On the right-hand pages of the magazine for all 134 teams (Kennesaw St is 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. Last year and over the previous 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. The last five years only includes games from 2023 2022, 2021, 2019 and 2018. This year 2017 dropped off and I added in the numbers from 2023. The five year record for all the teams combined went up a little to 2739-1527 64.2% over five year which is a slightly higher number than the three year average.
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. Last year 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 last year and Florida St last year. James Madison was 37-2 at home the previous 5 years but has been facing FCS teams and in their first year in the FBS they were still a solid 5-1. Two teams have lost just one home game the last 5 years in Michigan and Georgia. It might surprise you to see Memphis at #24 with a 27-7 record at home in the Liberty Bowl but they are a consistent winner at home, but they had been 30-6 in the prior 5 years to last year. UCF is another surprise near the top at 30-4 over the last 5 years so they are almost unbeatable in the Bounce House. UAB is 24-5 at home in the last 5 years a record better than Texas or even Florida in the Swamp.
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 14-18 the last 5 years and figure to continue to rise in the chart. Last year 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. This year Akron has taken the bottom spot with a record of 6-21 and that earns them just 1.33 points in the ratings metrics.
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Tomorrow I will have the ATS records for each team over the last three years at home.
