent of the time you should win at Michigan or Ohio State.

 

[Goldmember]

I would think that if one were asked to quantify homefield advantage you would look at the winning percentage at home. Road games, bowl games and neutral site games would seem to be irrelevant variables for an equation providing data on homefield advantage.

The idea is to isolate the effect that playing at home has on a team's performance, and how that advantage differs between each stadium. The problem with just looking at home winning percentage is that the quality of the team in those years would account for most of the variation. Comparing this number to conference road records works well because the quality of opponents should be the same.

I agree with the other posters ... this method seems punitive to the programs with a higher overall winning pecentage over the last few years (Mich, OSU, Wisc). And that makes this a worthless analysis for ranking the homefield advantage.

Iowa, Illinois and Indiana are all noteworthy, however. I think it is amazing how much more likely Indiana and Iowa were to win when they are playing at home. And it is interesting that Illinois apparently doesn't seem to even notice when they are playing in their own building.

In conclusion, the pink locker room must work.

 

[mplsbadger]

This is misleading for Michigan and OSU - When you already win 68% and 73% of your road games respectively, the disparity between home and road record is not going to be very big.

Agree. The win that gets you from 29% to 30% home winning percentage is not as valuable as the win that gets you from 69% to 70% home winning percentage. The former likely came against Illinois, Northwestern, or Indiana, while the latter likely came against Michigan, OSU, or Penn State.

You would either need to assign different values to the different wins to normalize the data (I am not a math major and don't pretend to know the best way to do this), or would need to group the teams into 3 or 4 cohorts of teams with similar overall winning percentages and judge them against the teams close to them.