I mentioned yesterday that this is a multi-part series of how I grade the home field edges. 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 venues than traveling to Akron or Connecticut. Last year my home field edges in the magazine ranged from 2 to 5.5.
The last two days I gave you the straight up records of all 136 teams for the last three and five years excluding 2020. I excluded 2020 as most games did not have any crowd at all so there really was no home field edge. Some teams played full schedules, some teams played 4 games, and some played none but the empty stadiums would have skewed the data. Today I bring in the great equalizer: the Las Vegas Spread. In a perfect world Vegas gets 50% of its bets on one side and 50% on the other side and they collect the juice (10%) with no risk. Yesterday I showed that home teams win roughly 64% of their games straight up and some teams had a perfect record over 3 years. I gave a 6.0 only for 100% but in the ATS world I had to grade on a curve as no team could accomplish 100% as Vegas would adjust the lines each week to balance the action until they were overpriced. You will notice the Graded on a curve column has been added.
In 2022 three teams managed a perfect ATS record at home despite the 3 teams combining for a 4 straight up losses. In the straight up records, the teams at the top are almost always the powerhouses. Vegas evens things out so the undefeated spread teams were far from your normal blue bloods in Oregon St, Duke, and Louisiana Tech. In ‘23 only one team managed a perfect ATS record at home and that was Arizona at 6-0. Three teams had 6-1 marks, and they were Kansas St, Kansas and Jacksonville St. Last year Arizona St was the only team to be undefeated ATS at home (6-0 SU and ATS). Indiana was 7-1 ATS, Colorado 5-1, Baylor 4-1, Marshall 5-1, Ohio U 5-1, FIU 5-1, UTSA 5-1 and Georgia Southern 5-1 ATS. The teams at the bottom last year were both in the ACC as North Carolina and Wake Forest each went 0-7 ATS in their home games.
I include the spread in my calculations, not to figure out which are the best teams to wager on but those teams that lived up to or beat Vegas’s expectations on a weekly basis. Michigan is 21-2 SU at home in the Big House the last 3 years but just 8-13 ATS in that span.
Let’s look at the last three years ATS records for each team at home.
In 2023Oregon State was at the top of the chart last year with a super 15-3 ATS mark the previous 3 years. Oregon St held onto the #1 spot last year as they went 18-2 the last 3 years ATS for a remarkable 90%. I mentioned grading on a curve. 18-2 in the Straight Up category would have been worth a 5.4 grade but in the ATS category they are the only team to grade at 6.0. In ’23 Tulane had an impressive 3-year mark of 15-5 75% and that qualified for a 5.96 grade in this graded on a curve basis. Vegas evened things out for them and even with the Green Wave going 6-2 straight up at home in ‘23 Vegas priced them high, and they were just 2-6 ATS. Last year I noted that Oregon St with a new head coach and being left out of the Power 5 might take a similar drop in ’24 and they were indeed just 2-5 ATS. Kansas used to have one of the worst home field edges but under Lance Leipold they are a super 13-5 ATS at home the last 3 years. That ties them with 3 teams you would not expect to see at the top in Ohio U, Georgia Southern and Jax St. The Powers listed near the top are Alabama, LSU and the Blue turf of Boise St all at 14-6 ATS. Charlotte is just 3-14 ATS at home the last 3 years but now has Tim Albin from Ohio (at top) coming in. The worst Power 5 teams over the last 3 years are Purdue (4-15), Stanford (5-13) and North Carolina (6-14).
While home teams win 64% of their home games straight up, the home team are just 1275-1273 ATS the last 3 years. As I mentioned above Vegas’s goal is a 50% margin and they basically hit it at 50.1% so they do a great job evening it out!
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Friday I will have the ATS records for each team over the last five years at home.
