On the right-hand pages of the magazine for all 136 teams (Delaware and Missouri St added this year), I list the home field advantage. I think college football crowds are the best in sports and some teams have larger home field edges than others. In Las Vegas the standard is to give 3 points to the home team. I believe there is a large difference in home field edges in college football. Traveling to face Mississippi St and having to face the cowbell noise is a daunting task. Some stadiums that may not be 100,000 but are very loud like Oregon and Washington which are a lot tougher venue than traveling to Akron or Connecticut. Last year my home field edges in the magazine ranged from 2 to 5.5.
This will be a multi-part series showing you the numbers that I use to determine the home field edge. I put each category into my computer and then weight the columns. My computer comes up with a home field edge number. I go down the list and adjust them based on my thoughts of each home field and how tough it is to play but I basically stay within a half point of my computers numbers as they are well thought out.
The second category we will look at is the Straight Up win percentage of each team for the last five years. There is a clear home field edge in College Football. In ’23 I looked at the records for 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018 and 2017 and over those 5 years the 133 FBS teams were 2679-1523 at home for a winning percentage of 63.8%. One note about the last 5 years. In 2020 many games were played without crowds in the stadiums, so I did not count 2020 in the last 5 years. Last year the last five years only included games from 2023 2022, 2021, 2019 and 2018. The five year record for all the teams combined went up a little to 2739-1527 64.2% over five years which is a slightly higher number than the three year average. This year I am looking at the years 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2019. The numbers came out the same overall as home teams over that span are 2761-1540 64.2%.
Here is the last five years home field records chart.
In 2020 there were no home crowds, and it would skew the ratings if I included that season where some teams had a full schedule, some teams played as little as four games and some teams did not play at all. The last five years records do not include 2020 when there were no crowds at most of the games. As you can see no team earned that perfect 6.0 home field edge rating in this category as every team had at least one loss. Alabama lost to LSU in 2019 at home and LSU went on to become the national champs. In ‘23 they lost to Texas at home. Clemson had not lost at home in Death Valley since 2016 when Pat Narduzzi and Pitt beat them 43-42 as a 21-point dog but lost to South Carolina in ‘22 and Florida St in ’23 then to both Louisville and South Carolina last year. James Madison was 37-2 at home the previous 5 years but has been facing FCS teams and in their first two years in the FBS they were still a solid 10-2. Two teams have lost just one home game the last 5 years in Oregon and Georgia. It might surprise you to see Memphis at #17 with a 28-6 record at home in the Liberty Bowl but they are a consistent winner at home, but they are 63-12 the last 11 years at home! UAB was 24-5 at home in the last 5 years into last year but went just 3-3 last year. UTSA which plays in the Alamo Dome is 26-6 SU the last 5 years and Miami Ohio is 22-4. The bottom five teams last year were Akron, Kansas, Rutgers, New Mexico, and UMass. In 2022 Kansas was at the bottom with an 8-24 home record which earned a 1.5 home field edge in this column. Kansas has jumped to 16-16 the last 5 years and figure to continue to rise in the chart. In ’23 UMass was at the bottom this year with their 8-20 home record the last 5 years earning a 1.71 grade in this category. Last year Akron took the bottom spot with a record of 6-21 and that earned them just 1.33 points in the ratings metrics. This year UMass has reclaimed its spot at the bottom with a 6-23 record winning just 20.7% of its home games. Three power 5 teams ae in the bottom 6 in Stanford (8-24), Vanderbilt (12-21) and Northwestern (12-21).
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Tomorrow I will have the ATS records for each team over the last three years at home.
