It's an interesting question how much to factor in road vs. home this season. Travel time still matters, and staying in hotels, etc. And traveling to Maryland from Minnesota is as long as it gets in this conference, yes?
But no crowds influencing things is less of an impact. It's 57,600 square feet of artificial turf anyway you look at it (ok, except MSU, Purdue, Penn State, and Northwestern, were it's grass).
A study on this would be an interesting thing. Is it the environment, or the travel, or (probably more likely) how much of each is it?