CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: Hawkinole on September 03, 2018, 01:18:46 AM
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I stopped by the Stassen.com website to review whether and to what extent schools have a home field advantage in conference games, only. For lack of time I only reviewed Western Division teams. Hopefully another member can produce the Eastern Division. I did not include results form the Northwestern - Purdue game from 2018.
Every Western Division team has a home field advantage. Minnesota's is profound. And they played a lot more home games than road games in the Big Ten.
| Team | Home | Away | Delta | Overall Winning % |
| Minnesota | 56.90% | 35.50% | 21.40% | 46.90% |
| Purdue | 53.20% | 38.80% | 14.40% | 45.40% |
| Iowa | 54.00% | 39.70% | 14.30% | 46.50% |
| Wisconsin | 55.10% | 45.00% | 10.10% | 49.99% |
| Northwestern | 41.40% | 32.90% | 8.50% | 36.90% |
| Nebraska | 62.10% | 55.20% | 6.90% | 57.60% |
| Illinois | 47.70% | 41.90% | 5.80% | 44.70% |
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I stopped by the Stassen.com website to review whether and to what extent schools have a home field advantage in conference games, only. For lack of time I only reviewed Western Division teams. Hopefully another member can produce the Eastern Division. I did not include results form the Northwestern - Purdue game from 2018.
Every Western Division team has a home field advantage. Minnesota's is profound. And they played a lot more home games than road games in the Big Ten.
| Team | Home | Away | Delta | Overall Winning % |
| Minnesota | 56.90% | 35.50% | 21.40% | 46.90% |
| Purdue | 53.20% | 38.80% | 14.40% | 45.40% |
| Iowa | 54.00% | 39.70% | 14.30% | 46.50% |
| Wisconsin | 55.10% | 45.00% | 10.10% | 49.99% |
| Northwestern | 41.40% | 32.90% | 8.50% | 36.90% |
| Nebraska | 62.10% | 55.20% | 6.90% | 57.60% |
| Illinois | 47.70% | 41.90% | 5.80% | 44.70% |
What is the time period on these stats?
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What is the time period on these stats?
All-time through 2017, except for Nebraska, which is 2011 through 2017, just their Big Ten years.
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It might be more intersting if you looked at all teams from 2011 to 2017.
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It might be more intersting if you looked at all teams from 2011 to 2017.
Agreed
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It might be more intersting if you looked at all teams from 2011 to 2017.
3rd
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3rd
I am posting; you can look at it in other ways, and summarize those results. To me, history is more interesting. Nebraska's history in the Big 8 and Big 12 -- well, that is not so interesting to me.
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I like it just the way it is.
Huskers with the highest winning percentage
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Since 2011, UNL has lost 13 games at home. UW has lost 6 in that period. Iowa has lost 17.
Someone can check my counting if they want. I did it rather quickly and those are the only 3 I bothered to check.
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It might be more intersting if you looked at all teams from 2011 to 2017.
Disagree. Too much noise in the signal and too much recency bias to really determine HFA.
Granted, I think anything pre-WWII should be thrown out. I think you need to restrict it to at least the "modern" era...
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Disagree. Too much noise in the signal and too much recency bias to really determine HFA.
Granted, I think anything pre-WWII should be thrown out. I think you need to restrict it to at least the "modern" era...
Does the modern era begin when the first Heisman Trophy was awarded to Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago, following the 1935 season? Does it start in 1955 when the NFL "recommended" face masks be added to helmets? I don't know when it begins. Or, in 1929 when Kinnick Stadium was built. Or, in 1924 when Ross-Ade Stadium was built?
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There does seem to be two prevailing 'modern era' arguments. One begins with the AP Poll era (1936), the other is post WWII. I don't really care.
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Does the modern era begin when the first Heisman Trophy was awarded to Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago, following the 1935 season? Does it start in 1955 when the NFL "recommended" face masks be added to helmets? I don't know when it begins. Or, in 1929 when Kinnick Stadium was built. Or, in 1924 when Ross-Ade Stadium was built?
Personally I think you need to limited to the year they instituted scholarship limits (1973).
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Personally I think you need to limited to the year they instituted scholarship limits (1973).
Fully implemented to 85 players in 1987, correct? Maybe that's even better?
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1962 works best for me
a very good year!
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Does the modern era begin when the first Heisman Trophy was awarded to Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago, following the 1935 season? Does it start in 1955 when the NFL "recommended" face masks be added to helmets? I don't know when it begins. Or, in 1929 when Kinnick Stadium was built. Or, in 1924 when Ross-Ade Stadium was built?
I don't particularly care which cutoff is used. Although I said nothing pre-WWII... I just think the sample size of 2011-2017 is too small.
Heck, it would be interesting to look at this way, compiling all the numbers:
2008-2017
1998-2017
1988-2017
1978-2017
1968-2017
1958-2017
At some point as you increase the sample size, the numbers should start flattening. I'd bet you could get usable data over a 20- or 30-year window rather than going all the way back to 1948...
But 2011-2017 is too small to get usable data IMHO.
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My general theory is that HFA matters most to teams closest to the middle of the conference. The reason is hard to explain so I'll use an illustration, the current B1G Power Rankings (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?topic=5310.0).
Assume, for the sake of this discussion, that the Power Rankings are exactly accurate. I think we would all agree that HFA is almost certain to be irrelevant in a game between #1 Wisconsin and #14 Illinois. Similarly, we would all agree that HFA is likely irrelevant in games between #2 Ohio State and #13 Rutgers or #3 MSU and #12 Indiana.
I would suggest that HFA is reasonably likely to be decisive in games between teams within 2-3 spots of each other. Ie, in the hypothetical games above I would pick UW over IL, tOSU over RU, and MSU over IU regardless of location. However, if #1 Wisconsin and #2 Ohio State were to play this year I would pick the home team. I would also at least consider picking the home team in games between #1 UW and #3 MSU or #1 UW and #4 PSU.
Based on the above paragraph, teams #4 through #11 each have six potential games in which HFA is likely to be decisive:
- For #4 HFA is likely to be decisive in games against #1 - #3 and #5 - #7.
- For #5 HFA is likely to be decisive in games against #2 - #4 and #6 - #8.
- . . .
- For #11 HFA is likely to be decisive in games against #8 - #10 and #12 - #14.
Teams #1 - #3 and #12 - #14 have less potential games in which HFA is likely to be decisive:
- Teams #1 and #14 only have three potential games in which HFA is likely to be decisive, games against #2 - #4 for #1 and against #11 - #13 for #14.
- Teams #2 and #13 have four potential games in which HFA is likely to be decisive, games against #1 and #3 - #5 for #2 and against #14 and #10 - #12 for #13.
- Teams #3 and #12 have five potential games in which HFA is likely to be decisive, games against #1 - #2 and #4 - #6 for #3 and against #13 - #14 and #9 - #11 for #12.
IMHO, my theory matches up reasonably well with the date presented by @Hawkinole (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=25) in this thread's OP. Minnesota, Purdue, and Iowa have the largest Deltas indicating that HFA is a relatively bigger factor for them. That makes sense because over the whole history of the those teams it seems to me that those are teams that have only rarely been the best or the worst in the conference. Similarly, ILL, UNL, and NU have the smallest Deltas indicating that HFA is a relatively smaller factor for them. That makes sense because Illinois is somewhat Jeckyll and Hyde in that when they are good they tend to be REALLY good (see for example 1983 when they were the only team to ever beat every other BigTen team in a single year) and when they aren't good they tend to just plain suck. Similarly, Nebraska over that time-frame was generally the best or at least one of the top-2 teams in their conference and Northwestern was typically the worst or one of the worst teams in the BigTen and Big11Ten.