On the right-hand pages of the magazine for all 136 teams, 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 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 some of 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 first category we will look at is the Straight Up win percentage of each team for the last three years. There is a clear home field edge in College Football. In 2023 when I did this blog over the previous 3 years the 133 FBS teams were 1635-919 at home for a winning percentage of 64%. In 2024 the last three years which included games from 2023, 2022, 2021 the 134 FBS teams (Kennesaw St moved up) were 1624-936 for 63.4%. In 2023 teams were 543-310 at home for 63.7%. The Last 3 years which include games from 2024, 2023, 2022 the 136 FBS teams (Delaware and Missouri St moved up) the home teams were 1653-935 SU for 63.8% so the record has been very consistent. Last year home teams went 553-306 SU for a 63.9%-win percentage.
Here is the last three years home field records chart.
In 2022 when I wrote this blog there were four teams that had not lost at home over the previous three years’, and they were Oklahoma, Clemson, UCF and Cincinnati. Interestingly those 4 teams combined to lose 5 home games in 2022 with none being unbeaten! Utah last lost a home game back in 2018 so that year dropped off and Utah went 6-0 in ‘22 and they were the only team in the FBS to have a perfect home record over the previous 3 years (did not include 2020 because no crowds). You will notice that the perfect 100% is good enough to earn a 6.0 home field edge for the three years. Much like 2022 the unbeaten team Utah lost a home game and are no longer unbeaten. Back in 2019 both Georgia (South Carolina) and Michigan (Ohio St) lost home games but they had not lost home games from ’21-‘23, so they jumped to the top with unbeaten records of 22-0 and 19-0. Others at the top last year were Alabama at 20-1, Utah 18-1 and Ohio St 19-2. A surprising name near the top was Oklahoma St at 19-2 (not a traditional power). Last year Oklahoma St went just 2-4 at home but Georgia stayed unbeaten at home and is 19-0 the last 3 years. Only Washington has a better record at 20-0. Last year Washington was 6-6 winning all 6 home games and losing all 6 away from home. Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon and surprisingly Ohio U all have just one home loss the last 3 years at home. Last year Ohio U won their home games by 20 ppg!
At the bottom of the chart in ‘23 were USF, Northwestern, UMass and Akron. Northwestern was the lowest ranked Power 5 teams and at home the previous 3 years as were just 5-15 including a perfect 0-6 at home in ’22. Akron was 2-15 at home in that span which only received a 0.71 home field edge for this category. Last year the bottom teams were FIU, Vanderbilt, Akron, UMass and Stanford. Stanford was at the very bottom with a 3-16 record. This year two teams are tied at the bottom with records of 4-15 in Stanford and Nevada. Stanford was 2-4 last year but 2-11 the previous two years. UMass is just 4-13 and Kent St 4-11. Tim Albin was the coach at Ohio U during their 17-1 home run the last 3 years and now takes over Charlotte which is fifth worst in that span at 5-13. Will he be able to establish the home field edge there? Charles Huff was 15-3 the last 3 years at Marshall and now takes over the sixth worst team in SMiss which is 6-12 SU at home at the Rock the last 3 years. The average team wins 64% of their home games and the median of the 136 teams is 63.2%.
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Once again, my computer will add up all the different categories, weight them and then spit out a computer number which I will modify for home field edge for the magazine. Tomorrow I will look at the last 5 years records for each team at home.
