I've got to think there's another aspect to this kind of thing. I recall UGA under Richt having a stellar road record. Doesn't your HFA seem weakened by your above-expected performance on the road?
You are right about Richt having a stellar road record. I noticed when I was putting this together, check this out:
Home winning % in games among the 1992 SEC teams:
- .785 Florida
- .768 Bama
- .717 Georgia
Road winning % in games among the 1992 SEC teams:
- .731 Georgia
- .697 Bama
- .676 Florida
So Bama was neither the toughest place to play (Swamp) nor the toughest team to host (UGA) but they were the best overall team because they were second in both of those things.
My guess is that a big part of Georgia having a negative HFA is the fact that they play a big rivalry game at a neutral site (your Gators obviously). Granted that wouldn't have mattered much in a lot of years because for large chunks of the 32 years from 1992-2023 Florida was substantially superior and then for other chunks Georgia was substantially superior. The other weakness of that explanation is that obviously Florida also played in that game and they have a pretty strong HFA of .109.
OSU has a ceiling on HFA because look at it, their road win% is above anyone's home win%. Shit. If their HFA was any higher, they'd have won a dozen NCs, lol. So somewhere in the ingredients, there's got to be an aspect we're failing to incorporate. I haven't ever spent much time on it, so idk.
This is definitely true and the converse is also true. Ie, in the SEC Vanderbilt's Home win% was lower than any of the other teams' road win% so it just couldn't get much worse in road games for Vandy just like it couldn't get much better in home games for tOSU. I think we are incorporating that with the theory that teams that are really good or really bad tend to have minimal HFA. Ohio State's is 0.083 and Vandy's is 0.005. Similarly, Bama's is 0.070 and Illinois' is -0.018.
This is the point that
@betarhoalphadelta and I have been making for a while. HFA isn't just about who you play where but also who you are. UCLA looks to be one of the worst teams in the B1G. For them an advantageous schedule is one where they get the other bottom feeders at home because, realistically, they are extremely unlikely to knock off tOSU/PSU/Oregon no matter where the game is played. The Bruins are better off to lose in Columbus, State College, and Eugene but then get Northwestern, Maryland, and Purdue at home. Conversely, Ohio State looks to be one of the best teams in the B1G so for them an advantageous schedule is one where they get the other contenders at home because they shouldn't and realistically probably will not lose to UCLA, NU, UMD, or PU even on the road. The Buckeyes are better off to win (even if one or two are close) in Westwood, Evanston, College Park, and West Lafayette but then get PSU, Oregon, Illinois, and Michigan at home.
Also,
.731 Florida
.732 Alabama
God damn, Spurrier was a dude!!!
Yeah, you got to enjoy watching one of the all-time best as the coach of your school. I've always loved the story that Spurrier's first game as HC at Florida was on September 8, 1990. The unranked Gators demolished the unranked OkSU Cowboys 50-7. It was the ONLY game in which Spurrier's Gators were unranked. The Gators were then ranked in 209 consecutive polls from 1990-2002 which encompasses the rest of Spurrier's tenure and slightly beyond. That streak of 209 consecutive AP Poll appearances is the 4th longest such streak of all-time trailing only Nebraska's 1981-2002 streak, Bama's current streak, and FSU's 1989-2001 streak.
What makes Spurrier's accomplishments more impressive to me is that Florida was very much NOT an established power when he arrived. Florida had only appeared in 196 of the 670 AP Polls from 1936-1989 (29.3%) and they had only finished ranked 10 times. In Spurrier's 12 years as HC in Gainesville the Gators had more AP Poll appearances, more final AP Poll rankings, and more NC's than they had in their entire history before he arrived.