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PrintThere are all sorts of arguments you can make for who has the best home-field advantage in college football.
It’s a fun topic for sports bar debates, one that will continue as long as college football is in existence.
Prediction Machine’s Paul Bessire took his stab at ranking each team’s home edge, and Oklahoma came out on top. But that’s not exactly a compliment.
Bessire’s rankings were done in an unconventional manner and were based on a team’s performance at home in comparison to their road performance. Put another way, how many points better does each team’s home stadium make them?
So, the Sooners’ No. 1 ranking not only means they’re great at home, but also that they struggle on the road.
By ranking home-field advantage this way, there are a couple things to point out.
- A low ranking doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bad home team. It just means the disparity between your level of play at home and on the road isn’t all that large. LSU, for instance, is 108th in the rankings, but that just means the Tigers play well everywhere—not just in Death Valley.
- The highest-ranked teams not only perform well at home, but also poorly on the road.
All of this naturally got us thinking, “How could this be tied into betting?”
We took the top 10 and bottom 10 teams from Bessire’s list and looked up how they’ve done against the spread at home and on the road over the past decade. As you’ll see, the home-road disparity matches up almost exactly with Bessire’s findings.
The top 10 teams were all above .500 ATS at home since 2002, but only one (Missouri) was also above .500 ATS on the road. (And the Tigers were only 23-21-1.)
Nine of the bottom 10 teams were sub .500 ATS at home since 2002, but all of them were at least .500 ATS on the road. Some—like West Virginia, Navy and Duke—have covered the spread in more than 64 percent of their road games.
Would it be smart to take these lists into account when betting college football in 2012? Absolutely. A team like Nevada has to be more attractive to bet on at home (.632 ATS percentage) than on the road (.448 ATS percentage).
LARGEST HOME-ROAD DISPARITIES IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL
| RANK | TEAM | HOME ATS | ROAD ATS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma | 35-24-1 (.593) | 19-23-2 (.452) |
| 2 | Wisconsin | 37-27-1 (.578) | 23-24-1 (.489) |
| 3 | UCLA | 36-23-3 (.610) | 24-32 (.429) |
| 4 | Missouri | 29-27 (.518) | 23-21-1 (.523) |
| 5 | Nevada | 36-21 (.632) | 26-32-1 (.448) |
| 6 | Arkansas St | 25-21 (.543) | 28-36-1 (.438) |
| 7 | Houston | 30-25 (.545) | 25-31-1 (.446) |
| 8 | Hawaii | 39-33 (.542) | 24-28 (.462) |
| 9 | California | 35-24 (.593) | 24-29-1 (.453) |
| 10 | Troy | 21-19 (.525) | 33-34-1 (.493) |
LARGEST ROAD-HOME DISPARITIES IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL
| RANK | TEAM | HOME ATS | ROAD ATS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 120 | Navy | 19-25-2 (.432) | 31-17 (.646) |
| 119 | Florida St | 24-36 (.400) | 26-26 (.500) |
| 118 | Bowling Green | 20-27-1 (.426) | 35-27 (.565) |
| 117 | ULM | 19-22-1 (.463) | 39-29 (.574) |
| 116 | Duke | 22-33-1 (.400) | 34-19-1 (.642) |
| 115 | Vanderbilt | 26-31-2 (.456) | 28-23-1 (.549) |
| 114 | Louisiana | 20-25-3 (.444) | 38-26 (.594) |
| 113 | Western Kentucky | 9-11 (.450) | 15-9 (.625) |
| 112 | Utah | 31-24-2 (.564) | 31-26 (.544) |
| 111 | West Virginia | 26-31-1 (.456) | 33-17-2 (.660) |
