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The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on October 02, 2024, 11:33:36 AM

Title: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 02, 2024, 11:33:36 AM
Over in the Michigan/Washington game thread (https://www.cfb51.com/big-ten/10-michigan-(4-1-2-0)-washington-(3-2-1-1)-game-week/) we got into a discussion of HFA generally and HFA specifically as it relates to the new West Coast teams.  I think this should be a stand-alone thread because it is ongoing not specific to this one game.  

Some background:
The discussion started in that thread because @Mdot21 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1595) pointed out that Michigan has a pretty dismal history in true road games on the West Coast.  I jumped in and pointed out that this wasn't a "Michigan" thing because we all seem to then I reviewed Ohio State's dismal history in true road games on the West Coast.  

The short version for Ohio State and Michigan is that those two teams (the best two in the B1G over the timeframe under consideration) are a dismal 3-10 in true road games against traditional Pac teams.  It is actually worse than even that because several of the losses were blowouts in games where the two teams *SHOULD* have been reasonably evenly matched and the wins only occurred in games in which the B1G team was good enough to end up with double-digit wins AND they were playing a Pac team that was so bad that they finished below .500.  

Now that we have four former Pac teams, how will this impact things?  Will the traditional midwestern BigTen/Big11Ten/B1G teams continue to struggle THAT badly on the West coast or will familiarity make things less difficult?  Will the Western teams similarly struggle mightily against the non-western teams?  

Another part of the discussion was my recollections of a deep dive we did into HFA a few years ago.  We looked at conference games only because OOC HFA is skewed by playing cupcake buy games exclusively at home.  My recollection is that HFA is very much real as evidenced by every single team having a better record in home league games than in road league games.  My recollection also is that HFA seemed to be biggest for the teams that are typically middling in the league.  

I didn't anticipate the middling thing but it makes sense if you think about it.  Looking at the current power rankings (https://www.cfb51.com/big-ten/big-ten-power-rankings-after-week-5/14/) and I'm just using @ELA (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=55) 's here because they are the most recently posted.  Consider four teams:

HFA for Ohio State and Purdue is only plausibly likely to be decisive against maybe 3-5 opponents:

So for teams at the top and bottom HFA is only likely to be decisive in 2-3 games per year but it is different for middling teams like Iowa and Nebraska because for them HFA could be decisive in games against the next better 3-5 teams AND the next worse 3-5 teams so for them:
That is most of the league so HFA could plausibly be decisive in the bulk of their games.  


Will the Western teams have a substantially bigger differential between Home and Away winning percentage than the others?
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: 847badgerfan on October 02, 2024, 11:41:25 AM
TBD, IMO.

I wonder how all of these kids are gonna play skool with all this travel.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: 847badgerfan on October 02, 2024, 11:50:01 AM
Travel logistics could also be a problem.

This is the travel diagram for direct flights out of Madison.

(https://i.imgur.com/pQXrH1O.png)

Clearly, getting to Oregon and Washington are going to be a hassle for Wisconsin.

I could not find a map for where flights out of Lincoln go. Same for Penn State. No clue where Iowa, Purdue or IU fly from.

Should have added FSU, Miami, Atlanta and UNC, from my view.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 02, 2024, 12:10:42 PM
Quote from: 847badgerfan on October 02, 2024, 11:41:25 AM
TBD, IMO.
Definitely TBD and it is going to take a long time to get a real handle on it because with small sample sizes there are going to be oddities.  

An example from the rivalry that I know best, tOSU/M:

Over the last 75 games (1948-2023) the home team is 40-32-3 or .553 with:

However, there is a great example of a statistical anomaly in that the road team actually won five straight from 1963-1967:

Mostly because of that you can even cherry-pick a 20-year stretch where the road team has the advantage, from 1948-1967:

Over a longer time-frame those statistical anomalies get overwhelmed because:
Immediately after 1967 the home team won five straight and didn't lose until 1975:
Similarly, immediately prior to 1948 the home team did pretty well:

Consequently, if you add five years to each end and look at the 30 years from 1943-1972 the home team has a 17-12-1 advantage consisting of:

Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: LittlePig on October 02, 2024, 02:20:26 PM
Quote from: 847badgerfan on October 02, 2024, 11:50:01 AM
Travel logistics could also be a problem.

This is the travel diagram for direct flights out of Madison.

[img width=135.416 height=332]https://i.imgur.com/pQXrH1O.png[/img]

Clearly, getting to Oregon and Washington are going to be a hassle for Wisconsin.

I could not find a map for where flights out of Lincoln go. Same for Penn State. No clue where Iowa, Purdue or IU fly from.

Should have added FSU, Miami, Atlanta and UNC, from my view.
Don't most football teams use direct charter flights now?  For non-football sports,  yes the non-direct flights will suck no doubt, and for traveling fans it sucks too.     But I don't see travel being a big difference for football teams themselves.  So the charter flight is a 4 hour direct flight instead of 2 hours.  The kids will survive.  Probably the time zone difference is biggest problem to adjust to.

For what it's worth,  since the question was asked,  Iowa usually flies out of Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids Iowa,  which is only about 20 minutes from the Iowa campus.  Charter flights are available if you got the money.


Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: 847badgerfan on October 02, 2024, 02:27:42 PM
Quote from: LittlePig on October 02, 2024, 02:20:26 PM
Don't most football teams use direct charter flights now?
Not many, from what I gather.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: Brutus Buckeye on October 02, 2024, 05:09:51 PM
The Left Coast will have a lot of 7:pm kickoffs, 10:pm Eastern, and the Eastern time zone teams will return the favor by kicking off at noon, 9:am Pacific.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: FearlessF on October 02, 2024, 10:21:47 PM
Quote from: 847badgerfan on October 02, 2024, 11:50:01 AM
Travel logistics could also be a problem.

This is the travel diagram for direct flights out of Madison.

Chicago isn't far.

I'd guess most teams don't fly into Lincoln

Omaha or Kansas City
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: 847badgerfan on October 03, 2024, 09:12:26 AM
Every step in a process is a chance for a failure. Fewer steps = good.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: GopherRock on October 03, 2024, 09:56:51 AM
Most schools in the Big Ten fly charters directly to the nearest airport to campus.  MSU teams are not busing down to DTW to ship out for road games, likewise Wisconsin down to ORD or the Indiana schools to IND.

IIRC one of the provisions of Penn State joining the league was lengthening the runway at State College Regional Airport so that charters can fly directly into State College instead of busing up from Harrisburg.

Both Oregon and Oregon State fly into and out of Eugene instead of busing down from PDX.

Minnesota still buses to Madison and Iowa City and flies everywhere else.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: 847badgerfan on October 03, 2024, 10:15:49 AM
UW generally flies commercial to places it can get to directly from Madison. They bus to Iowa, MN and NU.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: FearlessF on October 03, 2024, 10:38:19 AM
geez, I hope UNL doesn't bus anywhere
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 03, 2024, 10:45:13 AM
Didn't the league used to have a rule that mandated bussing to games within a certain distance?  

I'm assuming that dropped that once the money spigot got cranked up to where the cost was a nonfactor.  
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: utee94 on October 03, 2024, 10:46:00 AM
Horns will bus to College Station and Dallas.  I assume that's it, these days.
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 03, 2024, 10:53:30 AM
@betarhoalphadelta (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=19) is possibly the only other poster who is enough of a stats geek to appreciate this but I was curious so I did some looking.  

If you look at the last 80 years of tOSU/M:

The 2020 game was not played but Ohio State went to the NCG that year and Michigan completely sucked so if we treat that as a tOSU win then give Michigan a win for the 1992 tie in Columbus and conversely give tOSU wins for the ties in Ann Arbor in 1973 and 1949 you get this:
So the HFA difference averages one game every 20 years.  Dividing the above into four 20-year segments, the average is:

It is even less of a factor in the Oaken Bucket game, over the last 80 years:
The 2020 game was not played but Indiana was a LOT better than Purdue that year so lets assume that IU would have won that game in Bloomington then give the 1958 tie in West Lafayette to Indiana as well, you get:
The HFA difference is only two games or one game every 40 years.  
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: medinabuckeye1 on October 03, 2024, 11:21:36 AM
The gamblers say that HFA is worth around a FG.  Now you have to double that because that is off of neutral so the difference between Purdue playing Indiana in West Lafayette and playing them in Bloomington is a total of 6 points:


Using that as a guide, HFA was what I'll call "theoretically decisive" in games won by the home team by 6 or less points.  For PU/IU over the last 80 years (1944-2023) that is:


Same list but for tOSU/M:

Above I showed the records and those indicated that HFA only contributed 2-4 wins in 80 years in the PU/IU and tOSU/M games.  However, using the standard 3 point differential that Vegas uses I'm getting 17 games in each.  I'm fascinated that the difference is THAT big.  
Title: Re: HFA in general and specifically as relates to the four new West Coast
Post by: 847badgerfan on October 03, 2024, 11:22:05 AM
Quote from: medinabuckeye1 on October 03, 2024, 10:45:13 AM
Didn't the league used to have a rule that mandated bussing to games within a certain distance? 

I'm assuming that dropped that once the money spigot got cranked up to where the cost was a nonfactor. 
I think it was 4 hours max.

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure UW still busses to Purdue and Champaign, in addition to the above.